Edmund Crouchback

Edmund was born in London to King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence on 16 January 1245,[2] named after the 9th century saint.[3] He was a younger brother of Edward (later Edward I of England), Margaret, and Beatrice, and an elder brother of Catherine.[4]

Edmund was invested ruler of the Kingdom of Sicily by the Bishop of Bologna in 1255, on behalf of Popes Innocent IV and Alexander IV. In return, his father undertook to pay the papacy 135,541 marks and fight a war to dislodge the Hohenstaufen king Manfred. Henry's barons refused, fearing Henry was following in the footsteps of his father King John, and ultimately Henry was only able to pay 60,000 marks. The papacy then withdrew the title from Edmund, and gave it to Edmund's uncle Charles of Anjou. Steven Runciman says the grant of the kingdom was revoked by Pope Alexander IV on 18 December 1258;[5] Baines and Harland state that this occurred in 1263, under Pope Urban IV.[6]^: 32

It was due to this "Sicilian Business" as referred by the barons that resulted in the Second Barons' War, since following the incident, Henry refused to give his power away to the barons who are led by Edmund's paternal uncle Simon de Montfort, the 6th Earl of Leicester. With his mother Eleanor, Edmund was in France to help raise troops to support his father.

On 25 October 1265, Edmund received the Earldom of Leicester[6] and later that of Lancaster[2] after the forfeiture of Simon de Montfort after his fall in the Battle of Evesham. He was granted the honour of the Stewardship of England and the lands of Nicolas de Segrave. He also acquired the estates of Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby, which included the Honour of Hinckley Castle. Edmund remained loyal to his brother, Edward I; the Charter grants of 1265, 1267, and 1268–9 were confirmed by the King in a document of Inspeximus in 1284, and by Parliament in the Great Charter of Leicester.[7]

In 1267, Edmund was granted lands in Lancashire and Wales including the royal demesne lands in Lancashire, and the lordships of Lancaster, Kenilworth Castle, Three Castles, and Monmouth (the latter two in Wales).[8] Despite legally owning Kenilworth Castle, Edmund led a 6-month siege alongside his father Henry III and his brother Lord Edward to contain the pro-baron garrison of the castle until the Dictum of Kenilworth made peace between the King and the Baronial forces.

After the end of the Second Barons' War, Edmund was appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire. Henry III created his second son Earl of Leicester in 1267, granting the honour and privileges of that city. The following year he was made Constable of Leicester Castle, a royal possession in the king's name. Crouchback by now had a reputation as a ruthless and ferocious warrior.[9]

In 1271, Edmund accompanied his elder brother Edward on his crusade to Palestine, of which the two brothers. Although taking a different route to the Holy Land, Edmund is recorded as being in Savoy on 16 August 1271.[10] Historians Peter Heylin and Simon Lloyd stated that it was because of this that he received the nickname 'Crouchback' (meaning "cross-back"), indicating that he was entitled to wear a cross, stitched into the back of his garments. If this is true, his nickname does not mean "hunched-back".[11][8]

Between 28 July and 29 October 1276, Edmund married Blanche of Artois in Paris, and thus became a stepfather to Blanche's daughter Joan.[12][13] Blanche was the Queen Dowager of Navarre and widow of King Henry I of Navarre and the niece of Edmund's uncle King Louis IX of France.[12][13] The engagement was orchestrated by his maternal aunt and the Queen Dowager of France Margaret of Provence to secure a wealthy bride for her nephew,[13] although there are reports that the two married out of mutual attraction.[13] Edmund and Blanche had four children: Mary, who died young, Thomas, Henry and John.[14]

In the name of his stepdaughter Joan, Edmund joined Blanche in administering the County of Champagne and Brie, one of the most powerful and wealthiest counties in France, as the Earl of Champagne.[13] The Kings of France struggled in controlling Champagne as a vassal until Joan's betrothal to Philip, the son of Philip III of France, which allowed Philip III to fully control the county.[13] Edmund would then query on Joan's age of majority so that he can attain management and revenue of the county for as long as possible until Philip III gave a definite assertion on Joan's age of majority and her position as the true countess of Champagne.[13]

