Edmund Crouchback

Henry III wanted another son. His first son, Edward, was followed by a daughter, Margaret, and Henry needed at least "an heir and a spare." So he prayed to the 9th-century East Anglian king Edmund the Martyr, who was canonized a saint not long after his death. Henry and Eleanor of Provence's next child was a son born in London on 16 January 1245 (illustration is of Edmund's birth by Matthew Paris), named Edmund after the saint.

Edmund grew up at Windsor Castle with his siblings and parents—Henry rarely spent time away from the family—and was very attached to them all. He would become his older brother Edward's faithful administrator.

When Edmund was nine, the "Sicilian Business" happened, in which Pope Alexander IV was looking for a suitable (to him) ruler of Sicily and the Regno (southern Italy).

Edmund actually made preparations to become king of Sicily while his father tried to persuade the barons to give him money and soldiers. His mother took him to Gascony in May 1254 to be closer to the Mediterranean for the eventual invasion. In October 1255, Henry started calling Edmund "king." In April 1257, Edmund was back in England, being displayed to Parliament in Italian garb to try to raise money, and a marriage to Manfred of Sicily (currently acting as ruler of Sicily) was suggested in order to make him seem the natural successor to Sicily. None of that worked.

Meanwhile, Pope Alexander had been financing Henry's preparations, but was giving up on ever seeing Henry take the lead and succeed. He demanded £90,000 from Henry in compensation. Henry's failed attempt to raise the money only accomplished two things: turning the barons against him and helping to motivate the Second Barons' War, and prompting the pope to rescind the offer and make it instead to Charles of Anjou. (Henry extorted money from the clergy to try to pay off the debt to Alexander after being threatened with excommunication.)

During the Second Barons' War, Edmund went to France with his mother to raise funds to fight. After the war and the death of Simon de Montfort, his title Earl of Leicester was eliminated and Edmund became the 1st Earl of Leicester of the Second Creation in 1267.

An adult now with his own title, it was time for him to do what several nobles of his era did: go on Crusade. How that went, and how it created his nickname, will be tomorrow's topic.