EDMUND  ,

king of Sicily and earl of Lancaster (1245–1296), was the second son of Henry III. of England by Eleanor of Provence . At ten years of age Edmund was invested by Pope Alexander IV. with the kingdom of Sicily (April 1255); the pecuniary obligations which Henry III. undertook on his son's behalf were not the least among the causes which led to the Provisions of Oxford and the Barons' War . Alexander annulled his grant in 1258, but still pressed Henry for the discharge of unpaid arrears of subsidies . In 1265, after Montfort's fall, Edmund received the earldom of Leicester, and two years' later was created earl of Lancaster . He joined the crusade of his elder brother, the Lord Edward (1271–1272); and Edward, on his accession, found in Edmund a loyal supporter . In 1275, two years after the death of his first wife, Aveline de Fortibus, Edmund married Blanche of Artois, the widow of Henry III. of Navarre and Champagne . Although the county of Champagne had descended to his wife's infant daughter, Joan, Edmund assumed the title " Count Palatine of Champagne and Brie," and is described in the English patent rolls as earl of Lancaster and Champagne . Until 1284 he held, in his wife's right, the custody of Champagne . This he was compelled to renounce upon the marriage of Joan to Philip the Fair, the heir to the crown of France . But he retained the possession of his wife's dower-lands in Champagne, and is described in an official document of Champagne so late as the year 1287, as " the Count Edmund." He was employed by his brother as a mediator with Philip the Fair in 1293-1294 . When Philip's court pronounced that the king of England had forfeited Gascony, Edmund renounced his homage to Philip and withdrew with his wife to England . He was appointed lieutenant of Gascony in 1296, but died in the same year, leaving a son Thomas to succeed him in his English possessions .

See " Edmund, Earl of Lancaster," by W . E .

Rhodes, in the English Historical Review, vol. x. pp . 19, 2o9 .