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1. Isabella countess of Arundel’s confrontation with King Henry III

Susanna Annesley is an AHRC funded doctoral student at King’s College London, working on the countesses of thirteenth-century England. In this article she re-examines a dispute between the king and Isabella, countess of Arundel, in light of evidence from the Fine Rolls and highlights the personal nature of the battle to uphold Magna Carta and popular liberties in the face of the Rex simplex.

⁋1Isabella countess of Arundel ranks high among the most famous and well-documented noblewomen of thirteenth-century England. She is perhaps most widely recognised for the concerted policy of religious endowment that she undertook during her lengthy widowhood, founding a thriving Cistercian nunnery at Marham in Norfolk in 1249. ¹ Isabella was also a dedicated patron of religious texts and commissioned at least two saints’ lives during her thirty-nine years as a relict. ² The countess was able to count Richard Wych, bishop of Chichester (later Saint Richard) and Matthew Paris among her personal friends – the latter translated his own Latin version of the life of Saint Edmund of Abingdon into Anglo-Norman verse for her use. ³

⁋2Yet while Isabella’s literary and monastic patronage has generated a great deal of historical interest, much less has been made of her actions in the secular arena, and it on these that I shall focus in this Fine of the Month. In 1252 a heated altercation took place between Isabella and the king, one preserved in a vivid and detailed account in Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora. Defending her rights to part of a wardship, Isabella, in a lengthy speech, upbraided the king for his injustices and his contempt for the rights enshrined within Magna Carta. Historians have often treated the testimony of Paris with caution and indeed sometimes with contempt, but here, and hence this Fine of the Month, the evidence of the fine rolls shows that the countess did indeed abuse Henry in a personal interview. Although this point has been noted before, and the quarrel between Henry and Isabella has been discussed by Scott Waugh from the point of view of royal warships, what follows provides a much fuller treatment of the evidence found in Matthew Paris and the fine rolls. ⁴ The whole episode sheds a great deal of light on attitudes to, and the position of noble women, with Isabella exploiting her entree to court, and (so I will argue) her connections with the queen in a tenacious fight to protect her resources following her husband’s death.

⁋3Before discussing all this, it is first necessary to place Isabella in context by offering a brief outline of her background. Isabella was the eldest daughter of the earl of Surrey, William de Warenne, and his second wife Maud – herself the eldest daughter of William Marshal, earl of Pemboke. In 1234 Isabel, aged no older than eight, and possibly as young as three, was married to the earl of Arundel, Hugh de Aubigny. ⁵ The marriage lasted only nine years before Hugh’s death in 1243 and produced no heirs.

⁋4On her husband’s death Isabella found herself a teenage widow in possession of a considerable dower, which included manors in Norfolk, Sussex, Buckinghamshire and Essex, as well as possession of over sixty knights’ fees. ⁶ The quarrel that erupted between the king and Isabella in 1252 centred around her claim to a wardship relating to one of these fees, which had been taken into the king’s hand. ⁷ The wardship in question was that of the lands belonging to the heir of Thomas of Ingoldisthorpe, Thomas having held a quarter of a knight’s fee from Isabella at Fring and Snettisham close to Ingoldisthorpe in Norfolk. ⁸ The honour of Haughley in Suffolk, from which Thomas held other property had escheated to the crown in 1217, ⁹ and on Thomas’s death in 1252, Henry III had taken the whole of the Ingoldisthorpe property, including Isbabella’s quarter fee, into his hands to hold in wardship until Thomas’s heir was of age. ¹⁰ In March 1252 Henry had then granted the wardship of all the lands, with the marriage of the heirs, to Peter Chaceporc who had been treasurer and the keeper of the king’s wardrobe since about 1241. ¹¹ Had Thomas held in chief from the king, Henry would have been perfectly entitled to the wardship of all his lands under his rights of ‘prerogative wardship’, which meant the king had wardship of all of someone’s lands, no matter who were the lords, provided that someone held some of his land from the king in chief. ¹² Since, however, Thomas had held not from the king in chief, but from the honour of Haughley, which was only in the king’s hands as an escheat, it was strongly arguable that prerogative wardship did not apply and that Isabella had thus been deprived unjustly of the wardship.

