134Despite taking a vow of perpetual chastity on widowhood she married Simon de Montford!

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Eleanor of Leicester

Eleanor of Leicester (also called Eleanor Plantagenet and Eleanor of England) (1215 – 13 April 1275) was the youngest child of King John of England and Isabella of Angoulême.

Early life

At the time of Eleanor's birth at Gloucester, King John's London was in the hands of French forces, John had been forced to sign the Magna Carta and Queen Isabella was in shame. Eleanor never met her father, as he died at Newark Castle when she was barely a year old. The French, led by Philip Augustus, were marching through the south. The only lands loyal to her brother, Henry III, were in the Midlands and southwest. The barons ruled the north, but they united with the royalists under William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, who protected the young king Henry, and Philip was defeated.
Before William the Marshal died in 1219 Eleanor was promised to his son, also named William. They were married on 23 April 1224 at New Temple Church in London. The younger William was 34 and Eleanor only nine. He died in London on 6 April 1231, days before their seventh anniversary. There were no children of this marriage. The widowed Eleanor swore a holy oath of chastity in the presence of Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Simon de Montfort
Seven years later, she met Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester. According to Matthew Paris, Simon was attracted to Eleanor's beauty and elegance as well as her wealth and high birth. They fell in love and married secretly on 7 January 1238 at the King's chapel in Westminster Palace. Her brother King Henry later alleged that he only allowed the marriage because Simon had seduced Eleanor. The marriage was controversial because of the oath Eleanor had sworn several years before to remain chaste. Because of this, Simon made a pilgrimage to Rome seeking papal approval for their union. Simon and Eleanor had seven children:
1. Henry de Montfort (November 1238-1265)
2. Simon the younger de Montfort (April 1240-1271)
3. Amaury de Montfort, Canon of York (1242/1243-1300)
4. Guy de Montfort, Count of Nola (1244–1288)
5. Joanna, born and died in Bordeaux between 1248 and 1251.
6. Richard de Montfort (1252–1281)
7. Eleanor de Montfort Princess of Wales (1258–1282)

Simon de Montfort had the real power behind the throne, but when he tried to take the throne, he was defeated with his son at the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. Eleanor fled to exile in France where she became a nun at Montargis Abbey, a nunnery founded by her deceased husband's sister Amicia, who remained there as abbess. There she died on 13 April 1275, and was buried there. She was well treated by Henry, retained her incomes, and her proctors were allowed to pursue her litigation concerning the Leicester inheritance in the English courts; her will and testament were executed without hindrance.
Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of Edward IV, was her descendan

Fiction
Eleanor appears as a major character in Sharon Kay Penman's novel Falls the Shadow, where she is called Nell.
Eleanor is also the main character in Virginia Henley's The Dragon and the Jewel, which tells of her life from just before her marriage to William Marshal to right before the Battle of Lewes in 1264. Her romance and marriage to Simon de Montfort are very much romanticized in this novel, especially since in real life Simon is killed the year following the Battle of Lewes and the pair had already had all 7 of their children; in the book, Eleanor and Simon have only just had their first two sons.
Eleanor makes a second appearance in Virginia Henley's historical romance The Marriage Prize. Her role in the book is that of the legal guardian to a young Marshall niece, Rosamond Marshall, who was left an orphan and lived with Simon and Eleanor de Montfort until her marriage to a wealthy noble knight, Rodger de Leyburn. However, in this novel her loyalty to her husband Simon and his last war with the king "battle of Evesham" where he died depicts her love and strength before and after the outcome of the battle.

William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (2nd Creation)

The Earl of Pembroke
Born
1190
Died
6 April 1231

Allegiance
 England
Battles/wars
First Barons' War
Battle of Lincoln
William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (French:Guillaume) (1190 – 6 April 1231) was a medieval English nobleman, one of the Magna Carta sureties and the son of the famous William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.

Early life
Arms of William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke
William was born in Normandy probably during the spring of 1190. He was given as hostage to King John after his father paid homage to King Philip of France in 1205 and was from 1205 to 1212 at the court of King John as a guarantee of his father's behaviour. William married Alice de Bethune, daughter of his father's friend Baldwin of Bethune, in September 1214. The marriage ended before 1215 when Alice died of unknown causes.
During the baronial rebellion of 1215, William was on the side of the rebels while his father was fighting for the king. When Louis of France took Worcester castle in 1216, however, the younger William was warned by his father to withdraw, which he did just before Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester retook the castle. In March 1217, he was absolved from excommunication and rejoined the royal cause. At the Battle of Lincoln he was fighting with his father.

Earl Marshal
At his father's death in 1219 he succeeded the elder William as both Earl of Pembroke and as Lord Marshal of England. These two powerful titles, combined with his father's legendary status, could not help but make William one of the most prominent and powerful nobles in England. In 1224, William married Eleanor of England, youngest daughter of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, thereby strengthening the family's connection with the Plantagenets.
In 1223, William crossed over from his Irish lands to campaign against Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, who had attacked his holding of Pembroke. He was successful, but his actions were seen as too independent by the young Henry III's regents. in 1224 Hugh de Lacy began attacking William's and the King's lands in Ireland. William was appointed Justiciar of Ireland, and managed to subdue Hugh. He founded the Dominican priory of the Holy Trinty in Kilkenny in 1225 and began construction of Carlow and Ferns castles.
In 1226 he was ordered to surrender the custody of the royal castles of Cardigan and Carmarthen, that he had captured from Llywelyn, to the crown. He was also removed from his role as justiciar in 1226 for his opposition to the treatment of Aodh O'Connor during a campaign in Connacht.
William accompanied the king to Brittany in 1230, and assumed control of the forces when the king returned to England. Then, in February 1231, William also returned to England. Here he arranged the marriage of his sister Isabel, widow of Gilbert de Clare, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother to King Henry III. William died 6 April 1231. [nb 1]

Posterity
William had no heirs, and his titles passed to his younger brother, Richard. This was credited to a curse bestowed upon the family by Bishop of Ferns, Ailbe Ua Maíl Mhuaidh (died 1223). All of William's brothers successively inherited the title, but, as Ua Maíl Mhuaidh predicted, none had children and the male line of the family died out upon the death of Anslem Marshall in 1245.
During his lifetime, William Marshal commissioned a biography of his father to be written, called L'Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal. He was buried in the Temple Church in London, next to his father, where his effigy may still be seen.