It is usually said that Edward was on his road to Scotland, the queen slowly following him, and that she was taken ill on the journey, and died before he could return to her. But it has been recently shown that he remained in the vicinity of Hardby during the whole of her illness.[30] The parliament was held at Clipston—the king being present at the end of October, and it sat until the second week in November, when he returned to the sick room. We find him at Hardby from the 20th to the 28th of November, on which day the queen died.[31]
For two or three days silence reigns at Hardby. There is an entire cessation of all public business; as if the powerful mind of the king had been, for the moment, utterly prostrated. But, after this pause, we find the widowed monarch at Lincoln, where he doubtless went to issue his orders for the funeral. And all the measures he took with reference to this object and to the matters which followed, and which were connected with it, give proof of the depth of his feeling for his departed consort. It has been said, with great truth, that “this funeral procession was one of the most striking spectacles that England has ever witnessed.”[32]
About ten days were occupied in the sad and solemn journey from Lincolnshire to Westminster, the king and his relatives following the body the whole way. When the procession approached a town which was to furnish a resting‐place, it halted until the ecclesiastics of the place approached with their procession, to bear the body to its temporary abode, before the high altar in the principal church. These halting‐places were afterwards made the site of crosses, richly sculptured, and intended to remind passengers in all future times of the good queen’s last journey. These crosses were raised at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Alban’s, Waltham, West Cheap, and Charing.
The body of the departed queen, as it entered one of these towns, was met by the monks and clergy of the place, who, receiving and conveying it to its temporary resting‐place, kept watch over it all night long, with mournful chants and unceasing prayers. It was thus slowly brought to the neighbourhood of London, and here, apparently, the king left the procession by night and entered the metropolis, in order that he might meet the body at the head of the nobility and of all the dignified clergy of London and Westminster, on its approach to its last resting‐place. Some of those then present would be able to recal to memory the day when, five‐and‐thirty years before, they had accompanied king Henry and the rejoicing citizens of London to meet the young Eleanor, then for the first time approaching their city as the prince’s bride.
We have already alluded to the manner of the disposal of the queen’s remains. It is most probable that it was chiefly in accordance with Eleanor’s own desire. One portion was deposited in Lincoln cathedral; another in the church of the Black Friars in London; but the body itself was conveyed to Westminster, and placed near to the tomb of king Henry, which was even then hardly completed. It is needless to add that the funeral rites were in accordance with all the rest of this solemnly‐magnificent ceremony; “cum summâ omnium reverentiâ et honore.”
The king remained at Westminster for about a week after the interment; doubtless he was chiefly occupied in giving directions for the extraordinary honours which were yet to be paid to the memory of his departed consort. He then retired to Ashridge, a house of “Bons Hommes,” recently founded by his uncle, the earl of Cornwall, which enjoyed the reputation of possessing “a few drops of the precious blood of Jesus.” This may have been a principal reason for the selection of this spot by the king, who himself reckoned among his most valued treasures “two pieces of the rock of Calvary, which had been presented to him by one Robert Ailward, a pilgrim.”
Edward remained at Ashridge until the 26th of January, 1291, a long retirement for a man of such active energy. He then went to Evesham, or Eynsham, and from thence to Ambresbury, where his mother resided, and where he would also meet his daughter Mary. The spring opens before we find him actively engaged in public business, and there are many proofs that he never ceased to lament his beloved Eleanor. Assuredly the measures he adopted during the next two years to do honour to her memory, were of a kind which, for munificence and persevering thoughtfulness, have very seldom been equalled.
The twelve crosses, which were apparently the first thought that occurred to him, constituted in themselves a princely monument. There are records still extant of no less than £650 17s. 5d. paid for the work done on that erected at Charing, a sum equal to £10,000 of our money. The cross at West Cheap cost £300; that at Waltham, £95; that at St. Alban’s, £113. But it is probable that the statues were supplied by a different artist. We are surely within the mark when we reckon that a sum equal to £30,000 or £40,000 of our present money was expended on these mementoes.
A splendid tomb was placed in the minster at Lincoln; another, in the form of a chapel, was raised in the church of the Black Friars in London. The principal sepulchral monument, however, was naturally allotted to Westminster Abbey. There the best artist that could be procured was employed to form in metal a recumbent effigy of the queen, placed appropriately on a richly‐ornamented tomb. The cost of the tomb is not recorded, but we find entries of as much as £113 6s. 8d., equal to about £1700 of our present money, paid to the artist employed on queen Eleanor and king Henry’s effigies. A distinct payment also appears of a smaller sum for the erection of a workshop, in which these two statues were fabricated.
But the chief work still remained to be done. Edward had noble and splendid conceptions of princely works and long‐enduring memorials, but his sagacious and reflecting mind could not rest satisfied with works in stone or works in metal. The almost universal belief of the church in England in those days, even “holy bishop Robert” not dissenting, was, that prayers and alms especially directed to the welfare of a departed soul had a beneficial effect upon that soul in the intermediate state.