It may appear strange to many that a sister of Edward III should be practically unknown, not only to historians and students of the present time, but also to most of the chroniclers of her own period. The children of Edward II were but four in number, of whom one, John of Eltham, died in his youth. Of the remaining three, Eleanor alone has missed that close attention which her birth and position would seem to warrant. Yet the fact remains that although Mrs. M. A. E. Green in her Lives of the Princesses of England devotes a chapter to Eleanor, her list of authorities is a comparatively short one; and the Historia Gelriae of Pontanus seems to be the only work which contains sufficient material for compiling a coherent story of Eleanor's life.