♀Eleanor of England

Eleanor of England (13 October 1162 – 25 October 1214) was an English king’s daughter who became Queen of Castile, and who died twenty days after her husband, King Alfonso. She was the twenty-fifth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Berenguela of Castile (died 1246).

Early life and marriage

Eleanor, also written Leonor, was born at Domfront in Normandy, a daughter of Henry II of England^W and Eleanor of Aquitaine^W. In September 1170, at Burgos, she married Alfonso of Castile, King of Castile, Toledo and Extremadura, who had begun to rule in his own right the year before. He was seven years her senior.

Queen of Castile

Charters of 1187 were issued in the names of both king and queen, and charters of 1192, 1195 and 1199 add their son Fernando. About 1180 Alfonso is said to have founded the royal monastery of Las Huelgas^W near Burgos at her urging. Their daughter Constanza became its abbess.

Death

Alfonso died at Gutierre Munoz, near Arevalo, on 5 October 1214. Eleanor died at Burgos on 25 October 1214, twenty days after her husband. The two were buried together at Las Huelgas.

The family

The couple had fourteen children, seven sons and seven daughters. The eldest daughter, Berenguela, became Queen of Castile and gave up the crown to her son Fernando, from whom the line of descent here runs. Another daughter, Blanche (Blanca), married Louis VIII, King of France^W, and Leonor married Jaime I, King of Aragon^W. Constanza became Abbess of Las Huelgas.

Notes

Sources and grade

Eleanor’s parentage, birth, marriage, title, children, death and burial come from Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed.), vol. I, Castile 3, pp. 491-492, with her place among Henry II’s children on p. 17: a modern compiled genealogy. The dates are the compiler’s: born at Domfront 13 October 1162, died at Burgos 25 October 1214. Richardson cites printed charters of 1187, 1192, 1195 and 1199 issued by Alfonso with his wife, and Rymer’s Foedera, where King John calls her “sister”; the founding of Las Huelgas at her urging is in his entry on Alfonso.

The line of descent

Eleanor and Alfonso’s daughter Berenguela married Alfonso IX of Leon; their son was Fernando III of Castile and Leon, whose daughter Eleanor became the wife of Edward I of England. The line to the Blanchard family continues through Joan of England, Eleanor de Clare, Elizabeth le Despenser and the Berkeley family.