NameBlanche of Artois Capet ![](../img/i_tree.png)
Birthabt 1247
Death2 May 1302, Paris, France
BurialMinoresses Convent, Aldgate, London
Spouses
Birth16 Jan 1245, London, England
Death5 Jun 1296, Bayonne, France
Burial15 Jul 1296, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Notes for Edmund "Crouchback Leicester" (Spouse 1)
Edmund “Crouchback Leicester” Plantagenet, 1st Earl of Leicester
Crouchback, (meaning "Crossback," or crusader)
Edmund, 1st Earl of Lancaster
b. Jan. 16, 1245, London, Eng.
d. , c. June 5, 1296, Bayonne, Francebyname CROUCHBACK, fourth (but second surviving) son of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, who founded the house of Lancaster.
At the age of 10, Edmund was invested by Pope Innocent IV with the kingdom of Sicily (April 1255), as an expression of his conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor, who held Sicily; but Edmund was never more than an absentee titular king, and Pope Alexander IV canceled the grant (December 1258).
In 1265 Edmund received the earldom of Leicester, and two years later was created Earl of Lancaster. He joined the crusade of his elder brother, the Lord Edward (1271-1272); and Edward, on his accession as King Edward I, found in Edmund a loyal supporter. In 1275, two years after the death of his first wife, Edmund married Blanche of Artois, the widow of Henry III of Navarre and Champagne, and assumed the title Count Palatine of Champagne and Brie. When the court of King Philip IV of France pronounced that the king of England had forfeited Gascony, Edmund renounced his homage to Philip and withdrew with his wife to England. He was appointed lieutenant of Gascony in 1296 but died in the same year, leaving his son Thomas to succeed him in his English possessions.
Edmund's nickname "Crouchback" (meaning "Crossback," or crusader) was misinterpreted, probably intentionally, by his direct descendant, King Henry IV, who, in claiming the throne (1399), asserted that Edmund had really been Henry III's eldest son but had been disinherited as a hunchback.
In 1253 he was invested by the Pope in the Kingdom of Sicily and Apulia, at about this time he was also made Earl of Chester. These were of little value as the real King of Sicily was still living and the Earldom of Chester was transfered to his elder brother Edward. He soon obtained, however, both possessions and dignities, for upon the forfeiture of Simon de Montfort by the King of the Earldom of Leicester and also the honour of the Stewardship of England and the lands of Nicolas de Segrave. CP,vol.VII,pp.378-387,pp.547.
Notes for Henry I “the Fat” (Spouse 2)
and Count of Champaigne
Married 1269 to Navarre, Henry I the Fat of, King of Navarre
Child 1: , Joan I of Navarre, Queen of Navarre, b. 1271
Child 2: , Theobald