Edmund Crouchback

Henry III wanted another son. His first son, Edward, was followed by a daughter, Margaret, and Henry needed at least "an heir and a spare." So he prayed to the 9th-century East Anglian king Edmund the Martyr, who was canonized a saint not long after his death. Henry and Eleanor of Provence's next child was a son born in London on 16 January 1245 (illustration is of Edmund's birth by Matthew Paris), named Edmund after the saint.Edmund grew up at Windsor Castle with his siblings and parents—Henry rarely spent time away from the family—and was very attached to them all. He would become his older brother Edward's faithful administrator.When Edmund was nine, the "Sicilian Business" happened, in which Pope Alexander IV was looking for a suitable (to him) ruler of Sicily and the Regno (southern Italy).Edmund actually made preparations to become king of Sicily while his father tried to persuade the barons to give him money and soldiers. His mother took him to Gascony in May 1254 to be closer…