⁋5These were the circumstances in which Isabella appeared before the king to air her complaint and demand the return of her portion of the Ingoldisthorpe wardship. Paris says the meeting took place at Westminster where the king had remained after the break-up of the October 1252 parliament. ¹³ He adds that its setting was the king’s chamber, a revealing insight into the degree of access that Isabella enjoyed. ¹⁴ When Henry refused to attend to Isabella’s grievances, Isabella put up a ‘defiant defence of English liberty’, asking why the king had turned his face from justice, and lamenting that it was no longer possible to obtain what was right and just at the king’s court. She went on to criticise the king for troubling the church and oppressing the nobles of the kingdom ‘without fear or shame’ in diverse ways. Henry responded with scorn and mocked her entreaties. Laughing ‘derisively and curling his nostrils’ he asked her if the nobles of England had given her a charter enabling her to speak on their behalf. Isabella replied that it was not the barons who had given her a charter on which to act, but rather the king himself – for Isabella argued that she was acting in defence of the truths and customs laid down in Magna Carta. She accused the king of being ‘a shameless transgressor’ of the liberties enshrined in the charter and being guilty of breaking his faith and his oath in relation to upholding its principles. He should adhere to the liberties enshrined in Magna Carta, or else face the vengeance of God. ¹⁵ Henry was not, however, for moving. ‘After listening to [her] civilly reproachful speech, the king was silent, and the countess, without obtaining or even asking for permission, returned home’.

⁋6The authoritative manner in which Isabella left the king is indicative of the bold impression of the countess that Paris had gone to lengths to convey throughout his account. Despite being in the presence of the king, Isabella remained in control for the duration of their meeting, doing the lion’s share of the talking before leaving court on her own terms. Furthermore, Isabella was able to remain in charge of her emotions throughout her altercation with the king, delivering a ‘civilly reproachful speech’ in defence of her rights. The king on the other hand ‘at first…assumed a calm and courteous look, but afterwards reproached her with harsh words’, before finally being ‘put to shame and silence’ at the truth of the countess’ words. Therefore while Isabella comes across as an articulate and measured character, the king is presented as inconsistent, volatile and led by his emotions. Thus in an interesting role-reversal it is the king who portrays attributes commonly associated with the fickle female temperament prevalent in contemporary medieval writing, while Isabella’s behaviour is considered throughout. Moreover, while Paris twice comments on Isabella’s gender and youth, he does so in the context of describing how Isabella defied commonly held expectations related to both. First he states that ‘although a woman, [Isabella] replied with an undauntedness beyond a woman’, and secondly that ‘the countess, although a young woman, replied in a manner befitting one beyond her years.’ That Paris alludes several times to Isabella’s gender indicates it was an issue for him, but his observations show equally that, although aware of female stereotypes, he knew that some women were not bound by them. ¹⁶

⁋7It is also notable in Paris’ portrayal how he emphasises Isabella’s appeal to God. The countess states that although the king has been appointed as a mediator between God and his people he has failed in his duty, vexing and troubling the church throughout his reign. She appeals ‘before the face of Christ’ that the king might turn from his wicked advisors. In this too there is a gendered element, with the implication that it is pre-eminently for men rather than women to make such appeals. Thus Isabella says ‘I, although a woman…appeal against you before the tribunal of the aweful judge of all’. Yet in practice Paris makes no distinction between the capacity of men and women to forge a close relationship with God. Indeed, despite the king’s divinely ordained status, as a result of his actions Isabella appears nearest to God, couching her arguments in religious rhetoric, which demonstrates she is acting in accordance with his will.

⁋8If, in all this, Paris was exploiting Isabella’s quarrel to raise his own political concerns, he clearly did not see those arguments as being compromised because they were articulated by a woman. Paris has no difficulty with a woman, albeit a countess, both understanding and defending the fundamental liberties enshrined in the great Charter. Far from being marginalised politically, she here represents the interests of the noble group to which she belongs. It is the king, not Paris, who sees this as incongruous. Isabel appears as a legitimate political figure with a right to express her opposition to royal policies. All this tells us a great deal about the central role that noblewomen could be thought to play on the political scene and the attitude of chroniclers to their place within society.

⁋9But how far is the story true? It is here the fine rolls come in, for they provide definitive proof that Isabella did indeed abuse the king when they met at Westminster. The evidence comes from a fascinating royal letter of April 1254 which was sewn to the fine roll in the vicinity of entries for the following month. In the letter (the date and circumstances of its issue will be discussed later), the king pardoned the countess an amercement of thirty marks (£20) that she had incurred during the course of the conflict over the wardship in question. ¹⁷ Yet the king’s concession had an important stipulation attached. The countess was only to be pardoned the fine on the condition that ‘she says nothing opprobrious to us as she did when we were lately at Westminster.’ The letter added that Isabella had been sent a separate letter reiterating these terms. The full Latin of the crucial clause is as follows: the countess was to be pardoned

