Edward I and Eleanor of Castile

Posted by Rachel Bellerby May 19, 2008

Yet, somehow, the marriage worked. The ten year old girl and the fifteen year old boy were kept apart after their wedding, as was the custom in arranged marriages where pre-teens were involved. As the daughter of Ferdinand III, King of Castile, Eleanor understood only too well what royal life involved.

There are so many opinions about the character of Edward I and he has been vilified as a man intent on proving his superiority over the Welsh and Scots during his reign. Yet, whatever his attitude to the people he considered his enemies, Edward was devoted to Eleanor.

Queen Eleanor followed her husband devotedly, throughout his reign. She accompanied him on journeys which would not have been considered safe for a medieval woman. Edward and Eleanor were actually on crusade when they heard that Edward’s father Henry III was dead and Edward was king. The couple’s first surviving son was born in a makeshift dwelling outside the building site where Caernarfon castle was under construction.

The circumstances of Eleanor’s death followed the pattern which her married life had taken. King Edward had been called to Scotland following the death of Margaret, heiress of Scotland. Eleanor followed at a slower pace, perhaps indicating that she was already in the grip of the illness which was to claim her life.

Following Eleanor’s death, the king appears to have been a man consumed by grief. A replica of one of the Eleanor crosses stands today in one of London’s busiest streets. A world so different to the one Edward and Eleanor knew, but their memory still lives on in the city.