Eleanor of Aquitaine

About this book

This fascinating new biography tells the story of one of the most influential figures of the twelfth century, Eleanor of Aquitaine, successively queen of France and of England. Her marriage at fifteen to the young Louis VII was later annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. After her divorce, she eluded rival pretenders to marry Henry II, then Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. Having campaigned in England to assert his claim to the throne, Henry realized his ambition following the death of King Stephen in 1154. Eleanor thereby became the queen of potentially the most powerful leader in Europe, whose empire stretched from the Scottish borders to the Pyrenees. Eleanor bore Henry eight children, two of them future kings of England - Richard Coeur-de-Lion (the Lionheart) and John. Her behaviour and political motives have always been open to question, not least her siding with her children against Henry. Believed by some to have been the prime mover in the affair, she supported rebellion against their father. As a result, although the revolt collapsed, Eleanor was kept in close custody in England for much of the next sixteen years. Then, after Henry's death, she lent her unflagging support to his successors Richard and, later, John. Professor Owen's portrait aims to separate the true historical Eleanor from the Eleanor of legend. In tracing her life story he examines her part in public affairs during the reigns of Louis, Henry, Richard and John, and her role as a literary and cultural patron at the time of the great intellectual revival known as the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Even in her own day, Eleanor caught the imagination of chroniclers and other writers; and the final parts of Professor Owen's biography follow the development of the legend that built up around her life before considering her possible use as a role-model in the epic and romance of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.