Simon and Eleanor

After Simon de Montfort failed to gain the hand of the Countess of Flanders, he was offered a different marriage partner: the sister of King Henry III of England, Eleanor of England.

Also called Eleanor Plantagenet (1215 – 13 April 1275), she was the youngest child of King John. She never knew her father, who died when she was only a year old. When she was nine she had been married to the 34-year-old William Marshal, whose father (also William Marshal) had organized the northern barons to support Young Henry when the French were invading England. Marshal senior died in 1219, and young William had succeeded him as 2nd Earl of Pembroke.

They were married in 1224, but William died in 1231, after producing no children. The now-16 Eleanor swore an oath of chastity to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

She met Simon seven years later, when she was 23. Simon wanted to marry her, Eleanor was willing to marry him, her brother Henry approved, and the two were married quietly on 7 January 1238 in Westminster Palace at the King's own chapel.

The English nobles objected to the king's sister marrying a foreigner. The king's brother, Richard of Cornwall, started to revolt as well, but Henry gave him 6000 marks to sit down and shut up.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund of Abingdon (c.1174 – 1240), objected because Eleanor had made that vow of chastity. He declared the marriage invalid. Simon chose to make a pilgrimage to Rome to ask for papal approval, which Gregory IX gave.

The couple had seven children, most of whom grew up and did well. Their union, however, did not mean that Simon was loyal to his brother-in-law. Simon was a principal of the Second Barons' War, which we should look at next.