Mary of Woodstock

Mary of Woodstock (11 March 1278 – before 8 July 1332) was the seventh named daughter of Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile. She was a nun at Amesbury Priory, but lived very comfortably thanks to a generous allowance from her parents. Despite a papal travel prohibition in 1303, she travelled widely around the country. Early life Mary's grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, had decided to retire to Amesbury Priory in Wiltshire, a daughter house of Fontevrault. She lobbied for Mary and another granddaughter, Eleanor of Brittany, to become Benedictine nuns at the priory. Despite resistance from Eleanor of Castile, Mary was dedicated at Amesbury in 1285, at the age of seven, alongside thirteen daughters of nobles. She was not formally veiled as a nun until December 1291, when she had reached the age of twelve. Eleanor of Brittany had been veiled in March, while Eleanor of Provence did not arrive until June 1286. Mary's parents granted her £100 per year for life (approximately £ in ); she also received double the usual allowance for clothing and a special entitlement to wine from the stores, and lived in comfort in private quarters. Her father visited her and Eleanor at the priory repeatedly: twice in 1286 and in 1289, and again in 1290 and 1291. Eleanor of Provence died in 1291, and it was expected that Mary would move to Fontevrault. Certainly the prioress of Fontevrault wrote frequently to Edward I asking that his daughter be allowed to live there. Probably to prevent his daughter falling into French hands in the event of war with England, Edward refused, and Mary remained at Amesbury, while her allowance was doubled to £200 per year. In 1292, she was also given the right to forty oaks per year from royal forests and twenty tuns of wine per year from Southampton. Representative of the order Despite being a resident at the priory, Mary began to travel the country. She visited her brother Edward in 1293, and regularly attended court, spending five weeks there in 1297, in the run-up to her sister Elizabeth's departure to Holland. By the end of the century, she held the post of vicegerent and visitatrix for the abbess, with the right to authorise the transfer of nuns between convents. In 1302, her £200 per year was replaced by the rights to several manors and the borough of Wilton, all held on condition that she remain in England.