Eleanor of Castile

1240 - 1290  (50 years)

• Name	Eleanor of Castile
  Born	10 Jan 1240	Burgos, Provincia de Burgos, Castilla y León, Spain
  Gender	Female
  Died	28 Nov 1290	Harby, Nottinghamshire, England
  Buried	Westminster Abbey, London, England
  	Grave location, biography and effigy photo: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8327744
  Notes	Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Castile She was the first queen consort of Edward I of England, whom she married as part of a political deal to affirm English sovereignty over Gascony. The marriage was known to be particularly close, and Eleanor traveled extensively with her husband. She was with him on the Eighth Crusade, when he was wounded at Acre, but the popular story of her saving his life by sucking out the poison has long been discredited. When she died, near Lincoln, her husband famously ordered a stone cross to be erected at each stopping-place on the journey to London, ending at Charing Cross. Eleanor was better-educated than most medieval queens, and exerted a strong cultural influence on the nation. She was a keen patron of literature, and encouraged the use of tapestries, carpets and tableware in the Spanish style, as well as innovative garden designs. She was also a successful businesswoman, endowed with her own fortune as Countess of Ponthieu. Eleanor was born in Burgos, daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile and Joan, Countess of Ponthieu. Her Castilian name, Leonor, became Alienor or Alianor in England, and Eleanor in modern English. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Eleanor of England. Edward and Eleanor were second cousins once removed, as Edward's grandfather King John of England and Eleanor's great-grandmother Eleanor of England were the son and daughter of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Following the marriage they spent nearly a year in Gascony, with Edward ruling as lord of Aquitaine. During this time Eleanor, aged thirteen and a half, almost certainly gave birth to her first child, a short lived daughter. There is little record of Eleanor's life in England until the 1260s, when the Second Barons' War, between Henry III and his barons, divided the kingdom. During this time Eleanor actively supported Edward's interests, importing archers from her mother's county of Ponthieu in France. She held Windsor Castle and baronial prisoners for Edward. Rumors that she was seeking fresh troops from Castile led the baronial leader, Simon de Montfort, to order her removal from Windsor Castle in June 1264 after the royalist army had been defeated at the Battle of Lewes. Edward was captured at Lewes and imprisoned, and Eleanor was honorably confined at Westminster Palace. After Edward and Henry's army defeated the baronial army at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, Edward took a major role in reforming the government and Eleanor rose to prominence at his side. Her position was greatly improved in July 1266 when, after she had borne three short-lived daughters, she gave birth to a son, John, to be followed by a second boy, Henry, in the spring of 1268, and in June 1269 by a healthy daughter, Eleanor. By 1270, the kingdom was pacified and Edward and Eleanor left to join his uncle Louis IX of France on the Eighth Crusade. Louis died at Carthage before they arrived, however, and after they spent the winter in Sicily, the couple went on to Acre in Palestine, where they arrived in May 1271. Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, known as "Joan of Acre" for her birthplace. They left Palestine in September 1272 and in Sicily that December they learned of Henry III's death (on 16 November 1272). Following a trip to Gascony, where their next child, Alphonso (named for Eleanor's half brother Alfonso X), was born, Edward and Eleanor returned to England and were crowned together on 19 August 1274. Arranged royal marriages in the Middle Ages were not always happy, but available evidence indicates that Eleanor and Edward were devoted to each other. Edward is among the few medieval English kings not known to have conducted extramarital affairs or fathered children out of wedlock. The couple were rarely apart; she accompanied him on military campaigns in Wales, famously giving birth to their son Edward on 25 April 1284 at Caernarfon Castle. Their household records witness incidents that imply a comfortable, even humorous, relationship. Each year on Easter Monday, Edward let Eleanor's ladies trap him in his bed and paid them a token ransom so he could go to her bedroom on the first day after Lent; so important was this custom to him that in 1291, on the first Easter Monday after Eleanor's death, he gave her ladies the money he would have given them had she been alive. In her memory, Edward ordered the