Eleanor

• Birth Notes

  File: Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England _ Royal Descent
    Date of Birth: 1241
    Place of Birth: Castile
    Notes: “The logical conclusion to be drawn from a straightforward examination of contemporary Castlian evidence is that Eleanor of Castile must have been born in 1240 or 1241. The accounts kept by the queen’s executors show that, on the first anniversary of her death, the number of paupers paid to carry candles in the procession was forty-nine (Botfield and Turner, ‘Manners and Household Expenses in England’, p. 99), an unusual number which may well correspond to Eleanor’s age at her death in November 1290. If she was then aged forty-nine, the year of her birth would have been 1241, which accords exactly with the period indicated by the Castilian sources.”1

• Death Notes

  File: Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England _ Royal Descent
    Date of Death: 11/28/1290
    Place of Death: Harby, Nottinghamshire
    Notes: “Queen Eleanor died in the house of Richard de Weston at Harby. On 28 November a messenger rode to Lincoln for medicines. But Eleanor died that evening”3.
    Burial: Date: 12/17/1290
               Place: Westminster Abbey
    Notes: “The cortège left Lincoln on 3 December, after the viscera were buried in the cathedral. The procession continued by way of Waltham, reaching London on 14 December. On Sunday, 17 December the queen was buried in Westminster Abbey amid such splendor, the Barnwell annalist thought, as was not seen in England since the coming of the Christian faith. Two days later her heart was deposited in the Dominicans’ London with those of her son Alphonso and her friend John de Vescy”3.