Yorkshire Almanac Edward III (15) marries his cousin Philippa (13) of Hainaut (Belgium) at York Minster, in order to save England from the Scots, the French, and the English

25 January 1328: Edward III (15) marries his cousin Philippa (13) of Hainaut (Belgium) at York Minster, in order to save England from the Scots, the French, and the English

Jean Froissart. 1863. Le premier livre des chroniques de Jehan Froissart, Vol. 1. Ed. M. le baron Kervyn de Lettenhove. Brussels: F. Heussner. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Comment les noces du roi Edouwart furent célébrées à grant solempnité à Ebruich. Tant esploita la jone roine d’Engleterre et sa compagnie que il vinrent en la chité de Cantorbie, et alèrent veoir le corps saint Thomas et i fissent lor offrande, et puis passèrent oultre, et par toutes les villes où il passoient, on lor faisoit feste et honnour, dons et présens, et passèrent à Rocestre et puis à Dardeforde et vinrent à Eltem et là s’arestèrent, et là estoit li évesques de Durames qui par procuration l’avoit espousé à Valenchiennes ou nom dou roi, et grant fuisson de signeurs et de dames d’Engleterre, qui requellièrent doucement la roine et toute sa compagnie, et m’est avis que messires Jehans de Hainnau pour celle fois, ne li chevaliers et esquiers qui la roine avoient acompagniet, n’alèrent plus avant, fors chil et celles qui avoecques lui devoient demorer, car li rois, pour ces jours, et madame sa mère et li contes de Kent estoient en la marce de Northombrelande. Si regardèrent li signeurs d’Engleterre que li Hainnuier aueroient trop de painne à aler si lonch, et en furent déporté, et là donnés et pris li congiés de toutes parties. Et plora la jone roine Phelippe assés, quant son oncle et li chevaliers de Hainnau la laissièrent. Toutes fois ensi fu fait. Il s’en retournèrent en Hainnau, et li signeur et les dames d’Engleterre, qui de ce faire estoient cargiet, ordonnèrent lor jone dame et l’emmenèrent, et passa tout parmi Londres, mais adont point n’i aresta; car on voloit que li Londryen la rechussent une aultre fois, quant li rois l’auroit espousé, et elle seroit roine d’Engleterre, de tous poins et à telle solempnité comme il estoient et sont tenu dou faire quant une roine d’Engleterre (et li rois l’a espouse), entre la première fois en la chité de Londres. Tant esploitièrent chil qui la jone roine menoient, que il vinrent à Ebruich. Là fu-elle recheute très-solempnement et grandement, et issirent en bonne ordenance tout li signeur d’Engleterre qui là estoient, à l’encontre de li, et meismement li jones rois qui la trouva sus les camps montée sus une haquenée très-bien amblans et très-ricement aournée et parée, et la prist par la main et puis l’acola et baisa, et cevauchièrent coste à coste, et à grant fuisson de ménestrandies et d’onnours il entrèrent dedens la chité, et ensi fu amenée jusques au lieu où li rois et madame sa mère estoient logiet. La roine mère dou roi rechut celle jone roine moult doucement, car elle savoit d’onnours tout quanque on en pooit sçavoir. Je n’ai que faire de plus démener ce pourpos. Li jones rois Edouwars espousa Phelippe de Hainnau en l’église catedral que on dist de Saint-Guillaume, et les espousa li arcevesques dou lieu par la vertu de la dispensation que on avoit empétré en Avignon, et fu le jour de la Conversion Saint-Pol et avoit li rois dis-sept ans d’eage et la jone roine sus le point de quatorze ans, et fu en l’an de grâce Nostre-Signeur mille trois cens xxvij. Si poés et devés sçavoir que toutes solempnités et festes sans riens espargnier furent à ces jours, et biraus et ménestrel largement payet. Et se tint depuis ces espousailles li rois Édouwars, madame sa mère et la jone roine lor fille à Ebruich ou là environ, jusques au temps Pasqour, que il vinrent à Londres et à Windesore, et furent de rechief là toutes festes faites, et i ot ou mois de mai que la roine entra en Londres, grandes joustes faites, et i furent grant fuisson de Hainnuiers et par espécial messires Jehans de Hainnau et messires Guillaumes de Villers i furent, et li sires d’Enghien qui fourjousta les joustes.

