Remarks:
1st Earl of Lancaster. Edmund Plantagenet, surnamed Crouchback, second son of King Henry III, was born at London, in February, 1245, and when he had attained his eighth years, was solemnly invested by the Pope, in the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia. About this time, too, he was made Earl of Chester. But neither of these honours turned out eventually of much value, for the real King of Sicily, Conrad, was then living; and the Earldom of Chester is said to have been transferred to the prince's elder brother, Edward, afterwards Edward I. He soon obtained, however, both possessions and dignities, for upon the forfeiture of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, the king, by letters patent, granted him the inheritance of the Earldom of Leicester, as also the honour and stewardship of England, with the lands likewise of Nicholas de Segrave, an associate in the treason of Montfort. The next ensuing year he had another grant from the crown of all the good and chattels whereof Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, was possessed upon the day of the skirmish at Chesterfield. He subsequently had grants of the honour of Derby, with the castles, manors, and lands of the said Robert de Ferrers, and the honour of Leicester, with all the lands of Simon de Montfort, late Earl of Leicester, to hold to himself and the heirs of his body. About the 54th Henry III, the earl went into the Holy Land and returned within two years. In the reign of Edward I, he was in the Scottish wars and had the grants which he had received from his father confirmed, with additional castles, manors, and lands of great extent. In the 21st of that reign [1293], he procured licence from the crown to make a castle of his house in the parish of St. Clement's Danes, in the co. Middlesex, called the Savoy, and founded the nunnery, called the Minoresses, without Aldgate, in the suburbs of London. He was afterwards in the Welsh wars, and then proceeded to France, being sent with the Earl of Lincoln and twenty-six bannerets into Gascony. He eventually invested Bordeaux, but not succeeding in its reduction, the disappointment affected him so severely that it brought on a disease which terminated his life in the years 1295. The prince's remains were brought over to England and honourably interred in Westminster Abbey. Upon his deathbed he directed, "that his body should not be buried 'till his debts were paid." This earl m. 1st, in April, 1269, Aveline (dau. of William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle), Countess of Holderness, heir to her father, and by her mother, Countess of Devon and the Isle of Wight, but this great heiress d. the following year s. p. The prince m. 2ndly, 1276, Blanche, dau. of Robert, Earl of Artois (3rd son of Lewis VIII, King of France), and widow of Henry, King of Navarre, by whom he had surviving issue, Thomas, his successor, Henry, as restored Earl of Lancaster, and John, who d. in France. His highness was s. by his elder son, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 431, Plantagenet, Earls of Chester, &c.][JohnFaye (8 Jun 05).FTW]