Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/184

Eleanor recoronation in St. Swithin's Church, Winchestor. In 1198 she was accused of being privy to the attempted escape of Philip, bishop of Beauvais, Philip Augustus's cousin (, iii. 231, iv. 40-1).

It was owing to Eleanor's influence that Richard had consented to pardon his brother John; and on the death of this king (6 April 1199) the aged mother at once exerted herself to secure the succession of her youngest son. When the barons of Anjou declared for her grandson Arthur, she joined Richard's mercenary leader Marchadeus, and laid waste the district. Early in the next year, though now almost eighty years old, she started for Castile, to make arrangements for the marriage of Alfonso's daughter Blanche, her own grandchild, with Philip Augustus's son Louis, afterwards Louis VIII. On her return she spent Easter at Bordeaux (9 April), and soon alter, 'worn out with the toils of her journey and old age,' betook herself to the abbey of Fontevraud, which already sheltered the bodies of her husband and two of her children. From this seclusion she was called once more by the outbreak of war between John and Philip in 1202. She was staying at Mirabeau, with only a scanty guard, when her grandson Arthur, accompanied by Geoffrey de Lusignan and Hugh Brown, laid siege to the castle, and would have had to surrender had not the king, hearing of her position, made a night march to her assistance, and taken her assailants captive (about 30 July 1202). Two years later Eleanor died (1 April 1204), and was buried at Fontevraud (, ii.424;, iii. 367, iv. 84, 89, 96, 107; , ii. 488; , ap. , xvii. 55; , p. 135; Annals of Waverley, p. 256).

Eleanor had two children by her first husband, Louis VII: Mary (d. 1198), who married Henry, count of Champagne; and Alice, who married Theobald, count of Blois. Her sons by Henry II have been mentioned above, except her first-born, William (1153-1156). Her daughters by Henry were Matilda (1156-1189), who married Henry of Saxony; Eleanor (1162-1214), who married Alfonso III of Castile; and Joan (1165-99), who married first William II of Sicily, and secondly Raymond of Toulouse.

[Authorities quoted above. They are nearly all to be found in the great collections of Bouquet and Migne. William of Newburgh and the English historians are quoted from the Rolls Ser. edition; Geoffrey of Vigeois from Labbé, Bibliotheca MSS.; Robert de Monte from Perte, vol. vi. The Chronicle of Tours is printed in Martène and Dorand's Amplissima Collectio. Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium has been edited for the Camden Society by T. Wright. For Brompton see Twysden's Decem Scriptores. For the Historia Gaufredi in Marchegay's Comtes d'Anjou; Richard of Devizes for the English Historical Society.]  ELEANOR (d. 1290), queen of Edward I, daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile, by his second wife, Joanna, half-sister of Alfonso X, and heiress through her mother of the counties of Ponthieu and Montreuil, a princess of great beauty and discretion, met her future husband at Burgos, and was married to him in the monastery of Las Huelgas in October 1254. Her marriage was politically important, for in consideration of it Alfonso transferred to Edward his claims on Gascony, and it also brought him the succession to her mother's possessions; Edward settled 1,000l. a year upon her, which was to be increased to 1,500l. on his attaining the throne (Fœdera, i. 519). She stayed for a year with her husband in Gascony, and came to England shortly before him, landing at Dover, and entering London 17 Oct. 1255, where she was received with much state, and was lodged in the house occupied by her brother Sanchey, archbishop-elect of Toledo, in the New Temple. Sanchey was visiting England with reference to the projected marriage of the king's daughter Beatrix, and his extravagance at the king's expense filled the Londoners with anger against Eleanor's fellow-countrymen (, v. 509, 513). She was joined by her husband before the end of November. When Edward returned from France, in February 1263, he placed her in Windsor Castle, and she appears to have remained there until after the battle of Lewes, when, on 18 June 1204, the king, who was then wholly under the power of the Earl of Leicester, was made to command her departure. She then took refuge in France, remained there until after the battle of Evesham, and returned to England 29 Oct. 1265. She accompanied her husband on his crusade in 1270. When, after he had been wounded by an assassin at Acre, it was proposed to cut all the inflamed flesh out of his arm, the surgeon ordered that she should be taken away from him, evidently lest her unrestrained grief should increase his danger, and she was led away 'weeping and wailing' (, i. 336). The famous story of her saving his life by sucking the poison from the wound is noticed as a mere report by the Dominican Ptolomæus Lucensis (d. 1327?) in his 'Ecclesiastical History' (xxiii. c. 6), and is evidently utterly unworthy of credit. She was crowned with her husband on 19 Aug. 1274. After her return in 1265