Translation by the Singing Organ-Grinder:
How the wedding of King Edward was celebrated with great solemnity at York.
So much did the young queen of England and her company exert themselves that they came to the city of Canterbury, and went to see the body of Saint Thomas and made their offering, and then passed on, and in all the towns through which they passed they were feasted and honoured and given gifts and presents, and continued to Rochester and then to Dartford and came to Eltham and there they stopped, and there was the Bishop of Durham, who had married her by proxy at Valenciennes in the name of the king, and a great abundance of lords and ladies of England, who gently requested the queen and all her company, and I am told that at that time neither John of Hainaut nor the knights and esquires who had accompanied the queen went any further, except he and those who were to remain with him, for the monarchs, at that time, and the lady his mother and the counts of Kent were in the March of Northumberland [the East March]. The lords of England considered that to travel so far would cause the Hainauter too much difficulty, and he abstained from doing so, and there all parties gave and took leave of each other. And the young queen Philippa wept much when her uncle and the knights of Hainaut left her. However, there it was. They returned to Hainaut, and the lord and the ladies of England, who were charged to do so, put the young lady in good order and led her away, and all passed through London, but did not stop; for it was intended that the Londoners should receive her another time, when the king had married her, and she would be king of England, in all respects and with such solemnity as they are bound to when a queen of England (and the king who has married her), enters the city of London for the first time. Those who accompanied the young queen hurried on until they came to York. There was she received most solemnly and greatly, and all the lords of England who were there came out in good order to meet her, and also the young king who found her on the field mounted on a small horse [haquenée: hackney], very well dressed and very richly adorned, and took her by the hand and then hugged her and kissed her, and rode side by side, and with a great stream of minstrels and honours they entered the city, and there was brought to the place where the king and his mother were lodged. The mother of the king received this young queen very gently, for she knew about honours all that is to be known. I will have nothing more to do with this argument. The young king Edward married Philippa of Hainaut in the cathedral church said to be of St. William, and they were married by the archbishop there, by virtue of the dispensation which had been obtained in Avignon, and this was the day of the Conversion of Saint Paul [25 January] and the king was 17 years of age and the young queen on the verge of 14, and this was in the Year of Grace of Our Lord one thousand three hundred and twenty-seven [i.e. 1328]. It may and should be known that all solemnities and feasts were held these days without sparing anything, and biraus and minstrels were greatly paid. And after this wedding, the king Edward, and his lady mother, and the young queen her daughter remained at York or thereabouts, till the time of Easter, when they came to London and Windsor, and were received there with all possible feasts, and in the month of May when the queen entered London, great jousts were held, and many Hainauters came and, in particular, Jehan of Hainaut and the lord Guillaume of Villers were there, and the lords of Enghien, who triumphed in the jousts.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

The above is the so-called Rome version of Froissart’s Chronicles. I have translated biraus as if it were the Provençal braus, bulls – see e.g. Mistral.

Bourchier’s version claims, for whatever reason (political?), that wedding AND coronation were on the EVE of St. Paul’s conversion, i.e. 24 January, and stresses London’s part in proceedings:

Than thys yonge quene entred into the see at Wysant and arry∣ued with all her cōpany at Douer. And & John̄ of Heynaulte lorde Beamont her vncle dyd cō∣duct her to the cite of London / where there was made great feast and many nobles of Ingland and the quene was crowned. And there was al∣so great iustes / tourneys daunsyng / carolyng / and great feastis euery day. The whiche endu∣ced the space of .iii. week¦is. The englisshe cro∣nicle saith / this mariage / and coronation of the quene was done at Yorke / with moche honour. the sunday in the euyn of the cōuersion of saynt Paule / in ye yere of our lorde .M. CCC .xxvii (Froissart 1523).

