The Lost Ladies of Llanfaes

 

View across the Menai Strait toward Eryri/Snowdonia

  Up a set of stone steps, to the level of the castle battlements, I lean against a block of rubble core and look across the Menai Strait. The jagged contours of the Eryri mountains kiss the clouds, which respond to these unwanted advances by occasionally dumping sudden amounts of water on the peaks before moving on to find new victims to drench. Among these drenchees are the other members of Team Vulpine - Eldest, Middle and Soninlaw. The former is somewhere up on the lofty peaks of the Glyderau range, crouching against the onslaught of brief but driving raindrops, and the others are near the foot of the mighty Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon, investigating an abandoned quarry complex. The showers lack the will to assail the island of Ynys Môn/Anglesey today, so as I travel alone I have the comfort of knowing that I'll stay dry.

   The castle is called Beaumaris, derived from the Norman-French 'Beau Marys', the 'fair marsh', and it was the last of the mighty fortifications constructed by Edward I, the bellicose monarch known - because of his height - as Edward Longshanks. The small town to the west, which developed as a result of the castle's construction,  bears the same name. The King had these castles built to stamp his authority upon the country he had conquered in the 1280's, although - possibly being distracted by his attempts to pacify Scotland - serious construction work did not begin until 1295, following a rebellion by Madog ap Llewellyn, a distant relative of the defeated (and mostly dead) Welsh royal dynasty.

 

Beaumaris Castle and its impressive moat

  At the time that the castle was being thrown together by the King's architect James of St George,  the Green between the site and the coast was the location of a ferry, connected by road to a settlement north of the Castle, a settlement known - and still known - as Llanfaes, the 'monastery in the meadow'. In the heyday of the Welsh Princes, Llanfaes was one of the most important market towns in North Wales, a Royal centre from which 70% of trading in the Kingdom of Gwynedd took place. If I moved from these battlements to look north of the castle, I would see green fields and hedges where this once bustling town stood... but it was deliberately reduced to irrelevance by the King, who forcibly moved its residents to a settlement on the island's opposite coast, another Royal site called Rhosyr. The displaced residents subsequently created the village of Newborough.

  One part of Llanfaes, snug against the shore, was spared these tribulations, and that was its Friary. The site is denuded of its monastic history these days, with a Victorian mansion and more recent engineering works in its place, but this site provides us with a link to the first two of the three Ladies associated with this area... three English noblewomen who, due to various vissicitudes, ended their days in this historic district, far from their earlier homes. The first of these, without whom the Friary would not have existed, was an illegitimate daughter of the infamous King John of England.

Modern aerial view showing Beaumaris bottom left, and the site of the lost town of Llanfaes between the coastal buildings upper right, and the woods upper left.

Joan, Lady of Wales

  Joan was probably born in Normandy around the year 1191. Her mother's name was Clemence and she may have been a member of the Verdun family, who were prominent Norman nobility. Like most medieval princesses, she was destined to be used as a means of forging political alliances through marriage. In 1203, she arrived in England after a journey across the Channel and, the following year, was betrothed to Llewellyn ab Iorweth, no less than the King of Gwynedd and foremost ruler in Wales, also known as Llewellyn Fawr, 'the Great'; their marriage took place soon after the betrothal.

Joan, known in Welsh as Siwan. Image in Trefriw church.

    After her marriage, Joan proved to be quite the diplomat. Although relations between her husband King Llewellyn and her father King John swung from cordiality to open warfare, Joan provided the vital diplomatic link between the two and showed herself adept at coming to mutually advantageous agreements. After John's demise in 1216, Joan continued to employ her diplomatic skills on Henry III, her half-brother, with whom she seemed to be on very good terms. In 1226, following an appeal to the Pope which was sponsored by both her husband and her brother, she was declared legitimate, which raised her status even further. She also proved fertile, providing her husband with an heir - Dafydd - and daughters Elen, Gwladus and Marered.

Effigy of Henry III in Westminster Abbey

Llewellyn the Great

   Joan's well-deserved reputation suffered a major setback in 1230, when it was discovered that she was having a liaison with William de Braose, a lord of Brecon who had been Llewellyn's prisoner after being captured in battle. Llewellyn, not surprisingly, flew into a rage. Joan was placed under house arrest and William was hanged from a tree.

