Henry was born in Windsor Castle during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Henry III of England. On 3 August 1271, Henry's older brother John died in the custody of their paternal granduncle Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall. His death left Henry the eldest surviving child of Edward and second-in-line to the throne of England. Henry III died on 16 November 1272. Edward became King of England and Henry his heir apparent. In 1273, Henry was betrothed to Joan I of Navarre.
Death
When Henry lay dying at Guildford in 1274, neither of his parents made the short journey from London to see him. He was tended by his grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, who had raised him during the four years his parents were on Crusade. The queen dowager was thus at that moment more familiar to him than his parents, and the better able to comfort him in his illness. Since Henry was always sickly, the gravity of his illness was perhaps not realised until it was too late for his parents to reach him. He died of natural causes and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
^Royal Descent, Henry of EnglandArchived 2014-04-19 at the Wayback Machine. "On 6 May 1268 one of Eleanor of Castile's yeomen was to have 20 marks from Henry III for good news brought to the king about her childbearing, and from 14 July 1268 young Henry appears with John in writs of liberate for their household expenses. Henry was presumably the child born around the beginning of May 1268."
^John Carmi Parsons, The Year of Eleanor of Castile's Birth and her Children by Edward I. Medieval Studies XLVI: 245–65.
^Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 82.
^Selby, Walford Dakin; Harwood, H. W. Forsyth; Murray, Keith W. (1895). The genealogist. London: George Bell & Sons. pp. 30–31.