All was not joy – Isabella and Roger’s 1326 invasion of England, which led to Edward III’s father Edward II’s downfall, had been supported by Hainault:

During this great concourse at York, the Hainaulters still bearing malice in their hearts, set fire to and almost consumed a whole parish in the suburbs of the city, by reason of a difference raised betwixt the inhabitants and them. The cause was no mean one, for the strangers had made bold to ravish several of the others wives, daughters and maid servants. The suburbians scandalized at such outragious proceedings challenged the Hainaulters to fight them; and a select company of each well armed, one Wednesday before sun rising, dormiente tota civitate [while the whole city was asleep], says my authority [Leland Collectanea], met in a street called Watlingate and fought their quarrel fairly out. In this conflict were slain and drowned in the river Ouse of the Hainaulters 527, besides those who were mortally wounded and died soon after. Of the English fell likewise 242.

This account I look to be true, notwithstanding that I have no other testimony than the collectanea to support it. The contest in the preceding year was still green in their memories, and such a fresh provocation would easily stir up a resentment. The affair might be so hushed up, out of respect to the queen’s countrymen, that few historians of that age could come to the knowledge of it, and there is no circumstance in the relation which can make it be taken for the tumult before mentioned. It is certain these foreigners behaved very insolently and saucily to the English at both times of their coming to York; which our ancient British spirit could ill bear, without endeavouring to retaliate the affront. The former contest shews a just resentment of injuries in the English in general; and the latter is an evident proof, to our present citizens, of the spirit and valour of their ancestors.
(Drake 1736)

There is little doubt that Edward was not 17 but 15, and accounts of Philippa incline me to believe that she was younger than him, and that the Vatican Froissart may be correct.

Are the Counts of Kent basically Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent and retinue?

The marvellous Online Froissart is on its way to completion.

The translation probably needs some TLC – suggestions welcome.

Something to say? Get in touch

Comment

The above is the so-called Rome version of Froissart’s Chronicles. I have translated biraus as if it were the Provençal braus, bulls – see e.g. Mistral.

Bourchier’s version claims, for whatever reason (political?), that wedding AND coronation were on the EVE of St. Paul’s conversion, i.e. 24 January, and stresses London’s part in proceedings:

Than thys yonge quene entred into the see at Wysant and arry∣ued with all her cōpany at Douer. And & John̄ of Heynaulte lorde Beamont her vncle dyd cō∣duct her to the cite of London / where there was made great feast and many nobles of Ingland and the quene was crowned. And there was al∣so great iustes / tourneys daunsyng / carolyng / and great feastis euery day. The whiche endu∣ced the space of .iii. week¦is. The englisshe cro∣nicle saith / this mariage / and coronation of the quene was done at Yorke / with moche honour. the sunday in the euyn of the cōuersion of saynt Paule / in ye yere of our lorde .M. CCC .xxvii (Froissart 1523).

All was not joy – Isabella and Roger’s 1326 invasion of England, which led to Edward III’s father Edward II’s downfall, had been supported by Hainault:

During this great concourse at York, the Hainaulters still bearing malice in their hearts, set fire to and almost consumed a whole parish in the suburbs of the city, by reason of a difference raised betwixt the inhabitants and them. The cause was no mean one, for the strangers had made bold to ravish several of the others wives, daughters and maid servants. The suburbians scandalized at such outragious proceedings challenged the Hainaulters to fight them; and a select company of each well armed, one Wednesday before sun rising, dormiente tota civitate [while the whole city was asleep], says my authority [Leland Collectanea], met in a street called Watlingate and fought their quarrel fairly out. In this conflict were slain and drowned in the river Ouse of the Hainaulters 527, besides those who were mortally wounded and died soon after. Of the English fell likewise 242.

This account I look to be true, notwithstanding that I have no other testimony than the collectanea to support it. The contest in the preceding year was still green in their memories, and such a fresh provocation would easily stir up a resentment. The affair might be so hushed up, out of respect to the queen’s countrymen, that few historians of that age could come to the knowledge of it, and there is no circumstance in the relation which can make it be taken for the tumult before mentioned. It is certain these foreigners behaved very insolently and saucily to the English at both times of their coming to York; which our ancient British spirit could ill bear, without endeavouring to retaliate the affront. The former contest shews a just resentment of injuries in the English in general; and the latter is an evident proof, to our present citizens, of the spirit and valour of their ancestors.
(Drake 1736)

There is little doubt that Edward was not 17 but 15, and accounts of Philippa incline me to believe that she was younger than him, and that the Vatican Froissart may be correct.

