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His father named his heir Edward after his favourite saint Edward the Confessor, who had been the king of England before the Norman Conquest in He was a delicate child and suffered a life-threatening illness in but was nursed back to health by his mother at Beaulieu Abbey. Edward grew to become a man of six foot two inches with long arms and legs.

He inherited black hair from his mother and the fiery Plantagenet temper of his father. He also spoke with a pronounced lisp. On 1 November , Edward married his second cousin, the year-old beauty Eleanor of Castile, to settle disputes about land in Gascony. They wed in Castile and Edward was given the lands of Gascony, which had been run inefficiently by Simon de Mountfort.

His father wanted Edward to have more experience of power and awarded him lands in Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands that year.

The married couple returned to England in October Even though their marriage had been a political alliance, Edward and Eleanor became deeply attached and had 16 children together. Their first two sons died in infancy, while the heir Alphonso died at the age of Their son Edward then became the heir. Edward was an impatient man, displaying considerable military prowess in defeating Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in and treating the rebels with great savagery.

He relentlessly pursued the surviving members of the de Montfort family, who were his cousins. In , pirates in Edward's pay intercepted a ship carrying Eleanor de Montfort, Simon's daughter, on its way to Wales where she would marry Llywelyn the Last. Llywelyn wanted the marriage largely to antagonise Edward. Edward imprisoned Eleanor until Llywelyn would concede his terms for peace. Unexpectedly, Llywelyn's younger brother, Dafydd started a rebellion in Llywelyn was killed shortly afterwards in a skirmish, and Dafydd was captured and killed.

John is known to have been buried in this chapel on 8th August. The Abbey master mason received payments for the workmen employed on John's tomb in Julian, Alice, Beatrice and Blanche were the other daughters who died young. Edward was on his way home from a Crusade when he heard of his father's death in but he did not hurry back and his coronation, with Eleanor, in the Abbey did not take place until 19th August Edward died on 7th July at Burgh on the Sands in Cumberland and his embalmed body was taken first to Waltham Abbey in Essex before being brought to Westminster for burial in the chapel of St Edward the Confessor on 27th October.

His large grey marble tomb chest, in which his bones lie, has no effigy or decoration and the, now rather faint, inscription was not painted on it until the 16th century:. In his tomb was opened and inside a Purbeck marble coffin his body was found nearly entire, wrapped in a waxed linen cloth and wearing royal robes of red and gold with a crimson mantle. He had a gilt crown on his head and carried a sceptre surmounted by a dove and oak leaves in enamels. A painted figure, which may represent him, is on the wooden Sedilia in the Abbey, to the south of the High Altar.

She was born about and died at Harby in Nottinghamshire in November Her body was embalmed and Edward erected stone memorial crosses at the places where her funeral procession rested on its way back to London, from Lincoln to Charing Cross.

Her heart was laid at Blackfriars but the monument there was destroyed at the Dissolution of the monastery. A monument for her at Lincoln was destroyed in this was nearly identical to the one at Westminster. She holds the string of her cloak in one hand but the sceptre in her other hand has now gone. It resembles the representation of her on her seal. The tomb slab and pillows beneath her head are covered with the emblems of Castile and Leon castles and lions.

On the ambulatory side is a carved iron grille of exquisite workmanship by Thomas of Leighton Buzzard. On the base of the tomb are remains of a painting showing outlines of figures including four pilgrims praying and a knight, Sir Otes de Grandison, Lord of Grandson c. He is identified by his armorial surcoat. Sir Otes was a close friend of Edward and accompanied him to the Holy Land his tomb is in Lausanne cathedral, Switzerland.

This painting may be by Master Walter of Durham. The original wooden canopy to the tomb has gone and the present one is in the Perpendicular style. In the Abbey archives is a document of AD. Edward was suffering badly from dysentery and his opponents were anticipating his end. A supposed prophecy of Merlin was in circulation, that after his death the Scots and the Welsh would unite and have things as they wished. A defiant Edward decided that he must take the field himself.

He mounted his warhorse and led his army north, but he could manage to ride only two miles a day and when he reached the village of Burgh-on-Sands, not far from Carlisle, he had to take to his bed.

It was said that he realized he was dying and sent word to his son to have his embalmed body carried with the army into Scotland so that even in death he could still lead his men. The suggestion was not carried out. About noon on July 7th, when his servants came to lift him up so that he could eat, the king died in their arms.

He was sixty-eight.