⁋10‘Dum modo nobis nulla dicat opprobria sicut fecit nuper quando eramus apud Westmonasterium et sicut ei litteratorie significamus.’ ¹⁸

⁋11Thus the evidence in the fine rolls proves not merely that the countess did indeed upbraid the king but also that her words had shaken him. He considered them ‘opprobrious’ and was anxious to stop her repeating them. It is tempting to see his willingness to put this rather pathetic demand in a letter both to her and the regents as an example of his simplicity and his inability to see what befitted the royal dignity. ¹⁹ That Paris knew of the quarrel is hardly surprising because he was close to the countess, as we have seen, and may well have heard the story from her own lips. ²⁰ Of course, it is possible that Paris still wrote up the countess’s speech according to his own agenda, with which it certainly accords, but it is equally possible they sang from the same sheet, and that he captures reasonably well what she said. He certainly was well informed about the central issue, explaining how the king claimed the custody by reason of a certain portion which belonged to him. ²¹ Although, moreover, Isabella cannot have attended the October 1252 parliament, she may well have been in London during its course. She would thus have known that it had raised the king’s breaches of Magna Carta, and been thus encouraged to raise them herself. The Charter did not deal explicitly with the issue of the king asserting prerogative wardship when a tenant only held from him via an escheat, but it got close to it in laying down that there was no prerogative wardship where a tenant only held from the king by fee farm, socage, burgage tenure or petty serjeanty. ²² Woman though she was, Isabella could also feel that she was covered by the Charter’s general dictum that ‘no free man’ was to be ‘disseised of his free tenement’ save by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. ²³

⁋12According to Paris, the king, although silenced, ‘continued in-corrigible and would not listen to these or other salutary counsels’, but, as so often with Henry, this was not entirely the case. At the start of his meeting with Isabella (perhaps another authentic detail), he had displayed ‘a calm and courteous face / serenum vultum’, and once his anger had abated he came, if slowly, to see that he was in the wrong. It may well be that he had never intended any injustice in the first place and had assumed the wardship was all his to give. When he finally appreciated it was not, presumably as a result of further pressure from Isabella, he issued from Windsor on 23 May 1253 a letter ‘for the countess of Arundel’ which gave her a seemingly comprehensive victory: ²⁴

⁋13‘Since the king has learnt that Thomas of Ingoldisthorpe, whose son and heir is in custody of Peter Chaceporc by concession of the king, did not hold from the crown of the king in chief but from the honour of Haughley, which is in the hand of the king as an escheat, and that the same Thomas held from Hugh de Aubigny, once earl of Arundel, a quarter part of the fee of one knight with appurtenances in Fring and Snettisham, the service of which was assigned to Isabella, countess of Arundel, the widow of the foresaid earl, in dower, he has retuned to the same countess custody of the foresaid quarter part of a fee with appurtenances; and the foresaid Peter is ordered to give the countess full seizin of the foresaid custody.’

⁋14The issue could not have been more clearly put, with the nature of holding in chief itself clarified by the insertion of ‘from the crown of the king’, thus emphasising that holding direct from the king through an estate temporarily in the king’s hands, like an escheat, did not qualify.

⁋15Isabella’s victory was, however, less comprehensive than it seemed. In the August of 1253, Henry embarked for Gascony, leaving as regents in England his queen, Eleanor of Provence, and his brother, Richard of Cornwall. At some point after his departure Isabella began a legal action against Peter Chaceporc ‘for custody of Ingoldisthorpe’. ²⁵ It may be that Ingoldisthorpe here is co-terminous with Fring and Snettisham (they are adjoining villages), and Chaceporc had failed to obey the order of May 1253; or perhaps Isabella felt that the quarter fee extended into Ingoldisthorpe and she should have custody of that too. Since the record of the case does not seem to survive we cannot be sure. ²⁶ Isabella apparently began her action in the Michalemas term of 1253 before the king’s council in England. She was unsuccessful and was amerced £20 for a false claim. We know this because on 22 December 1253, in a writ enrolled on the fine rolls, witnessed by the queen and Richard of Cornwall, and authorised by the queen, she was allowed to pay off the money in two instalments, one at the Purification and one at Easter. This, however, was not good enough for the countess. Instead, presumably through envoys she pursued the king out to Gascony and finally secured the letter which is the centrepiece of this Fine of the Month. ²⁷ It was witnessed by Henry at Meilhan in Gascony on 3 April and pardoned ‘our `beloved countess’ the 30 marks (£20) which she had been amerced before the king’s judges in the Chaceporc/Ingoldisthorpe case, on the conditions we have seen. The letter seems to have reached the regents early in May for it was on 6 May that they witnessed the letter (again enrolled on the fine rolls) which informed the Exchequer of the pardon, thus fulfilling the injunction to give Isabella quittance ‘by our seal of England’, Henry having left the great seal behind with the regents. ²⁸ That this letter had been issued on the authority of a royal letter sent from overseas could have been indicated simply by a note on the roll. Instead, as we have seen, the writ itself was sewn to the roll, an unusual procedure. But then the extraordinary conditions attached to the concession made this a highly extraordinary letter.