   Her husband's anger lasted a year, but he genuinely loved his lady and forgave her completely, after which she was released and returned to favour. He was thoroughly grief-stricken when, six years later, Joan died in her mid-forties. He had her buried on the shore at Llanfaes, and an enclosure erected around her grave. He then had a new Friary erected around the enclosure, its prestige guaranteed from the beginning due to its inclusion of her resting-place. Here she rested for three centuries, until the Friary fell victim to the Dissolution Of The Monasteries and was closed. 

   Some think that Joan's remains were moved to Beaumaris or Penmynnydd, but no-one really knows where she rests now. The site of the Friary is now occupied by a large house, 'Fryars', and engineering sheds erected in the 1940's. Perhaps Joan of Wales remains in this neighbourhood, close to the shore, awaiting future discovery.

The site of Llanfaes Friary. Perhaps Joan is under the car park.

  Anyway, back to the present day (for the moment). After exploring the Castle, its walls, greens, rooms and tunnels, I make my way into the village and find the parish church of St Mary and St Nicholas.

Beaumaris Church

    Just inside the entrance, on the left, is a sarcophagus with a decorated cover. It was found being used as a horse trough at a local farm and brought, in 1808, to the church by a local noble, Viscount Bulkeley. It was believed to be the sarcophagus of Joan.

The sarcophagus in the church

   More recent research has cast doubt upon this attribution, as some scholars believe  - although the sarcophagus may well have been Joan's - that the lid came from a different tomb. It dates stylistically to a slightly later period, and may have belonged to a noblewoman who had been buried at Llanfaes in 1282, almost half a century after Joan. This woman was 

Eleanor de Montfort, Princess of Wales, Lady of Snowdon

Detail of the sarcophagus lid, believed by some to be Eleanor

 

   Eleanor was a grand-daughter of King John, which meant that Henry III, during whose reign she was born in 1252, was her uncle; and as for her aunts... well, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Eleanor was extremely connected. They included the Queen of Scotland, the Holy Roman Empress, and of course the late Joan of Wales. Her mother, also called Eleanor*, was the King's sister and her father was Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester. At some point in her youth, her father arranged for her to be married at a future date to Llewellyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Gwynedd (and later Prince of Wales) and the grandson of Llewellyn the Great.

   Unfortunately, fate stepped in to delay this marital partnership, as Simon rebelled against his brother-in-law King Henry and was eventually killed, in 1265, at the Battle of Evesham. Eleanor's brother Henry de Montfort also perished, and other brothers scattered abroad. Eleanor and her mother also fled abroad, to a nunnery in France which the de Montforts had founded.

Eleanor de Montfort

    After a decade in exile, Eleanor's mother died. Her daughter secured her position by marrying Llewellen by proxy, with the real marriage postponed for a more fortuitous time. Eleanor then embarked on a sea trip to Wales, but the ship was captured near the Scillies by sailors from Bristol, who had been hired for just that purpose. Henry III had died four years previously and the new King, Edward I, was at odds with her new husband.

  Eleanor was held at Windsor Castle for three years, until the King and Prince Llewellyn signed a peace treaty at Aberconwy, after which Eleanor was released and had a proper wedding ceremony at Worcester Cathedral. Now known as Princess of Wales and Lady of Snowdon, she moved with her new husband to Gwynedd. Like his grandfather before him, Llewellyn seemed to have genuunely fallen in love with his wife, and she soon gave birth to a daughter called Catherine. One of this child's descendants, a century later, would be the famed Welsh rebel Owain Glyndwr.

Llewellyn ap Gruffudd, the last Welsh Prince of Wales

   Unfortunately, the peace concluded at Aberconwy did not last, as Llewellyn's brother Dafydd rebelled in 1282, forcing Llewellyn to enter the fray. On June 19th of that year, Eleanor suffered the fate of many medieval women - she died giving birth to a daughter, Gwenllian. She died at the royal court in Abergwyngregyn, the same place where her ancestor Joan had ended her days, and - also following her predecessor - her body was taken across the Menai Strait and buried in Llanfaes Friary.

Llewellyn the Last meets his destiny at Cilmeri.

  Her family suffered for this final resistance to Edward I. Her husband died six months later, slain at a skirmish at Cilmeri near Builth in modern Powys, and his head sent to the English king. What was left of him was buried in Abbey Cwmhir. His brother Daffydd was captured the following year and was hung, drawn and quartered. Her baby Gwenllian was carried into England, where she spent her life living as a nun at Sempringham Priory in Lincolnshire. Edward's conquest of Wales was complete, and he set about building mighty castles such as Caernarfon, Harlech... and, of course, Beaumaris.

