heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

392 HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, who died before his return. Her greatgreat-grandfather,
William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of
Holderness, who died 1178, had married the only daughter of William
Fitz-Duncan and Alice de Romille, Cicely, who became heiress of the
castle and honour of Skipton on the death of her brother William, drowned
in endeavouring to leap over "the Strid" in the woods between Bolton
and Barden. Wordsworth has immortalized the incident in his beautiful
poem The Force of Prayer ; and probably most of my readers have themselves
recognized in the picturesque ruins of Bolton Abbey, how fully the
agonized mother's charge was carried out
"Let there be
In Bolton, on the field of Wharfe,
A stately priory."
The wardship of Aveline, during her minority, had been granted by
Henry III. to his eldest son, who, for the sum of 1,500, assigned the
castle and barony of Skipton to Alexander King of Scotland, who married
his sister Margaret. On the death of Alexander, 1286, it was granted, I
conclude, to Crouchback, and, on his death, 1296, reverted to the King.
Edward II. bestowed it on Peirs de Gaveston, and on his death to Robert
de Clifford, in whose family
it remained for 500 years. The death of
Aveline, the young wife of the Duke of Lancaster, was almost immediately
followed by the death of the King of the Romans, which so affected
Henry III. that he sickened and died, Nov. i6th, 1272, committing England
to the charge of Gilbert de Clare until the return of the Prince of Wales.
Edmond is mentioned in the Cotton MS. as present at the coronation of
Edward and Eleanor, and four years after he married for his second wife
Blanche Queen of Navarre, daughter of Robert Earl of Artois, slain at
the battle of Courtrai against the Flemings, 1302, brother to St. Louis
King of France. Her daughter by her first marriage, Joane, married
Philip the Fair, whose sister Margaret was the second wife of Edward I.
This was a grand marriage, and in deference, I suppose, to his wife being
a crowned head, he enriched his label with nine fleurs-de-lys from the
shield
of Artois.
Eleanor of Castile died October 28th, 1290, at Hardeby, near
Grantham, and for some seven years Edward I. remained a forlorn and
disconsolate widower.
In 1294, however, he became violently smitten with
Blanche, the daughter of St. Louis, and agreed with her brother, Philip
the Fair, to give up the south-western portion of Aquitaine, his mother's
inheritance, as a settlement on any posterity which he might have by her.
But when he had completed the surrender of the province, Philip refused
either to give his sister or restore it. Edmond, who seems to have been
at the French Court negotiating the alliance, writes to his brother in