Eleanor of Province was one of the most hated of England's queens ,extravagant and ambitious like her husband, Eleanor spent much time and energy on raising loans, soliciting gifts' and exploiting her revenues to finance her husband and son's wars and territorial ambitions. It was said that no Englishman could rise in the Church while Eleanor had influence, for Provencals and Savoyards were favoured above all others. London was the centre of opposition to Eleanor For many years she enjoyed the revenues of all cargoes of ships docking at Queenhithe. In straits for money she made sure that as many ships as possible were forced to dock there and that enforcement of the tithe was made. Henry and Eleanor kept a splendid court wherever they went.. When their coffers were empty they brought pressure to bear on the Jewish money lenders who had no power of redress and on the citizens of London under pretence of fines for misdeeds.

While the King was in Gascony during Eleanor's regency, from 1252, she took the opportunity of reviving queengeld a levy on the monies paid to the king. Eleanor tried to enforce some particularly unpopular fines on the citizens of London, and when they remained unpaid she had the two sheriffs imprisoned. When rebellion did break out in the capital in 1263 - at first as anti-Jewish riots - the Queen was one of the main targets of the citizens' anger. She attempted to leave the Tower by water, but was turned back at London Bridge upstream, where she and her unfortunate attendants were pelted with all sorts of missiles .

These were years of great difficulty for the royal family. During the baronial war Eleanor hastened to France where she used her influence with her continental relations to raise troops for her husband's cause but meanwhile her son Edward had defeated Simon de Montfort and his allies at Evesham. This war, and the Gascon campaigns of earlier years, needed money, so did Henry and Eleanor's plans for their younger son Edmund to take the Crown of Sicily, so did the assumption of Henry's brother Richard of the kingdom of the Romans. Between them they bled England of her gold.

In 1272 Henry died. He had been married to Eleanor for over thirty-five years, and for a marriage of policy theirs had been remarkably happy. Eleanor spent her last years as a nun at Amesbury Abbey, renouncing the pomp and display of her youth, and not inappropriately, doing penance for her sins.