Are the Counts of Kent basically Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent and retinue?

The marvellous Online Froissart is on its way to completion.

The translation probably needs some TLC – suggestions welcome.

Something to say? Get in touch

11 September 1666: Nine days after the start of the Great Fire, Margaret Hodgson of Richmond tells a York court that a beggar told her yesterday of a plot to burn London

25 September 1066: The Stamford Bridge massacre by Harold Godwinson’s army of Harald Hardrada and Tostig Godwinson’s force – symbol of the end of the Viking Age

12 April 0627: In a triumph for his Kentish wife, Edwin of Northumbria is baptised on Easter Sunday by Paulinus, in the latter’s wooden oratory on the site of York Minster

1 February 1829: Jonathan Martin’s attempt to burn down York Minster is frustrated by a frolicsome chorister

2 October 1800: Part of an obituary to Harry Rowe, Punch and Judy man, trumpeter at the Battle of Culloden and the York assizes, who died today, old and ill, in the York poorhouse

3 January 1647: “H.M.” arrives at York with 36 carts containing £200,000, the first half of the sum paid to the Scots for custody of Charles I and to persuade their army to go home

12 April 1706: The first four-day stagecoaches from York to London and vice versa depart from the Black Swan in each city

18 September 1858: The Spectator is bowled over by the new Leeds Festival chorus’s singing of the Messiah – “the music text-book of the West Riding”

3 May 1343: Short of cash for his French wars, Edward III asks what the effect on his rental income will be of January storms and coastal erosion at Ravenser Odd (Holderness)

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Comment

The fiscal fatigue caused by the Hundred Years’ War was a cause of the 1343-45 Truce of Malestroit.

Thomas Sheppard is a good starting point for respectively Ravenser and Ravenser Odd:

William Shelford … points out that Spurn Point, even in Roman times, must have been 2,250 yards at least beyond the present coastline ; and that at or near this spot the Danes landed in 867, planted their standard “The Raven,” and practically originated the town of Ravensburg, or Ravenser, or Ravenseret, within Spurn Head. The town developed into “one of the most wealthy and flourishing ports of the kingdom. It returned two Members to Parliament, assisted in equipping the navy, had an annual fair of thirty days, two markets a week, is mentioned twice by Shakespeare,[King Henry VI, part iii, Act iv, Scene 7; and Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1] and considered itself honoured by the embarkation of Baliol with his army for the invasion of Scotland in 1332; by the landing of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV, in 1399; and by the landing of Edward IV in 1471, not long after which it was entirely swept away.” Today, we cannot even be certain where the place was. […] In 1296 “Kaiage” [right to tax wharf occupation] was granted to the inhabitants by Edward I. Two years later Ravenser petitioned the king for certain privileges, and offered 300 marks in payment. In 1300 the magistrates of Ravensere were enjoined to stop the export of bullion; in 1305 it sent Members to Parliament. In 1310 Ravensere remonstrated against the depredations of the Earl of Holland, and in the same year Ravenness sent ships for Edward II.’s expedition to Scotland. Two years later the inhabitants were empowered to levy a tax to defend their walls. In 1323 commissions were issued for the “Wapentak of Ravensere.” In 1335-6 warships of Ravensere are referred to, and in 1341 Ravensere sent one Member to “a sort of” naval Parliament of Edward III. In 1346 one ship only was sent by Ravenser to the siege of Calais; (Hull sent 16). In 1355 bodies were washed out of their graves in the chapelyard at Ravenser. In 1361 [i.e. 1362 – the Second St. Marcellus flood] the floods drove the merchants to Hull and Grimsby; and by 1390 nearly all trace of the town, as such, was gone.* In 1413 a grant was made for the erection of a hermitage at Ravenscrosbourne, and in 1428 Richard Reedbarowe, the hermit of the chapel of Ravensersporne obtained a grant to take tolls of ships for the completion of his light-tower. In 1538 Leland refers to Ravenspur in his ” Itinerary,” which seems to be the last reference to the place. As pointed out elsewhere, the place is not included in Holinshed’s ” List of Ports and Creeks,” which was issued before 1580.

