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She lifted her head and smiled at him. The wound seemed cleaner now.

The doctors conferred together. It did indeed seem that the poison was removed, but an operation would be needed to remove the mortifying flesh. It would mean inflicting excruciating agony but there was hope now that it would be successful.

Eleanor wept bitterly contemplating the pain Edward would have to suffer.

‘It is necessary,’ she was told, and better that she should weep than that all England should do so.

The operation was successful and Edward recovered. Eleanor nursed him and he declared that if she had not been at hand and risked her life by sucking the poison from his wound, he would not be alive that day.

They needed comfort – and they found it in each other – for news reached them of the death of their son John. It was a great blow to Eleanor who was torn with regrets at having left him. Yet she knew that Edward needed her and the fact that she had saved his life – as they both believed she had – pointed to the fact that choosing between her husband and her children she had chosen wisely.

Shortly after Edward’s recovery, she gave birth to a daughter. She was named Joanna and because of her birthplace was ever after known as Joanna of Acre.

It was the month of November. Edward knew as soon as the messenger arrived. He had feared for some time for he had been warned of his father’s weakness. But when the news came he was struck with desolation. Dearly they had loved each other and it seemed the greatest tragedy of his life that his beloved father was no more.

Eleanor came to him. He took her hand and kissed it.

‘We must go home,’ he said. ‘I am needed there.’

She looked at him searchingly, and he answered: ‘You see before you the King of England.’

And they both wept for Henry.

Bibliography

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Bryant, Arthur, The Medieval Foundation

Davis, H. W. C., England Under the Angevins

Funck-Bretano, Fr. (translated by Elizabeth O’Neill), The National History of France – The Middle Ages

Guizot, M. (translated by Robert Black), History of France

Hume, David, History of England from the Invasion of Juluis Caesar to the Revolution

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