In 1284, on the marriage of his stepdaughter Joan to Philip, Edmund renounced the title of Earl of Champagne, although he continued in possession of his wife's dowerlands.[2] Edmund frequently acted as an ambassador abroad. On behalf of his wife Blanche, Edmund became the governor of Ponthieu in 1291.[2]

His duty to the church included the foundation of a Nuns of Clara or Poor Clares nunnery at Minories, St Aldate's. In 1291, his estate paid for the establishment for the Chapel of Savoy, in memory of his mother, near St Clement Danes. Filial piety was part of the chivalric code of an honourable knight. Edmund was a generous benefactor to the monastery of Grace Dieu in Leicestershire, and to the nuns at Tarrant Crawford. He also helped establish a major Greyfriars monastery at Preston in the duchy of Lancaster.

In 1294 the French king, Philip IV, through trickery, defrauded King Edward out of his lands in Gascony. Edward immediately began to plan an invasion but ran into difficulties. First, some of the Welsh rebelled against him, then the Scots rebelled. Finally, by the end of 1295, he was ready to take up the conflict with Philip. He wanted to send Edmund to lead a small force ahead of the main army he was gathering, but Edmund fell ill in that autumn and was unwell until Christmas. Finally, Edmund was able to go to Bordeaux for his brother.[15] Amongst the nobles[6]^: 123 was the Earl of Lincoln and 26 banneret knights. During the siege of Bayonne the English ran out of money, so the army melted into the countryside. Broken-hearted, the warrior-prince Edmund Crouchback died on 5 June.

His embalmed body was taken to England six months later and kept at the convent of the Minoresses in London until being interred on 24 March 1301 in a specially constructed tomb in Westminster Abbey.[16]

Edmund married firstly on 8 April 1269 Aveline de Forz, daughter of William de Forz, 4th Earl of Albemarle and Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon. She died four years later aged just 15 and was buried at Westminster Abbey. The couple had no children, although some sources believe she may have died in childbirth or shortly after a miscarriage.

He married secondly on 3 February 1276 Blanche of Artois, in Paris, widow of King Henry I of Navarre, and daughter of Robert I of Artois and Matilda of Brabant. With Blanche he had four children:[12]

• Mary, died young in France
• Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster (born circa 1278, executed 22 March 1322)
• Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (born circa 1281, died 22 September 1345)
• John of Lancaster (born bef. May 1286, died in France shortly bef. 13 June 1317),[17] seigneur of Beaufort in Champagne (now Montmorency-Beaufort, Aube, arrondissement d'Arcis-sur-Aube, canton de Chavanges) and of Nogent-l'Artaud (Aisne, arrondissement de Château-Thierry, canton de Charly), France. Before July 1312, he married Alix de Joinville, widow of Jean d'Arcis, seigneur of Arcis-sur-Aube and Chacenay (died in or before 1307), and daughter of Jean de Joinville, seigneur de Joinville (Haute-Marne, arrondissement Vassy, ch.-I. canton), Seneschal of Champagne, by his second wife, Alix, daughter and heiress of Gautier, seigneur of Reynel. He died without issue. Three generations later the legitimated issue of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (husband of Blanche of Lancaster, younger daughter and eventual sole heiress of Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke and 4th Earl of Lancaster) adopted the surname "de Beaufort" after this possession of the Earls of Lancaster, thus founding the House of Beaufort.

• Craig, Taylor (2006). Debating the Hundred Years War. Vol. 29: Pour Ce Que Plusieurs (La Loy Salicque) And a Declaration of the Trew and Dewe Title of Henry VIII. Cambridge University Press.
• Howell, Margaret (1992). "The Children of King Henry III and Eleanor of Provence". In Coss, Peter R.; Lloyd, Simon D. (eds.). Thirteenth Century England: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference, 1991. Vol. 4. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp. 57–72. ISBN 0-85115-325-9.
• Howell, Margaret (2001). Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-631-22739-7.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families. ISBN 978-1-4610-4513-7.
• Woodacre, Elena (2013). The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics, and Partnership, 1274–1512. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-33915-7.
• W.E. Rhodes, "Edmund, Earl of Lancaster", English Historical Review, x (1895)
• R. Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, i, 1953

• Inquisition Post Mortem