Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/185

Eleanor she appears never to have been long absent from Edward. Though pious and virtuous, she was rather grasping. Archbishop Peckham interfered on behalf of some of her overburdened tenants, and told her that reparation must precede absolution. She had given scandal by joining with Jewish usurers, and getting estates from christians (Peckham Reg. ii. 619, iii. 939). She appears to have fallen sick of a low fever in the end of the summer of 1290, and was probably placed by the king at 'Hardeby' (, p. 120) or Harby in Nottinghamshire. After he had met his parliament at Clipstone he returned to Harby on 20 Nov., and remained with her until her death on the 28th. Her corpse was embalmed, and her funeral procession left Lincoln on 4 Dec.; her body was buried at Westminster on the 17th by the Bishop of Lincoln, and her heart was deposited in the church of the Dominicans. The route taken by the funeral procession is ascertained by the notices of the crosses that the king erected to her memory at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Albans, Waltham, West-cheap, and Charing. The effigy on her tomb, of remarkable beauty, appears to have been the work of an English goldsmith named William Torrell.

[For authorities see Strickland's Queens, i. 418; Ptolomæi Lucensis Hist. Eccl., Rerum Ital. SS., Muratori, xi. 743, and col. 1168. For details concerning Eleanor's sickness, death, funeral, and the chantries and other foundations in her honour see Archæologia, xxix. 186, and Engl. Hist. Rev. (April 1888), X. 315.]  ELEANOR (d. 1291), queen of England and wife of Henry III, was the daughter of Raymond Berenger IV, count of Provence, and his wife Beatrix, sister of Amadeus III of Savoy. Both her father and her mother figure among the Provençal poets, and Eleanor herself is reported to have composed an heroic poem while yet a child, in her native language. This poem, which is said to be still extant, she despatched to her future brother-in-law, Richard, earl of Cornwall. Her learning and accomplishments were doubtless largely due to the fact that she had for her instructors that Romeo whom seventy years later Dante celebrated for his merit and his misfortunes (Parad, vi.; ap., Lives of the Queens of England),

Towards the middle of June 1235 the negotiations for her marriage commenced, and by October proctors had been appointed to receive the lady's dower. As, however, this was not forthcoming, Eleanor was despatched to her husband apparently without any portion. The marriage was celebrated by Edmund Rich, archbishop of Canterbury, in his cathedral city, 14 Jan. 1236, and the coronation ceremony was performed at Westminster on the following Sunday, 20 Jan. (, i. 341, 344-6; . ii. 130;, iii. 334; Ann, of Tewkesbury and of Waverly, pp. 99, 316). The unpopularity from which the young queen seems to have suffered during the whole of her life in England perhaps had its beginning in the fact that she was accompanied by her uncle William, bishop elect of Valence. This prelate at once acquired an immense influence with the king, and there went round a rumour that, under his advice, Henry was meditating a change in the constitution of his kingdom (, iii. 234;, ii.53). Though this uncle had to leave England very soon (c. February 1237), he returned before long, after having carried off an immense treasure to his native land. The king, it was currently said, was becoming uxorious, and suffering his own realm to be ruined by strangers from Poitou, Provence, or elsewhere. Early in 1245 Eleanor procured the appointment of another uncle, Boniface of Savoy, as the successor to the saintly patriot, Edmund Rich, at Canterbury. Nor was her unpopularity lessened when it was discovered (1246) that the large annual payments made to her mother for the last live years were being diverted to the profit of her alien brother-m-law, Charles of Anjou. Against these causes of discontent should, however, be set certain other points which tell in her favour, such as the appointment of her physician and confessor, the learned Nicholas of Farnham, to the see of Durham (9 June 1241); and her successful effort in the same year to reconcile her husband with the earl marshal, the restoration of whose office and earldom she also procured 27 Oct. (, iii. 387, 388, iv. 86, 158, 259, 505).

In 1242 Eleanor accompanied her husband to Gascony (20 May); and it was his extravagance and delay on her account, about the time of her confinement at Bordeaux (June 25), that led to the failure of this expedition and the return home of the discontented nobles. Towards the end of the next year she went home in time to be present at the marriage of Eleanor's sister, Sancia, with Henry's brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall. About the same time she persuaded the king to transfer Gascony and Chester from his brother to her son Edward; but, notwithstanding this, when the king crossed over to Bordeaux next year (6 Aug. 1253) he left his wife and brother as joint-governors of the kingdom. Early in 1254 she was engaged in raising money for