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Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster

English noble

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ950456 ↗
Source-derived summary

Henry, 3rd Earl of Leicester and Lancaster (c. 1281 – 22 September 1345) was an English nobleman. He was the grandson of King Henry III of England (r. 1216–1272) and was one of the principals behind the deposition of King Edward II (r. 1307–1327), his first cousin.

Origins

He was the younger son of Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster, Earl of Leicester, a son of King Henry III by his wife Eleanor of Provence. The Earl Henry's mother was Blanche of Artois, Queen Dowager of Navarre. Through his mother, he was a half-brother of Queen Joan I of Navarre.

Henry's elder brother Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, succeeded their father in 1296, but Henry was summoned to Parliament on 6 February 1298/99 by writ directed to Henrico de Lancastre nepoti Regis ("Henry of Lancaster, nephew of the king", Edward I), by which he is held to have become Baron Lancaster. He took part in the Siege of Caerlaverock in July 1300.

Petition for succession and inheritance

After a period of long-standing opposition to King Edward II and his advisors, including joining two open rebellions, Henry's brother Thomas was convicted of treason, executed and had his lands and titles forfeited in 1322.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster” as english noble. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1281, 1345, 1216, 1272—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1281-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Henry, Earl and Lancaster can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as english noble. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q950456. VIAF identifies the subject as 12178736. The Library of Congress control number is nr93018237. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1281, 1345, 1216 and 1272.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster primary sources, Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster archive and Henry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.