Thursday 5 November 2015

Belated anniversary to Piers Gaveston and Margaret de Clare

I'm almost a week late but November 1st marked the anniversary of the wedding of Piers Gaveston and King Edward's niece, Margaret de Clare.   Margaret would only have been about 13 or 14, and undoubtedly would have expected to make a good match, being the King's niece.   We don't know what Margaret 's feelings were, but marrying the king's favourite and becoming Countess of Cornwall was a good match.  The marriage took place at Berkhamstead Castle.  Edward paid the grand sum of 7 pounds, 10 shillings and six pence in coins for well-wishers to throw over the couple at the church door.  He also gave the newlyweds jewels worth about 30 pounds - I'm sure Piers had first pick:)

4 comments:

Katarzyna Ogrodnik-Fujcik said...

Belated Anniversary Wishes! I didn't realize that Margaret was so young at the time of the wedding. Perhaps, not too young by the then standards, but still by today's :-)

Kathryn Warner said...

Happy belated wedding anniversary, Piers and Margaret! Funnily enough, I've also just posted about this on Facebook, a few days too late :-)

Anerje said...

Hi Kasia - Piers would have been about 25ish. Margaret was a great heiress and no doubt this influenced Edward's decision, and also it was a way of bringing Piers into 'the family'. I doubt the marriage was consummated for a few years on the grounds of Margaret's youth.

Hi Kathryn - November seems to have crept up on me!

Gabriele Campbell said...

And no one wrote a novel about how poor, beautiful and sweet Margaret was neglected by her evil husband in favour of Edward? /irony off