[…]

Ravenser-odd (also referred to as Odd near Ravenser, Ravenserot, Ravensrood, Ravensrodd, Ravensrode, etc.), probably originated in the early part of the thirteenth century, soon after Ravenser, the adjoining port, came to be of importance. Ravenser-odd was apparently built on an island.

In 1251 some monks obtained half an acre of ground on which to erect buildings for the preservation of fish, in the burg of Od near Ravenser. The chronicler of Meaux wrote that “Od was in the parish of Esington, about a mile distant from the mainland. The access to it was from Ravenser by a sandy road covered with round yellow stones, scarcely elevated above the sea. By the flowing of the ocean it was little affected on the east, and on the west it resisted in a wonderful manner the flux of the Humber.”

In 1273 there was a dispute about a chapel at Od, and this was carried on for some time.

In 1300 Edward I. gave some lands in Ravenserodde to the convent of Thornton in Lincolnshire, and others to St. Leonard’s Hospital, York.

In 1315 the burgesses of Ravenserod agreed to pay the king £50 for the confirmation of their charters, and “Kaiage” for seven years. In 1326 the king granted dues and customs in the port of Ravenserod, and about 1336 William De-la-Pole left Ravenserod for Hull. Ravenserode sent a representative to Edward III.’s “naval Parliament” in 1344, as well as a man well versed in naval affairs.

In 1346 Ravensrodde was one of the places mentioned by the Abbot of Meaux as suffering by the sea. In the following year it was frequently inundated, and in 1360 [presumably 1362] “Ravenser Odd was totally annihilated by the floods of the Humber and inundations of the great sea.”

In 1355 the bodies in the chapel yard, which, “by reason of inundations were then washed up and uncovered,” were removed and buried in the churchyard at Easington.

About this time we read the following curious note in the Meaux Chronicle : — ” When the inundations of the sea and of the Humber had destroyed to the foundations the chapel of Ravenserre Odd, built in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that the corpses and bones of the dead there buried horribly appeared, and the same inundations daily threatened the destruction of the said town, sacrilegious persons carried off and alienated certain ornaments of the said chapel, without our due consent, and disposed of them for their own pleasure ; except a few ornaments, images, books, and a bell which we sold to the mother church of Esyngton, and two smaller bells to the church of Aldeburghe. But that town of Ravenserre Odd, in the parish of the said church of Esyngton, was an exceedingly famous borough, devoted to merchandise, as well as many fisheries, most abundantly furnished with ships and burgesses amongst the boroughs of that sea-coast. But yet, with all inferior places, and chiefly by wrong-doing on the sea, by its wicked works and piracies, it provoketh the wrath of God against itself beyond measure. Wherefore, within the few following years, the said town, by those inundations of the sea and of the Humber, was destroyed to the foundations, so that nothing of value was left.”

Notwithstanding this, “In the Hedon inquisition of January 1401, the chapel of Ravenserodde, with the town itself, was declared to be worth, in spiritualities, more than £30 per annum.”

(Sheppard 1912)

William Wheater treads a similar path, perhaps better – haven’t read it (Wheater 1889).

The rise and fall of a tsunami are among the 15 signs of doom in a Middle English poem, The Pricke of Conscience, and are illustrated in a medieval (ca. 1410) window in All Saints’ Church, North Street, York:

Þe first day of þas fiften days,
Þe se sal ryse, als þe bukes says,
Abowen þe heght of ilka mountayne,
Fully fourty cubyttes certayne,
And in his stede even upstande,
Als an heghe hille dus on þe lande.
Þe secunde day, þe se sal be swa law
Þat unnethes men sal it knaw.
Þe thred day, þe se sal seme playn
And stand even in his cours agay[n],
Als it stode first at þe bygynnyng,
With-outen mare rysyng or fallyng
(Anon 1863)

Britta Sweers, “Trutz, Blanke Hans” – Musical and Sound Recollections of North Sea Storm Tides in Northern Germany

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