Michaelmas day marked the end of the period allowed them.
They arrived on the fifth day of August, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the Queen; and there was great rejoicing in Burgos.
The young Infanta Eleanora saw the arrival of the cavalcade with the Queen riding at the head of it, her son beside her.
This was Edward – who was to be her husband.
Her heart leapt with excitement for he was very handsome. She knew at once who he was because of his bright flaxen hair. There was a distinction about him. He was very young – not much older than herself; and she thought that since she had to marry and leave her home she would rather it was with this Edward than any other.
Her home had never been the paradise enjoyed by the Queen of England and her sisters. In the first place her mother had not been her father’s first wife. Ferdinand had never been very interested in her; his favourite child had naturally been Alfonso, son of a previous marriage, and Alfonso had shown very clearly, since he had become King, that he ruled them all.
Alfonso had little time for his half-sister and regarded her merely as a pawn in his political game. But she was very useful at this time, he admitted; and he would be glad to see her a potential Queen of England.
His interests were divided between politics and astronomy, and he was reckoned to be very clever. In fact he had invented tables concerning the heavens which were known as the Alfonsine Tables of Astronomy. He was known as The Wise, and his knowledge of the stars had brought him great prestige.
So he had little time for his stepmother Joanna and his half-sister Eleanora, except when they could be of use to him.
Joanna, who had herself been buffeted from one bridegroom to another, had told her daughter that this was what an Infanta must expect; but the King of England was notoriously devoted to his wife and it seemed likely that his son would be the same with his.
Therefore the little Infanta, having lacked the happiness in childhood that some had had, at least had the compensation that it was no great wrench to leave her home.
Down to the courtyard. Her mother held her by the hand. And there he was, the flaxen-haired boy, his eyes eagerly scanning those assembled until they came to rest on her.
Then he smiled and she blushed a little.
Her heart leaped with pleasure for she read in his looks that he was not ill-pleased.
They were married. She did not have much time to speak to him before the ceremony but he did let her know that he was happy to be her husband. He spoke a little of her language and she had been taught his so it was not hard to communicate.
She thought he was the most handsome young man she had ever seen – and not only handsome, but different from any other.
She was a little in awe of her mother-in-law, who was very beautiful and clearly determined to have her own way. They had the same name – or almost. The Queen’s had been made Eleanor instead of her native Eléanore; and Eleanora, which the Infanta was called now, would, the Queen told her, doubtless be changed to Eleanor when she was in England, for the English thought their way of doing everything – even spelling names – was better than anyone else’s.
The Infanta told the Queen that she did not mind how they changed her name as long as they liked her.
At which the Queen grunted and said they were a difficult people and in particular the Londoners.
However Edward was more reassuring. The people would love her, he told her, because she was pretty and moreover gentle. He liked her gentleness too. In fact he was very pleased with his marriage.
Alfonso was eager to show the English Queen that he could give her as good entertainment in Burgos as she had in England and there was a rich feast and a festival which was more stately than those held in England. Edward was most impressed but most of all he liked to sit beside his little wife and let her explain her country’s customs to him.
Alfonso knighted Edward and the little Infanta was moved to see handsome Edward kneel before her half-brother.
As the bride was so young – she was only just ten years old – there was to be no consummation of the marriage. That, said Alfonso, could wait.
The Queen replied that the best way was to allow these things to settle themselves naturally; and in any case the little girl must finish her education first and this should have the Queen’s personal supervision, which she had given to her own children.
This was all arranged to the satisfaction of Alfonso and in due course the party set out for Bordeaux and this time the little bride rode with them.
How delighted was the King to see them. He embraced the Queen, his son, and the little bride.
‘My dear little daughter,’ he said, ‘how glad I am to welcome you into this family!’
Eleanora was delighted. It was such a pleasant family. The King loved them all so dearly and her mother had told her how important he was. He ruled a big country. The Queen was kind provided one did exactly what she wanted. And Edward was so gallant and rode with such skill and was so distinguished that she glowed with pride to watch him. Then there was the Queen’s sister, the Lady Sanchia, and Edmund who was her own age and Beatrice who was a little older. It was a wonderful family and what she had missed most – although she had not realised this until now – was a family life.
The King was determined to welcome her warmly and his way of doing this was to give a grand banquet in her honour. There was a good deal of grumbling about the cost of this and the Infanta heard it said that it had cost three hundred thousand marks which was a very large sum of money.
‘We’ll find means of raising it,’ said Henry, cheerful as he always was when the spending of money was concerned; it was only when the need to find it arose that he lost his temper and became irritable.
They stayed at Bordeaux until the end of the summer and as more brilliant festivals were devised to celebrate the marriage, the King’s friends grew more and more restive when contemplating the cost.
Henry continued to shrug all that aside and finally decided that they would leave Bordeaux and start their journey home. First though he and the Queen would make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Edmund, who had been his Archbishop of Canterbury until he died and been buried in Pontigny. Edmund had always been an uncomfortable man, being such a saint who, while he did continual penance for his own sins, had a habit of magnifying those of others.
Having paid their homage to the dead St Edmund they felt considerably better about all the money they had been spending and travelled on to Fontevrault where Henry commanded that the body of his mother be removed from the grave in the cemetery there and put in the church. He ordered a tomb to be placed over it.
By this time he was feeling very virtuous.
The Queen was overcome with joy when messages arrived from the King of France to the effect that he would take it amiss if the party did not come to Paris and give him the pleasure of entertaining them.
Now the Queen was to experience the greatest pleasure because at the Court of France she would be with her three sisters.
There was great rejoicing when the party arrived in Paris and, to please his wife, Louis insisted on giving the English party the finest lodging at his disposal. This happened to be the Temple which was the headquarters of the Knights Templar in France and was a magnificent palace.
It was a wonderful moment when Eleanor was greeted by her sister Marguerite, recently returned from the Holy Land where she had accompanied her husband; and with her was Beatrice, now the Countess of Anjou, having married Louis’ brother Charles.