The problem of course is that ancient sources for Eleanor are thin. Most of what we know about her movements, what charters she signed, and her overall communications is very limited and comes from her kingly attachments. Meade is simply forced to use a very reduced set of source material from the age, most of which details her husband's movements or the chroniclers that make short reference when she's in procession. This all translates to a widely speculative biography where Meade takes the liberty to hypothesize and expand on the unknown. I'm not always sure Meade is successful in that. She lets herself speculate on how Eleanor felt about this or that and we have no way of knowing and Meade often justifies her actions which were tantamount to tyranny. She is successful though in outlining this Queens amazing life in amazing times.

In a century almost exclusively dominated by men Eleanor stands apart and above her contemporaries. Over the course of her life she married two kings and mothered three (two of which actually sat on the Plantagenet throne.) She traveled with her husband to the distant lands of the near east as an active Crusader and came from a court that espoused the virtues of troubadours and poetry. She was a glimmer of light in an otherwise very dark part of history. But despite all of this she created a lot of chaos, she pulled strings and worked actively against her first and second husband and in a way she facilitated the destruction of all she fostered. An interesting character for sure. Drabble, Margaret (1995). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. p.314. ISBN 0-19-866221-1. A fascinating account of one of the most alluring figures of the Middle Ages by one of Britain's most respected historians. Alison Weir meets a subject well-worthy of her mettle…her exciting story merits our attention." ( BBC History Magazine)Eleanor was tired of Louis -- once she said it was like being married to a monk -- and when she met eighteen-year-old Henry, eleven years her junior and heir to Anjou and all of England, she fell head over heels in lust for him. Meade suspects that sexual attraction, richly spiced with political advantage, was a major justification for her divorce from Louis. Consanguinity was the publicly announced reason permitting annulment. She married Henry eight weeks later. It was a stinging slap at the Capetian, for he and Henry were bitter enemies. Woven with great skill and cunning detective work into a vivid and haunting portrait." ( Ms London) Chambers, Frank McMinn (1941). "Some Legends Concerning Eleanor of Aquitaine". Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. University of Chicago Press. 16 (4): 459–468. doi: 10.2307/2852844. JSTOR 2852844. S2CID 162522341.

Alison Weir has written a vivid biography which is also an impressive piece of detective work, for she has scrutinised the evidence to produce a credible and balanced account of the life of an extraordinary woman." ( The Sunday Telegraph) In 1183, the young King Henry tried again to force his father to hand over some of his patrimony. In debt and refused control of Normandy, he tried to ambush his father at Limoges. He was joined by troops sent by his brother Geoffrey and Philip II of France. Henry II's troops besieged the town, forcing his son to flee. After wandering aimlessly through Aquitaine, Henry the Younger caught dysentery. On Saturday, 11 June 1183, the young king realized he was dying and was overcome with remorse for his sins. When his father's ring was sent to him, he begged that his father would show mercy to his mother, and that all his companions would plead with Henry to set her free. Henry II sent Thomas of Earley, Archdeacon of Wells, to break the news to Eleanor at Sarum. [b] Eleanor reputedly had a dream in which she foresaw her son Henry's death. In 1193, she would tell Pope Celestine III that she was tortured by his memory. She often acted as Queen Regent for Richard I when he was away from England, which, let’s be honest, was most of the time. Edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons. This is a nonfiction collection of essays by medievalists, covering practically every facet of her life. It is by and for medieval scholars but don’t let that scare you off – the essays collected here are easily accessible to any interested layperson and are an absolute treasure trove of information about the woman who set the medieval world on fire. The Lais of Marie de France Eleanor’s time as mistress of her own lands in Poitiers (1168-1173) established the legend of the Court of Love, where she is reputed to have encouraged a culture of chivalry among her courtiers that had far-reaching influence on literature, poetry, music and folklore.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. Although the Church didn’t allow divorce, there was a loophole for the rich and powerful. This was consanguinity: a degree of kinship, not necessarily close, that rendered a marriage quasi-incestuous and thus displeasing to God. Disgruntled spouses might discover – even after having a daughter together – that they were third cousins. They could then try to persuade the pope to annul the marriage, which he might or might not do. Eugene III did agree to divorce Eleanor and Louis, but only after long resistance. He first required the couple to try to conceive again, resulting in the birth of a second daughter. (A son could have rendered the marriage permanent.) Just eight weeks after the annulment, Eleanor married Henry II of England, a fourth cousin. Jones, Dan (2013). The Plantagenets: The Kings who made England. London: William Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-721394-8. Eleanor was imprisoned for the next 16 years, much of the time in various locations in England. During her imprisonment, Eleanor became more and more distant from her sons, especially from Richard, who had always been her favourite. [29] She did not have the opportunity to see her sons very often during her imprisonment, though she was released for special occasions such as Christmas. About four miles from Shrewsbury and close by Haughmond Abbey is "Queen Eleanor's Bower", the remains of a possible triangular timber castle which is believed to have been one of her prisons. The photograph above was sent to me in 1999 by a reader. These heads, from the porch of the twelfth/thirteenth century church of Candes St Martin, between Chinon and Fontevrault, are thought to represent Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and date from c.1225.

