Eleanor of Lancaster, Countess of Arundel (sometimes called Eleanor Plantagenet; 11 September 1318 – 11 January 1372) was the fifth daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster and Maud Chaworth.

First marriage and issue

Eleanor married, first, on 6 November 1330 John de Beaumont, 2nd Baron Beaumont (d. 1342). He was the son of Henry Beaumont, 4th Earl of Buchan, 1st Baron Beaumont (c. 1288 – 1340) by his wife Alice Comyn (1289 – 3 July 1349). John died in a tournament on 14 April 1342. They had one son, born to Eleanor in Ghent whilst serving as lady-in-waiting to Queen Philippa of Hainault: In 1341, Eleanor was granted £100 yearly for life by the Exchequer, in recognition of her service to Queen Philippa of Hainault. In 1344 she went on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, nominating attorneys in England to manage her estates.

Second marriage

On 5 February 1345 at Ditton Church, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, she married Richard Fitzalan, 3rd Earl of Arundel. The wedding was attended by King Edward III. Richard's previous marriage, to Isabel le Despenser, daughter of Hugh 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. Pope Clement VI obligingly annulled the marriage, bastardized the issue, and provided a dispensation for his second marriage to the Eleanor, with whom he had been living in adultery. The dispensation, dated 4 March 1345, was required because his first and second wives were first cousins. The children of Eleanor's second marriage were:

Later life

Eleanor died at Arundel in Jan 1371/2 and was buried at Lewes Priory in Lewes, East Sussex, England. Her husband survived her by four years, and was buried beside her; in his will Richard requests to be buried "near to the tomb of Eleanor de Lancaster, my wife; and I desire that my tomb be no higher than hers, that no men at arms, horses, hearse, or other pomp, be used at my funeral, but only five torches...as was about the corpse of my wife, be allowed." The memorial effigies raised to Eleanor and her husband Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel, now in Chichester Cathedral, are the subject of the celebrated Philip Larkin poem "An Arundel Tomb."

Ancestry

Sources