Eleanor of England, Countess of Bar

Eleanor of England (18 June 1269 – 29 August 1298) was an English princess, the eldest surviving daughter of King Edward I of England^[1] and his first wife, Queen Eleanor of Castile.^[2]

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 paternal grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, with whom she continued to spend a good deal of time. She was also close to her sickly brother Henry. On one Pentecost Eve, Henry and Eleanor were given two partridges for their dinner, for a special treat.^[3]

For a long period Eleanor was betrothed to King Alfonso III of Aragon.^[4] 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 I of Naples, 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. Alfonso died before the marriage could take place.

Eleanor subsequently married the French nobleman, Henry III, Count of Bar on September 20, 1293,^[5] and had two children:

• Edward I, Count of Bar
• Joan

According to Kenneth Panton, Eleanor is credited with a daughter called Eleanor (b.1285), who supposedly married a Welshman named Llywelyn ap Owain.^[6]

She was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Family tree

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References