The memorial to Eleanor's daughter at Sempringham

  I step away from the church and head back toward the Castle. My exploration of the church, and my perusal of the Castle's guidebook, had drawn to my attention that there was a curious omission in both sites... that of the third noblewoman associated with this corner of the island, a woman whose notoriety matched her predecessors' popularity. She was held prisoner at the Castle, and apparently buried at the church at the expense of the Castle's constable. She had been married to a brother of Henry V and was therefore an aunt by marriage to Henry VI, and her name was 

Eleanor de Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester

Eleanor and her husband, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester

  Eleanor was born around 1400 near Edenbridge, Kent, into the knightly Cobham family. She entered the English court around 1422 as a Lady-in-waiting to Jacqueline d'Hainult, wife of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, uncle and Lord Protector of King Henry VI, who was a baby at the time. Humphrey was the most powerful man in England at that point, and Eleanor became his mistress three years later, then his wife after another three years, when his marriage to Jacqueline was annulled by the Pope. In the space of six years, this young gentlewoman from Kent had become Duchess to the man who controlled the King. This rise in social position was almost as impressive as her eventual fall.

The coronation of Henry VI, from a late 15th century manuscript

   The young King Henry came of age in 1437, and began to rule in his own right. His uncle Duke Humphrey's influence slowly began to wane, as rival courtiers gained the King's ear. In 1441, Eleanor foolishly decided to see what the future held for her and her husband, and consulted a motley group of astrologers and fortune tellers: Roger Bolingbroke, her personal chaplain; Thomas Southwell, her physician; a third priest called John Home, and a Westminster 'wise woman' known as the 'Witch of Eye'**, whose name was Margery Jourdemayne. They predicted that the youthful King would die of a fever that very year, and - since he was childless and his uncle was next of kin - this meant that Humphrey would be King and Eleanor his Queen Consort. Unfortunately, predicting the death of the King was classed as treason, one of the most heinous crimes on the books.

   Rumours began to circulate around the court, and came to the ears of the King and the rival courtiers, as a result of which Humphrey and Eleanor were, in modern parlance, 'nicked'. Duke Humphrey was deemed innocent, as was John Home, but the other detainees were not so fortunate. Thomas Southwell died 'for sorrow' in the Tower of London, a description which hints at suicide. Roger Bolingbroke, who was hanged until nearly dead then had his bowels pulled out, probably wished that he had committed suicide... as did Margery Jourdemayne, as the flames started lapping around the stake she ended up chained to at Smithfield.

The penance of Eleanor de Cobham

  Eleanor was spared her life, but lost practically everything else. Guilty of 'treasonable necromancy', she was forcibly divorced from Duke Humphrey, obliged to do public penance by walking barefoot to three different churches, and condemned to life imprisonment. This did not mean a dank, dark dungeon but permanent house arrest, with a pension of 100 marks a year (about £66). However, her titles and wealth were gone, and the reputation of her royal husband irreversibly tarnished. Duke Humphrey died in 1447, probably of a stroke despite rumours of poison, and occupies a notable tomb in St. Alban's Abbey.

Vault of Duke Humphrey in St Albans

      Eleanor was not confined to a single place; the castles at Chester, Kenilworth, and Peel were her prisons before she arrived at Beaumaris in 1449. By this time, the settlement outside the fortress was thriving, and the nearby town of Llanfaes was but a memory, only the Friary hugging the coast remaining as a clue to that old settlement's previous relevance.

Inside the curtain wall at Beaumaris, Eleanor's last home.

  Eleanor died in 1452, and the Constable of the Castle, Sir William Beauchamp, paid for her funeral at the nearby church. She was buried without fuss in an unknown spot, her grave possibly never marked, a quiet end for a woman who had risen so high only to have her life crashing down due to her foolishness and ambition.

  Even now, there is no sign of her. Joan, Lady of Wales has her sarcophagus to remind us of her connection to the area; Eleanor, Princess of Wales has her decorated lid; Eleanor de Cobham has no memorial, and no mention in the Castle's guide book. Almost a modern damnatio memoriae for the aunt by marriage of Henry VI... but her shade yet haunts the coast, joined by the two previous Ladies whose lives and deaths led them to this small corner of a country in which none of them were born.

Y Ddraig Goch, iconic symbol of Cymru, outside Beaumaris Castle

ELEANOR: Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.

 - William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part II

* Eleanor was a popular name for medieval noblewomen, e.g.: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Provence, Eleanor of Castile (of Eleanor Crosses fame). The name was right up there with Matilda.

**'Eye' was a manor in Westminster. Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, and much of the surrounding area falls within its medieval boundaries.