Marriage of Edmund Crouchback
The 3rd February in 1276 is the reported date of the marriage of Edmund Crouchback to his second wife Blanche of Artois.
In the July of 1274, Blanche had been widowed when her husband Henry I of Navarre died following the death of the couples baby son the year before. That same year Edmund too had suffered the loss of his wife the fifteen-year-old wife Aveline de Forz, had died in November.
On Edmund and Blanche's marriage, Edmund became step-father to Blanche's one-year-old daughter Joan, whose daughter Isabella would become the wife of Edward II and lover of Roger Mortimer. Their marriage, it is said, was arranged but was thought to have been a happy one and resulted in three children, Thomas of Lancaster - executed on the order of the aforementioned Edward II. Henry, nicknamed Wryneck due to a condition we know now of as Torticollis, where the muscles of the neck cause the head to twist to one side, and John, who died in France in 1317.
The couples twenty-year marriage ended with Edmund's death in 1296 during the siege of Bordeaux and Blanche died in Paris in 1302.
Executed this day in 1322.
"And now I shall tell you of the noble Earl Thomas of Lancaster. When he was taken and brought to York, many of the city were full glad, and upon him cried with high voice "Ah, Sir Traitor! Now shall you have the reward that long time you have deserved!"
It was in 1322 at Pontefract Castle, King Edward I's 'key to the north' that Thomas of Lancaster finally received his 'reward.'
Lancaster had been a supporter of Edward II, but like many within the realm he was angered by the kings reliance on his favourites, namely Piers Gaveston. Lancaster was among a number of men who were intent of seeing off Gaveston, they succeeded in 1312, when he was executed near Kenilworth in Warwickshire, on land belonging to Lancaster. Gaveston's death is thought to be at the top of the list of reasons as to why Lancaster was executed.
Thomas of Lancaster would not be the last to meet his death because he was prepared to stand up to a monarch who was influenced by others, Richard Fitz Alan, one of the founding members of the Lords Appellant was executed in 1397 for standing up to Richard II and Richard Duke of York's revenge death in 1460 is another example.
Lancaster has been called a
"coarse, selfish and violent man, without any of the attributes of a statesman."
However, history it is said, is written by the victors, we can only wonder what would have been written of them if they had succeeded.