Prejudice against foreign queens

Just seven of the women who have been queen consort of England were born in the country they came to rule and over half of them are accounted for by Henry VIII's mad marrying spree of 1533 to 1543 when he took five wives.  Given that marriage was a political transaction, carried out for prestige, politics and power it's not really surprising that kings of England eschewed homegrown girls for foreign princesses and nobility who could expand their territories or keep angry enemies at bay by saying 'I do' and becoming Queen.  But several of these princesses found themselves the victims of xenophobia.  And two of the three Queen Consorts called Eleanor suffered particularly badly as a result.

Eleanor of Provence perhaps took the most flak for being foreign, at one time finding her barge under attack from stone throwers.  She had married Henry III in 1236 when she was around 12 or 13 years old, arriving in England just days before their wedding in Canterbury Cathedral.  The first sight many of her future subjects had of their new queen was when she walked into the church in a magnificent golden gown.  And that was always part of Eleanor's problem.  She liked money and she liked extravagance and she wasn't afraid to show it.

Eleanor of Provence, Queen Consort of Henry III, was a renowned beauty

 

From the very beginning of her reign she surrounded herself with friends, relatives and advisers from her own family - many of them linked to her mother, Beatrice of Savoy, and known as the Savoyards.  They soon began to win some of the best positions in the kingdom and resentment against them grew. The queen also began to mop up some of the best marriages around for her family.  In 1242 her sister, Sanchia, married Henry's brother, Richard, who just happened to be high on the list of possible regents for the king's infant heir, Edward and one of the wealthiest men in Europe, never mind England.  The pretty girl who had arrived in a lovely dress was now seen as leader of a grasping foreign contingent that was seizing power and cash left, right and centre.

 

 

A later, romantic imagining of Eleanor of Provence.  She was one of four sisters who all became queens

 

 

It doesn't seem to have bothered Eleanor.  While the sniping about foreigners went on, she flexed her muscles as queen even insisting on backpayments of a fine levied on Londoners called queen gold. 

The Annals of Dunstable record that in 1263, while sailing by barge on the Thames, 'the Londoners assailed her and her men shamefully with foul and base words and even casting stones'.  Eleanor had to take refuge in the palace of the Bishop of London.

 

She was also well known for her love of fashion and there are great details of her expensive wardrobe, some of it sent from France, that did little to deflect the anger towards the Queen from Provence who was seen as guzzling England's money while dissent ravaged the country.  

 

Her daughter in law, another Eleanor, fared little better in the eyes of her subject.  Eleanor of Castile was the daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile and married to Henry III's heir, Edward, in 1254 when she was just nine years old.  She arrived as a child bride and almost immediately anti foreign sentiment surrounded the future Queen Consort.  While the barons' revolt occupied Henry III and his wife through the next ten years, the elder Eleanor took much of the xenophobia being directed at te royal family.  But once Eleanor of Castile was Queen Consort much of the hatred came directly to her.

 

 

Eleanor of Castile is remembered as a romantic heroine but was deeply unpopular for much of her reign

 

Not that she helped herself.  She gobbled up estates at a phenomenal rate and was even warned by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the practice was making her and the monarchy very unpopular.  It did nothing to deter her and there are several recorded instances of her and her administrators seizing land and castles on minor debts to increase her wealth.

 

In death, her reputation changed forever.  In 1290 she began to show signs of illness and in November of that year she died.  Edward I was devastated and built a cross at the spots her body rested on its final journey back to London.  The Eleanor Crosses became a legendary tale of mourning, love and loss and some still survive today.

 

 

Charing Cross in London - now more famous as a railway station, it marked one of the resting places on the funeral procession of Eleanor of Castile

 

Eleanor of Provence and Eleanor of Castile were just two of many foreign queen consorts in England but definitely suffered the most because of their foreign birth.  Several have been just as greedy but the political situation around them was so different that other issues dominated their reigns and reputations.

 

Their fate raises the question of whether its easier to be a homegrown queen consort.  Many European countries are about to find out.  William has followed in his father's footsteps by choosing an English bride and other heirs have also married within their countries.  Philippe of Belgium was the first to take a native bride - in just two weeks' time, Mathilde d'Accoz will become her country's first Belgian born queen on the abdication of Albert II.  Two years after Philippe and Mathilde married, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway married Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby who was born and raised in the south of his future kingdom and on her wedding became known as the Cinderella of Kristiansand.  Another homegrown queen will one day reign in Spain - in 2004, Crown Prince Felipe married Letizia Ortiz who was born in Oviedo. 

 

But other kingdoms will have foreigner queens.  The Netherlands has an Argentinian born Queen Consort in the former Maxima Zorreguieta who became the country's first female consort in over 100 years when her mother in law, the now Princess Beatrix, abdicated.

 

Maxima, Queen of the Netherlands
(photo Oliver Abels)
 

Denmark is the only other country expecting a non native consort in the near future. When Crown Prince Frederik becomes king his Australian born wife, Mary Donaldson, will become the first Antipodean queen in European history. 

 

 

Princess Mary of Denmark

(photo Erik Christensen)

 

Both Maxima and Mary are hugely popular in their adopted homelands, sometimes topping public opinion polls ahead of their husbands and in laws.  Expectations of royalty are obviously different now and it seems that state of origin isn't nearly as important as taking on a royal role that resonates with the people with whom the queens will share their realm.