EDMUND (CROUCHBACK), king of Sicily and earl of Lan caster (1245-96), was the second son of Henry III. of England by Eleanor of Provence. At ten years of age Edmund was in vested by Pope Alexander IV. with the kingdom of Sicily (April 1 2 55) ; the pecuniary obligations which Henry III. undertook on his son's behalf were among the causes which led to the Pro visions 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 (1 2 71-7 2) , and supported him on his accession. 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 was held by his wife in custody for her infant daughter, Joan, Edmund assumed the title "Count Palatine of Champagne and Brie." 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 dowerlands in Champagne. He was employed by his brother as a mediator with Philip the Fair in 1293-94. 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 W. E. Rhodes, "Edmund, Earl of Lancaster," in the English Historical Review, vol. x. pp. 19, 209.