⁋16Perhaps one of the most striking things about the set-to between Isabella and the king is the relatively minor nature of the interests that the countess fought to safeguard. Considering that she held over sixty fees in dower it might seem remarkable to find her taking such measures over the wardship of just a quarter of a fee. On the other hand, the chief value of the fees was the wardships which might accrue from them, and any efficient lord, as Isabella clearly was, monitored these with an eagle eye. And then there was the principle at stake. In fighting for her rights, Isabella was clearly helped by her status as a countess, and by the fact that her half brother, to whom she was close, was John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, himself married to one of the king’s Lusignan half sisters and very much in favour at court. Isabella was also able, if Paris is at all truthful, to link her cause to the general concern over Magna Carta. Indeed, the writ of May 1253, in which the king acknowledged her rights, was issued only a fortnight after a great parliament at Westminster had confirmed Magna Carta in the most solemn of fashions. ²⁹

⁋17Isabella may also have got help from one other quarter, namely from the queen. We have already seen that it was the queen who authorised the letter in December 1253 giving Isabella terms for paying her amercement, terms which were clearly intended as a concession because the marginal annotation of the letter is ‘for the countess of Arundel.’ ³⁰ Contact had begun before that. Two extremely interesting membranes survive from the messenger accounts of the queen covering the years 1252–53, which ‘give a sharply focused photographic view of the dispatch and reception of [her] messengers.’ ³¹ The queen’s envoys would predominantly have been carrying letters from her and it is therefore noteworthy that the countess of Arundel appears as the recipient of one of Eleanor’s messengers. While it is impossible to know the contents of the letter delivered to Isabella, the date of the queen’s correspondence makes it likely that it concerned the countess’ quarrel with the king. There is thus a reference to a messenger being paid for going to the countess of Arundel in an entry for the first Sunday after the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (25th January) 1253. ³² That the messenger sent by the queen to Isabella was a mounted nuncius, rather than a messenger travelling on foot (cokinus), would also suggest that the matter contained within the letter was of some importance. ³³ Perhaps the two were laying plans for another appeal to the king, one which eventually led to the concession of May 1253. Likewise, when the letter of April 1254 ordered the queen and the earl of Cornwall to pardon Isabella her debt ‘by our seal of England’, it is conceivable that the queen had played a formative role in bringing this settlement to pass. ³⁴ Certainly by 1252 the queen had reason to share a certain rapport with Isabella. By this date both had commissioned saints’ lives from Matthew Paris and might even have had access to one another’s literary works. ³⁵ It is possible that such common acts of piety, undertaken by only a small elite group of noblewomen, formed a bond between the two women that inspired the queen’s involvement in her case. ³⁶

⁋18It is hoped therefore that this Fine of the Month has offered some insight into both Matthew Paris’s attitudes to women and Isabella’s character and her determination, in her widowhood, to defend all aspects of her landed rights. ³⁷ Furthermore, references to the queen’s role in the entries related to Isabella have shed light on her relationship with noblewomen of the day and suggested the influence she was able to wield on their behalf both as regent and before. Finally it is also hoped that this brief exploration of Isabella’s conflict with the king has provided some insight into how revealing and useful the fine rolls can be as a historical source – both in their own right and as a means to verify information found in other primary sources.

1.2. C 60/51, Fine Roll 38 Henry III (28 October 1253–27 October 1254), membrane 7 (schedule)

1.2.1. 510

⁋13 April. Meilhan. Henry, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine and count of Anjou sends greeting to his beloved consort E. by the same grace queen of England, lady of Ireland, duchess of Normandy and Aquitaine and countess of Anjou and to his beloved and faithful brother, R. earl of Cornwall. Know that we have pardoned to our beloved and faithful Isabella countess of Arundel the 30 m. at which she was amerced before our justices against our beloved and faithful [...] Peter Chaceporc, our Treasurer, for custody of Ingoldisthorpe. We, therefore, order you to cause the same countess to be quit of the aforesaid 30 m. by our seal of England provided she says nothing opprobrious to us as she did when we were at Westminster and as we have signified to her by letter. Witness myself.