Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/44

 with, it is said, words of faith in God upon his lips, on Friday, 7 July, at the age of sixty-eight (Chron. de Lanercost, p. 108), His son disobeyed his dying commands, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey on 27 Oct, By his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, he had four sons: John and Henry, who died in infancy; Alfonso, who lived to the age of twelve; and Edward, who succeeded him; and nine daughters, four of whom died young. The others were: Eleanor, born in 1266, betrothed to Alfonso of Aragon (Fœdera, ii. 214), married Henry III, count of Bar, in 1293, and died in 1298; Joanna, born at Acre in 1272, betrothed in 1278 to Hartmann, son of the Emperor Rudolf (ib. 1067), who was drowned in 1281, married first, Gilbert, earl of Gloucester, in 1289, and secondly, in 1296, against the will of her father, a simple knight, Ralph of Monthermer, who thus obtained the earldom of Gloucester (, ii. 70, records how she defended her conduct in making this marriage), she died in 1307; Margaret, born in 1275.), married John, afterwards duke of Brabant, in 1290, and died in 1318; Mary, born in 1279, took the veil at Amesbury in 1284 somewhat against the wish of her father, who yielded in this matter to the urgent request of the queen-mother; she was alive in 1328 (, p. 310; Monanticon, ii. 237-40); Elizabeth, born at Rhuddlan in 1282, and so called the 'Welshwoman' ('Walkiniana,', p. 163), married first, John, count of Holland, in 1296, and secondly, Humphrey Bohun, fourth earl of Hereford, in 1302, and died in 1316. By his second wife, Margaret, who survived him, Edward had two sons, [q. v.], earl of Norfolk, born at Brotherton in 1300, and  [q. v.], earl of Kent, born in 1301, and a daughter who died in infancy.



EDWARD II (1284–1327), king of England, fourth son of Edward I by his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, was born at the newly erected castle of Carnarvon on St. Mark's day, 25 April 1284. As his parents had spent the greater part of the two previous years in Wales and the borders, his birth at Carnarvon must be regarded as the result of accident rather than the settled policy which later traditions attribute to his father. Entirely apocryphal are the stories of the king presenting his infant son as the future native sovereign of the Welsh (they first appear in, Annals, pp. 202-3, and , Hist. Cambria, ed. 1584, p. 377. The tradition which fixes the room and tower of the castle in which Edward was born is equally baseless. On 19 Aug. the death of his elder brother Alfonso made Edward his father's heir. He was hardly six years old when the negotiations for his marriage with the infant Queen Margaret of Scotland were successfully completed. In March 1290 the magnates of Scotland assented to the match (Fœdera, i. 730), but on 2 Oct. Margaret's death destroyed the best hope of the union of England and Scotland. On 28 Nov. he lost his mother, Queen Eleanor.

At a, very early age Edward had a separate household of some magnificence assigned to him. So early as 1294 the townsfolk of Dunstaple bitterly complained of his attendants' rapacity and violence (Ann. Dunst. p. 392). In 1296 the negotiations for the marriage of Philippa, the daughter of Count Guy of Flanders, to Edward came to nothing (Ann. Wig. p. 529; Opus Chron. in, p, 55). On 22 Aug. 1297 Edward became nominal regent during his father's absence in Flanders. The defeat of Earl Warenne at Stirling and the baronial agitation for the confirmation of the charters made his task extremely difficult. On 10 Oct. Edward was obliged to issue the famous 'Confirmatio Cartanim.' In mid-Lent 1298 the king's return ended the regency. Next year a proposal of marrioge Between Edward and Isabella, the infant daughter of Philip the Fair, was the outcome of the arbitration of Boniface VIII between England and France (Fœdera, i. 954). Not until 20 May 1303, however, did the definite betrothal take place