Eleanor of England (Geldern)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eleonore and her husband Rainald II in prayer. Illumination from the Taymouth Book of Hours .

Eleanor of England ( English Eleanor of Woodstock ) (born June 18, 1318 in Woodstock , † April 22, 1355 in Deventer ) was an English princess and by marriage Countess or Duchess of Geldern .

Origin and childhood

Eleanor was the third child and eldest daughter of King Edward II of England and his wife Isabella of France . It was named after her grandmother Eleanor of Castile . When the royal favorite Hugh le Despenser gained increasing influence over Eleonore's father in the 1320s, he restricted contact between her father and her mother. When a war broke out between England and France over the English possessions in France in 1324 , Despenser withdrew the Queen's supervision of her three younger children towards the end of September 1324. He justified this with the claim that Isabella, a native of France, could possibly instigate her children to betray her father. Eleanor and her younger sister Johanna were initially given into the care of Isabel le Despenser . She was a sister of Hugh le Despenser and married to Ralph de Monthermer , a brother-in-law of the king. For the next two years Eleanor lived at Pleshey and Marlborough Castle , the possessions of Monthermer. When Eleanor's mother overthrew her husband's rule in the autumn of 1326, the city of Bristol opened its gates to her in October. Her two daughters Eleonore and Johanna, who had previously been in the care of Hugh le Despenser the Elder , Isabel le Despenser's father, were handed over to her . In the summer of 1328, Eleonore and her mother accompanied her sister Johanna to Berwick , where she was married to the Scottish heir to the throne, David .

Marriage to the Count of Geldern

In the summer of 1330 Eleonores was married to a son of the French king Philip VI. considered to reassert peace between England and France. Since the peace negotiations failed, the marriage plans were also invalid. In May 1332 Eleonore was married to Count Rainald II von Geldern in Nijmegen . The marriage was made by Count Wilhelm III. mediated by Hainaut , a cousin of Eleonore's mother. Her husband was King Edward III with Eleonores brother at the beginning of the Hundred Years War . allied and was made Duke of Geldern in 1339 . Nevertheless, and although Eleanor had two sons with her husband, the marriage was not a happy one. In 1338 Count Rainald banished her from his court on the grounds that she was recognized as having leprosy . To do this, he tried to have the marriage annulled in order to marry another woman. Then Eleanor appeared in the ducal palace of Nijmegen . In front of the assembled courtyard she opened her coat. The chroniclers disagree as to whether she was completely naked underneath or wore a transparent veil, in any case it was obvious that she did not suffer from leprosy. Her husband then had to take her back to his court.

Tombstone of Eleonore in the Broederenkerk in Deventer

Involvement in the power struggle of their sons and death

After the death of her husband after a riding accident in 1343, Eleanor tried for her underage son Rainald III. to take over the reign. From 1350 she supported the claims of her younger son Eduard , which led to a feud between the two brothers. Rainald refused his mother's attempts at reconciliation and confiscated her property, whereupon Eleonore had to retreat to the Cistercian convent of Deventer. Apparently she didn't want her brother Edward III. ask for help and died in poverty in the monastery. She was buried in the Broederenkerk , the church of the Minorite monastery in Deventer.

progeny

Eleonore had two sons from her marriage to Rainald II von Geldern:

literature

  • Ralf G. Jahn : The genealogy, the bailiffs, counts and dukes of money. In: Johannes Stinner, Karl-Heinz Tekath (ed.): Gelre - Geldern - Gelderland. History and culture of the Duchy of Geldern (= Duchy of Geldern. Vol. 1 = Publications of the State Archives of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Series D: Exhibition catalogs of the State Archives. Vol. 30). Verlag des Historisches Verein für Geldern and the surrounding area, Geldern 2001, ISBN 3-9805419-4-0 , pp. 29–50.

Web links

Commons : Eleanor of England, Duchess of Guelders  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 117.
  2. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 160.
  3. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 234.
  4. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 312.
  5. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 330.
  6. ↑ Frederick M. Powicke, Edmund B. Fryde (Ed.): Handbook of British Chronology (Guides and Handbooks; 2). 2nd ed. Royal Historical Society, London 1961, p. 35.
  7. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 356.
  8. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 357.
  9. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 369.
personal data
SURNAME Eleanor of England
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eleanor of Woodstock
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English princess and by marriage Duchess of Geldern
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1318
PLACE OF BIRTH Woodstock (Oxfordshire)
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1355
Place of death Deventer