construction of twelve elaborate stone crosses (of which three survive, though none of them is intact) between 1291 and 1294, marking the route of her funeral procession between Lincoln and London. Eleanor is warmly remembered by history as the queen who inspired the Eleanor crosses, but she was not so loved in her own time. Her reputation was primarily as a keen businesswoman. Eleanor of Castile's queenship is significant in English history for the evolution of a stable financial system for the king's wife, and for the honing this process gave the queen-consort's prerogatives. The estates Eleanor assembled became the nucleus for dower assignments made to later queens of England into the 15th century, and her involvement in this process solidly established a queen-consort's freedom to engage in such transactions. Few later queens exerted themselves in economic activity to the extent Eleanor did, but their ability to do so rested on the precedents settled in her lifetime. Her career can now be examined as the achievement of an intelligent and determined woman who was able to meet the challenges of an exceptionally demanding life. Children: 1. Daughter, stillborn in May 1255 in Bordeaux, France. Buried in Dominican Priory Church, Bordeaux, France. 2. Katherine (c 1261-5 September 1264) and buried in Westminster Abbey. 3. Joanna (January 1265-before 7 September 1265), buried in Westminster Abbey. 4. John (13 July 1266-3 August 1271), died at Wallingford, in the custody of his granduncle, Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Buried in Westminster Abbey. 5. Henry (before 6 May 1268-16 October 1274), buried in Westminster Abbey. 6. Eleanor (18 June 1269-29 August 1298). She was long betrothed to Alfonso III of Aragon, who died in 1291 before the marriage could take place, and in 1293 she married Count Henry III of Bar, by whom she had one son and one daughter. 7. Daughter (1271 Palestine ). Some sources call her Juliana, but there is no contemporary evidence for her name. 8. Joan (April 1272-7 April 1307). She married (1) in 1290 Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, who died in 1295, and (2) in 1297 Ralph de Monthermer, 1st Baron Monthermer. She had four children by each marriage. 9. Alphonso (24 November 1273-19 August 1284), Earl of Chester. 10. Margaret (15 March 1275-after 1333). In 1290 she married John II of Brabant, who died in 1318. They had one son. 11. Berengaria (1 May 1276-before 27 June 1278), buried in Westminster Abbey. 12. Daughter (December 1277/January 1278-January 1278), buried in Westminster Abbey. There is no contemporary evidence for her name. 13. Mary (11 March 1279-29 May 1332), a Benedictine nun in Amesbury. 14. Son, born in 1280 or 1281 who died very shortly after birth. There is no contemporary evidence for his name. 15. Elizabeth (7 August 1282-5 May 1316). She married (1) in 1297 John I, Count of Holland, (2) in 1302 Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford & 3rd Earl of Essex. The first marriage was childless; by Bohun, Elizabeth had ten children. 16. Edward II of England, also known as Edward of Caernarvon (25 April 1284-21 September 1327). In 1308 he married Isabella of France. They had two sons and two daughters. Eleanor's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 17 December 1290. Her body was placed in a grave near the high altar that had originally contained the coffin of Edward the Confessor and, more recently, that of King Henry III until his remains were removed to his new tomb in 1290. Eleanor's body remained in this grave until the completion of her own tomb. She had probably ordered that tomb before her death. It consists of a marble chest with carved mouldings and shields (originally painted) of the arms of England, Castile, and Ponthieu. The chest is surmounted by William Torel's superb gilt-bronze effigy, showing Eleanor in the same pose as the image on her great seal.
  Person ID	I36057	Master File
  Last Modified	9 Sep 2016

  
  

  Father	Saint Ferdinand III of Castile,   b. Between 1198-1201, Monastery of Valparaíso, Peleas de Arriba, Kingdom of Leon, Spain ,   d. 30 May 1252, Seville, Crown of Castile, Spain  (Age ~ 51 years)
  Mother	Jeanne (Joan) of Dammartin, Countess of Ponthieu,   b. ca 1220, Abbeville, Picardie, France ,   d. 16 Mar 1279, Abbeville, Picardie, France  (Age ~ 59 years)
  Family ID	F14862	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Edward I (Longshanks) Plantagenet, King of England,   b. 16 Jun 1239, Palace of Westminister, London, England ,   d. 07 Jul 1307, Burgh by Sands, Cumberland, England  (Age 68 years)
  Children	1. Princess Joan of Acre,   b. Apr 1272, Acre, Holy Land ,   d. 23 Apr 1307, Clare, Suffolk, England  (Age ~ 35 years)
  Last Modified	8 Sep 2016
  Family ID	F14861	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart