Further to the previous post about Richard de Montfort, Simon and Eleanor’s fifth and youngest son, he was born in 1252, sometime after the 9th of October, because on that day, the feast of St Denis, 37-year-old Eleanor apparently went into ‘false labour’. She had contractions, but no birth. We know this from an undated letter sent from Kenilworth by family friend Adam Marsh to Simon, who was then in Gascony. ‘Rumours’ of the birth reached Queen Eleanor at Windsor, another indication of a difficult and protracted labour. After the boy was born, named after his mother’s brother Richard of Cornwall, the queen sent one of her nurses to care for her sister-in-law.
Rumours of the birth
