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Eleanor of Lancaster (sometimes called Eleanor Plantagenet1) (about 1318 - 11 January 1371/1372) was born in Arundel, West Sussex, England, the daughter of Henry, Earl of Lancaster (c. 1281-1345) and his wife Maud de Chaworth (1282- c. 1317).
Before June 1337, she married John de Beaumont, Earl of Buchan, 2nd Lord Beaumont, son of Henry de Beaumont (c. 1288 - bef. 1340) and his wife Alice Comyn (c. 1291-1349).
They had two children, Henry (1340-1369), who succeeded his father as Lord Beaumont, and Matilda.
John de Beaumont died in a tournament on 14 April 1342.
On 5 February 1344/1345 at Ditton Church, Stoke Poges, Buckingham, she married Richard FitzAlan, 3rd Earl of Arundel, 4th Earl of Surry, known by the soubriquet of "Copped Hat", Justiciar of North Wales, Governor of Carnarvon Castle, Admiral of the West.2
His previous marriage, to Isabel le Despenser, had taken place when they were children. It was annulled by Papal mandate as she, since her father's attainder and execution, had ceased to be of any importance to him. The Pope obligingy annulled the marriage, bastardized the issue, and provided a dispensation for his second marriage to the woman with whom he had been living in adultery (the dispensation, dated 4 March 1344/5, was required because his first and second wives were first cousins).
The children of Eleanor's second marriage were:
Eleanor died at Arundel and was buried at Lewes Priory in Lewes, Sussex, England.
Notes
- 1The surname "Plantagenet" has been retrospectively applied to the descendants of Geoffrey of Anjou without historical justification: it is simply a convenient, if deceptive, method of referring to people who had, in fact, no surname. The first descendant of Geoffrey to use the surname was Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York (father of Edward IV of England) who apparently assumed it about 1448.
- 2also called Richard de Arundel.
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