About the show

In November 1290, Queen Eleanor died. Edward, her King, erected 12 lavish memorials to honour her across the length of the country topped and tailed by two splendid tombs in Lincoln Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. No English queen before or since has ever been so extravagantly remembered. 8 of those 12 crosses are now lost to history and with them any public awareness of who she was.

​

This storytelling show, co-written and performed by Sue Macmillan and Hannah McDowall gives intimate glimpses of Eleanor and Edward’s life together spanning 36 years of marriage, 16 children, two wars, years spent on crusade together in the Holy Land, the blossoming of a property empire and the domination of Wales. It celebrates the chivalric culture they idealised and the affectionate, formidable team they became.

​

What's in store for 2017?

We are going to be touring the show in late November, doing shows at key locations along the route that her cortege took in 1290. 

​

Click HERE for more details...

​

The show is suitable for young people and adults. The running time is 2 hours which includes a 20 minute interval. 

​

How we came to write this show

Back in 2012, Sue, caught in an unexpected rain shower, ducked into the old church of St Mary’s in Woburn, a small town in Bedfordshire, where one of the Eleanor Memorial Crosses once stood. St Mary's holds a permanent exhibition detailing the route of the crosses from Lincoln, where she died, down to Westminster where she was finally buried, stopping on the way at the 12 locations where the memorials were subsequently placed. This gave us our first taste of excitement about this queen who had clearly made such an impression on her King, in a time when royal marriages were for political expediency and not for love.

​

So we began to read all we could. And discovered very quickly that there was very limited information about her directly. For two and a half years we researched copies of original royal account books held in the British Library, the few accounts which have been written about her since, and, we studied the Arthurian literature that she read, loved and commissioned. To help us understand the landscape and imagery, we visited Lincoln and the places she visited in her final days. On the same dates her body travelled, we walked the first part of the route her embalmed body took in December 1290, unconfined on an open byre with Edward following behind her. All of these sources influenced the writing of this performance, which brings to life, with historical accuracy, the fully rounded nature of a queen with strength, intellect and love.

 

Performances to Date (2016):

Stony Stratford

Leeds

London

Woburn