Eleanor of Provence

1223 – 1291 · Generation XIII

Eleanor of Provence (1223–1291). Married Henry III of Winchester in 1236. One of their children is recorded in this archive. Born at Aix-en-Provence to Count Ramon Berenguer V and Beatrice of Savoy, she was one of four sisters who all married kings. She came to England without a dowry, aged twelve or thirteen, and first set eyes on Henry at her Canterbury wedding. The Savoyard kinsmen in her train, advanced by royal favour, earned the barons’ resentment, and the Londoners detested her: in 1263 a mob pelted her barge on the Thames with stones, mud and rotten eggs. She governed as regent while Henry campaigned in Gascony in 1253, and when Simon de Montfort turned against the king she raised mercenaries in France on his behalf. Widowed in 1272, she brought up several grandchildren, expelled the Jews from her dower towns in 1275, and in 1286 retired as a nun to Amesbury Priory, where she died. Her grave there has been lost.

Place in the family

Eleanor of Provence was a 7× great-grandmother of King Henry VIII.
The archive records 140 of her descendants, across 27 generations.

Partners

Married King Henry III (1207 – 1272) in 1236 — one child together

Children

King Edward I Longshanks (1239 – 1307)

Life

1223 — Born
1236 — Married Henry III of Winchester
1291 — Died