After this, my next project will be Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley. When I was researching Elizabeth the Queen, most of the sources I read led me to the conclusion that Mary, Queen of Scots, knew in advance of the plot to murder her husband, Lord Darnley. However, it was felt by my publishers that this was so controversial an assertion that it should be the subject of a separate book, in which I will use the same research and analytical techniques that I used for an earlier historical whodunnit, The Princes in the Tower. I am therefore keeping an open mind on the subject until I see what the research reveals. I am really excited at the prospect of researching and writing another historical mystery - they are my favourite kind of books. Eleanor married Henry II in 1152 and was crowned in Westminster Abbey two years later. England was going through a turbulent period, and Eleanor’s vassals in Aquitaine would do homage only to their duchess, not to the English king. From 1168 to 1173, she lived on her own lands in Poitiers. In her late forties, still renowned for her beauty, she presided over a glittering court that has been the subject of scholarly debate since the late 19th century. Capellanus’s De Amore (1180s), a parody of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, codified the ‘rules’ of courtly love expressed in troubadour lyrics and romances. The most scandalous section involves the ‘courts of love’, in which a panel of noble ladies, including Eleanor and her daughter Marie of Champagne, give their verdicts. In one decision, coming close to home, Eleanor criticises a lady who wishes to stay with her lover even after he has discovered their kinship. A woman who ‘seeks to preserve an incestuous love’, she warns, ‘is going against what is right and proper’. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( May 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Eleanor (or Aliénor) was the oldest of three children of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, whose glittering ducal court was renowned in early 12th-century Europe, and his wife, Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimery I, Viscount of Châtellerault, and Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard, who was William IX's longtime mistress as well as Eleanor's maternal grandmother. Her parents' marriage had been arranged by Dangereuse with her paternal grandfather William IX. Louis was a retiring young man best suited, most thought, for the monastery. Eleanor wasted no time -- remember she was still an adolescent -- corrupting (in the mind of her mother-in-law) Louis to the more secular ways of the south. Their marriage was a catastrophe. He was ineffectual, indecisive, inadequate, generally most ofthe "in's" one can apply. Louis' Second Crusade was a disaster. The presence of Eleanor and her ladies with their enormous baggage train made travel difficult. The Pope's personal intervention, virtually dragging them to bed to force reconsumation of their marriage was the catalyst for the final dissolution, because the product of this pathetic reunion was a girl, and Louis' Capetians desperately needed a male to continue the line. Duby, George (1997). Women of the Twelfth Century, Volume 1: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-16780-0.

The death of William, one of the king's most powerful vassals, made available the most desirable duchy in France. While presenting a solemn and dignified face to the grieving Aquitainian messengers, Louis exulted when they departed. Rather than act as guardian to the duchess and duchy, he decided to marry the duchess to his 17-year-old heir and bring Aquitaine under the control of the French crown, thereby greatly increasing the power and prominence of France and its ruling family, the House of Capet. Within hours, the king had arranged for his son Louis to be married to Eleanor, with Abbot Suger in charge of the wedding arrangements. Louis was sent to Bordeaux with an escort of 500 knights, along with Abbot Suger, Theobald II, Count of Champagne, and Raoul I, Count of Vermandois. Turner, Ralph V. (2009). Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15989-9. She did one thing, however, that proved disastrous for both Henry’s reign and her own liberty. In 1173, Eleanor’s sons, Henry ‘the Young King’, Richard (later called Lionheart) and Geoffrey of Brittany, rebelled against their father, encouraged by Louis VII. Most chroniclers agree that Eleanor supported their revolt. Why she did so isn’t clear, but Henry was publicly unfaithful and the couple had long been estranged. Eleanor probably urged her southern vassals to aid her rebel sons. A famous troubadour, Bertran de Born, supported the young Henry’s revolt – earning himself a memorable place in Dante’s hell as a false counsellor. So quarrelsome was the whole Angevin family that one chronicler, Richard of Devizes, compared them to the house of Oedipus. At any event, the rebellion went badly. It was crushed by Henry’s troops and his heir, the Young King, died on campaign. Eleanor was arrested and imprisoned in various castles over the next sixteen years; she wasn’t released until Henry’s death in 1189. Although most sources condemn her part in the revolt, she had sympathisers even at the time. Geoffrey of Monmouth had compiled the so-called prophecies of Merlin in the 1130s, and now a series of interpreters came forth to identify the ‘eagle of the broken covenant’ as Queen Eleanor, spreading her regal wings over two realms and encouraging the precocious flight of her ‘eaglets’.Middleton, John (1 June 2015). World Monarchies and Dynasties. Routledge. p.274. ISBN 978-1-317-45158-7. I have been interested in history since the age of fourteen, when I read my first adult novel: a rather lurid book entitled Henry's Golden Queen. I was, however, enthralled by it: did people really go on like that in Tudor times, I asked myself, and dashed off to find some real history books - in which I learned that, yes, they did! My passion for history was born. By the time I was fifteen I had produced a reference work on the Tudor dynasty, a biography of Anne Boleyn and several historical plays, and had started work on the research that would one day take form as my first published book, Britain's Royal Families.