Aveline de Forz, Countess of Aumale

Aveline de Forz, Countess of Aumale and Lady of Holderness (20 January 1259 – 10 November 1274) was an English noblewoman. A great heiress, in 1269 she was married to Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster, the second son of Henry III of England. She died five years later, and the marriage produced no children.

Life[]

Aveline de Forz was born on 20 January 1259 at Burstwick in Holderness. Her parents were William de Forz, 4th Earl of Albemarle and Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon.^[1]

Marriage[]

Queen Eleanor, the consort of Henry III of England, arranged the marriage between Aveline and their second son Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster. Eleanor negotiated with Aveline's mother Isabella and grandmother Amice to secure the alliance.^[2] On 8 or 9 April 1269, Aveline was married to Edmund at Westminster Abbey.^[3] Given that Aveline was only ten years old,^[4] the marriage was not consummated until 1273, when she turned fourteen.^[5] With marriage to the great heiress, the already wealthy Edmund hoped to gain the earldoms of Devon and Aumale as well as the lordships of Holderness and the Isle of Wight.^[3][4] Her last surviving brother, Thomas, died in 1269, and she inherited his titles, becoming Countess of Aumale.^[1] Her lands fell into King Henry's custody.^[6] However, Aveline died on 10 November 1274 at Stockwell, Surrey,^[7] which prevented Edmund from inheriting the lands.^[3] They had no children.^[7]

Aveline was buried in Westminster Abbey, the first tomb to be placed in its new church.^[7] The historian Peter Coss has called the tombs of her and Eleanor of Castile "two of the finest female effigies of the thirteenth century."^[8]

References[]

Works cited

• Blank, Hanne (2007). Virgin: The Untouched History. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1596910119.
• Coss, Peter R. (1998). The Lady in Medieval England 1000-1500. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0788197886.
• Hilton, Lisa (2010). Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Elizabeth of York. Pegasus Classics. ISBN 978-1605981055.
• Lloyd, Simon (2004). "Edmund, first earl of Lancaster and first earl of Leicester (1245–1296)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8504. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Spencer, Andrew (2014). Nobility and Kingship in Medieval England. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107026759.
• Weir, Alison (2008). Britain's Royal Families, The Complete Genealogy. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0099539735.