| Eleanor of England | |
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| Tenure | 1293 – 12 October 1298 |
| Spouse | Henry III, Count of Bar m. 1293; wid. 1298 |
| Issue | |
| Edward I, Count of Bar Joan of Bar, Countess of Surrey Eleanor (?) |
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| House | House of Plantagenet (by birth) House of Montbelliard (by marriage) |
| Father | Edward I of England |
| Mother | Eleanor of Castile |
| Born | 18 June 1269 Windsor Castle, Windsor |
| Died | 29 August 1298 (aged 29) Ghent, Flanders |
| Burial | 12 October 1298 Westminster Abbey, London |
Eleanor of England (18 June 1269 – 29 August 1298) was the eldest surviving daughter of Edward I of England and his first wife, Eleanor of Castile.[1] What evidence exists for her early years suggests that while her parents were absent on Crusade between 1270 and 1274, she became very close to her grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, with whom she continued to spend a good deal of time even after the king and queen returned to England.
For a long period Eleanor was betrothed to King Alfonso III of Aragon (died 18 June 1291). Alfonso's parents were under papal interdict, however, because of their claims to the throne of Sicily, which were contrary to the papal donation of the Sicilian throne to Charles of Anjou, and despite the Aragonese ruler's repeated pleas that Edward I send his daughter to them for marriage, Edward refused to send her as long as the interdict remained in place. In 1282 he declined one such request by saying that his wife and mother felt the girl, who had just turned 13, was too young to be married, and that they wanted to wait another two years before sending her to Aragon. Alphonso died before the marriage could take place.
Eleanor subsequently married the French nobleman, Henry III, Count of Bar on September 20, 1293, as a means of allying Bar and England against the Kings of France. Eleanor and Henry had at least two children:
Eleanor was credited with a daughter, Eleanor, who married a Welshman named Llywelyn ap Owain; King Henry VII, the first Tudor king of England, was recorded later as their descendant. Whilst no contemporary evidence for this daughter exists, except several later recorded pedigree by the college of Arms, caution is excised as it is possible Tudor historians may have invented her to give Henry VII additional royal blood on his father's side. Eleanor s existence was not disputed by the Tudor and Welsh genealogists at the time.
Eleanor's marriage to Count Henry III made Philip IV of France distrustful of him, and he was made prisoner by the French within a few years after the marriage. Eleanor then lived in Ghent, where she was supported by her father, but appears to have returned to England by the beginning of 1298. She was buried in Westminster Abbey. Her husband survived her until 1302.