The Eleanor Cross at Hardingstone

Although the marriage between Edward I (1239-1307) to Eleanor of Castile (1241-1290) was established by political motivations, the union was unusual in that Edward and Eleanor had a loving relationship (Harper, 2010). After her death the King marked each overnight stop on the route of the funerary cortège from Lincoln to Charing with a stone cross. In doing so, Edward may have been inspired by the Montjoie crosses of the Ninth Crusade which were built to guide pilgrims (Harper, 2010). The Eleanor Crosses were constructed by John de Bello / de la Bataille with assistance from Alexander of Abingdon and William of Ireland between 1291 and 1294 (Hartshorne 1848, p.188). The Eleanor Cross at Hardingstone near Northampton is made in the decorative Gothic style and has three tiers, the first of which is octagonal. This is symbolic of spiritual rebirth (Calter, 1998), and this design is also seen in baptismal fonts of the period. This first tier also has carved books which may have featured painted inscriptions soliciting prayer (Markham 1901, p.8), and it can be supposed that these prayers were solicited in order to guide the soul of Eleanor through purgatory to salvation. The second tier features statues of Eleanor in high relief with canopies which are accompanied by heraldic shields. The third tier is damaged and incomplete (Speel, 2012).

The Eleanor Cross at Hardingstone.

By the Renaissance, heraldry had become a precise method of recording military and civil honours. In his Remaines of a Greater Work, Concerning Britaine (1605) the chorographer and officer of arms William Camden writes that Buckinghamshire has a “Crosse, though it be none of the fairest, erected in memoriall of Queene Aeleonor of Spaine, wife to Edward the First, with the Armes of England, Castile and Leon &c., also of the Earldome of Ponthieu whereof she was heire” (Camden and Dunn, 1870). In his Britannia (1607) Camden also notes that Queen Eleanor was “worthy [..] to be remembred by [..] Crosses as Monuments, which instead of Statues were erected by her Husband to her honour” as she had saved her husband's life from assassination by poison when alive (Camden and Sutton, 2004). It is probable that this narrative is unreliable and is sourced from the Historia Ecclesiastica Nova of the thirteenth-century historian Ptolemy / Bartholomew of Lucca (Harper, 2010).

It can then be seen that Camden stresses the importance of the memorial aspects of the monuments beyond any religious functionality, and it can be conjectured that this may be a consequence of the rejection of the doctrine of purgatory during the Protestant Reformation. It is also possible to suggest that Captain Richard Symonds is influenced by the writing of Camden in recording his Diary of the Marches of the Great Civil War (1645), in which it is stated that he has seen “a lofty large crosse built by Edward III [sic] ., in memory of Elianor his queene [and] Upon the top of this crosse these three shields are often carved : ENGLAND. Three bends sinister, a bordure [Ponthieu]. Quarterly, CASTILE and LEON” (Symonds and Long 1859, p.230). 

Writing of the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675, Daniel Defoe states that “the flame [..] spread itself with such fury, and run on with such terrible speed, that they tell us a townsman being at Queen's Cross upon a hill, on the south side of the town, about two miles off, saw the fire at one end of the town then newly begun [..] ” (Defoe, 1727). It is then tempting to argue that Defoe sees the Hardingstone Eleanor Cross exclusively in terms of civic functionality as a decorative landmark, and it is also possible to see this influence in the subsequent decoration of the monument. In 1712 the Hardingstone Cross is decorated with sundials and inscriptions (Lovell 1892, p.27), and with a Cross Pattée added to the summit (Markham 1901, p.11).

It can also be argued that it is possible to view the continued care and use of the monument in terms of an expression of political ideas. Restorations to the monument in 1713 are commemorated with a marble tablet which notes that this was also the year that Queen Anne asserted the “Liberty of Europe” (Lovell 1892, p.28), and this can be seen in the context of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht after the war of Spanish Succession (1701-1714). It is then possible to suggest that Queen Anne wished to create an association with Eleanor as a 'peacemaker' between Great Britain and Spain, as the marriage of Eleanor to Edward I had also resolved dynastic quarrels related to the duchy of Gascony which secured peace between Castile and England. Further restorations to the monument were also made in 1762 in the reign of George III and this is also noted on an inscription added to the marble tablet (Lovell 1892, p.28).

It is possible to see the influence of changing attitudes to art in representations of the Eleanor Crosses between the Enlightenment and Romantic periods (c. 1780-1830). The British Library states that topographical drawings are intended to “provide a visual record of a particular area rather than as a form of self expression” (2009). Samuel Hieronymus Grimm composes a topographical sketch of the Hardingstone Cross in 1774 (British Library, 2009), and JMW Turner also sketches the Hardingstone Cross twenty years later in 1794 (Wilton, 2012). In comparing these works it can be seen that Grimm's sketch is intended to function as a formal record but that Turner's work is perhaps influenced by the contemporaneous aesthetic theory of Gilpin, who states that the depiction of ruins is visually pleasing as “ancient architecture [is] consecrated by time; and almost deserve[s] the veneration we pay to the works of nature itself” (1792, p.46).

The Hardingstone Cross by Grimm (1773).

The Hardingstone Cross by Turner (1794).

The Hardingstone Cross received a further restoration in 1836, and the sundials and inscriptions which were added to the monument in the renovation of 1712 were removed (Lovell 1892, p.27). In his Historical Memorials of Northampton (1848), Hartshorne considers the Hardingstone Eleanor Cross to be “evidence, that at this remote period [that Englishmen] were capable of conceiving as well as executing the most sublime ideas of architectural beauty” (p.56-57), and that the monuments of “both Edward and Eleanor display a physiognomy entirely unmarked by any of those disagreeable features peculiar to the countenances of the haughty and vicious” (p.181-182). It is notable that portraiture was not common in western art until the Renaissance, and so it is possible to relate these ideas to a romanticised sentimentalisation of the primitive which featured in much discourse related to 19^th century colonial imperialism as seen in Dickens' Noble Savage of 1853. 

It can then be seen that the Hardingstone Eleanor cross is a superb example of a monument which has been perceived differently by writers, artists and spectators when viewed through the perspectives of their own times. The monument has been viewed in terms of religious, civic, aesthetic and memorial functions to its own and subsequent ages. The monument has drawn the interest of notable persons such as Defoe and Turner and has also been the subject of art and writing from its construction to the present day, and this can be considered to be a fitting tribute to the creators of the monument, and to Queen Eleanor.

References

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