Funding a Crusade

When Henry III's son Edmund Crouchback was 23 years old, he pledged to go on crusade with his brother, Edward, and a cousin, Henry of Almain (son of Henry III's brother, Richard of Cornwall; Henry would be killed three years later by relatives of Simon de Montfort).Crusades cost money, of course, and that was a problem. The recent Second Barons' War had depleted the king's funds. Edward turned to his uncle, King Louis IX of France, for a loan. (Louis was already planning a Crusade against Tunis.) Edmund decided it was time to make a political marriage.A wealthy countess, Isabel de Forz, had been widowed several years earlier. Henry arranged a marriage between his son and Isabel, but Edmund thought he would be better off marrying one of Isabel's daughters, and in early April 1269 he married Aveline de Forz, Countess of Aumale. Aveline was only ten years old, and the marriage couldn't be consummated until she was 14. The 6th Earl of Derby, Robert de Ferrers, was unable to recover his…