Beatrix d’Eala, Lady Effingham

 Beatrix was born in 1309 of a wealthy family, and was sent at the age of seven to the household of Lady Elizabeth de Borough, Lady Clare, in Suffolk.

Lady Beatrix was an only child and stayed with Lady Elizabeth and her daughters to learn the skills necessary of a lady until the age of 14 when she married Lord Effingham, having been betrothed to him since early childhood.

She had learned many things in her years at Clare Castle - music, reading, dance, keeping household accounts, archery, swordplay, polite conversation, even animal husbandry, indeed everything involved with running a great household of over 200 people. She is a lover of all things beautiful, from great wine, to the most luxurious of velvet, cloth of gold and small dogs! Her motto seems to be, if it is expensive, it must be good, and Lord Effingham was happy to oblige, as long as he had his hounds, his hunts, and his banquets.

After Lord Effingham was killed at Sluys, Lady Beatrix married Sir Baldwin at Clare Castle, in a huge celebration attended by many members of the nobility. This was a love match as well as a financial arrangement, although Lady Beatrix highly disapproved of Baldwin’s continued carousing.

In 1341 Baldwin ran off to Brittany, thence Gascony and in later years other parts of France in the service of the king, coming back with dubious relics... and many tall tales, but in the main he prefers fighting and carousing, leaving Lady Beatrix to run the estates, which she continues to do with consummate ability when she is not travelling with the Lancasters and the Rochesters, as one of Lady Eleanor’s companions. (She has trouble with the title “lady in waiting” because as Lady B is fond of saying, “ Time and Lady B wait for no man....or woman...or land”)