Shortly after Edward’s recovery, she gave birth to a daughter. She was named Joanna and because of her birthplace was ever after known as Joanna of Acre.
It was the month of November. Edward knew as soon as the messenger arrived. He had feared for some time for he had been warned of his father’s weakness. But when the news came he was struck with desolation. Dearly they had loved each other and it seemed the greatest tragedy of his life that his beloved father was no more.
Eleanor came to him. He took her hand and kissed it.
‘We must go home,’ he said. ‘I am needed there.’
She looked at him searchingly, and he answered: ‘You see before you the King of England.’
And they both wept for Henry.
Bibliography
Aubrey, William Hickman Smith, National and Domestic History of England
Barlow, F., The Feudal Kingdom of England
Bémont, Charles (translated by E. F. Jacob), Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester
Brooke, F. W., From Alfred to Henry III
Bryant, Arthur, The Medieval Foundation
Davis, H. W. C., England Under the Angevins
Funck-Bretano, Fr. (translated by Elizabeth O’Neill), The National History of France – The Middle Ages
Hume, David, History of England from the Invasion of Juluis Caesar to the Revolution
Jenks, Edward, Edward Plantagenet
Labarge, Margaret Wade, Simon de Montfort
Norgate, Kate, England under the Angevin Kings
Powicke, Sir Maurice, The Thirteenth Century 1216–1307
Prothero, George Walter, The Life of Simon de Montfort
Seely, R. B., The Life and Reign of Edward I
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Stevens, Sir Leslie and Lee, Sir Sidney, The Dictionary of National Biography
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Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the Queens of England
Tout, Professor T. F., Edward the First
Wade, John, British History
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