What evidence exists for Eleanor's early years suggests that while her parents were absent on Crusade between 1270 and 1274, she became very close to her paternal grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, with whom she continued to spend a good deal of time.

For a long period Eleanor was betrothed to King Alfonso III of Aragon.

[1] Alfonso's parents were under papal interdict, however, because of their claims to the throne of Sicily, which were contrary to the papal donation of the Sicilian throne to Count Charles I of Anjou, and despite the Aragonese ruler's repeated pleas that Edward send his daughter to them for marriage, Edward refused to send her as long as the interdict remained in place.

In 1282, he declined one such request by saying that his wife and mother felt the girl, who had just turned 13, was too young to be married, and that they wanted to wait another two years before sending her to Aragon.

1285), who married a Welshman named Llywelyn ap Owain and was an ancestress of Owain Glyndwr and Owen Tudor,[4][5][6] but this claim is now considered dubious.