Her interest in their second son, Richard, was probably less to do with selecting a favourite child than with his having been conceived in Aquitaine and positioned to be its next duke. This vase is the only object connected with Eleanor of Aquitaine that still survives. The girls were 3 years old when "The Help" was filmed. In response, Bernard became more kindly towards her: "My child, seek those things which make for peace. As queen of France, Eleanor participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade. The annulment gave Eleanor back Aquitaine and Poitou, which she took with her eight weeks later to Henry, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, to whom, incidentally, she was just as closely related as she had been to Louis. Those who tried to escape were caught and killed. On 25 July 1137, Eleanor and Louis were married in the Cathedral of Saint-Andr in Bordeaux by the archbishop of Bordeaux. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. However, he died on Good Friday of that year (9April). She was portrayed by Lynda Bellingham in the BBC series Robin Hood. The marriage was annulled in March 1152 on grounds of consanguinity. She introduced those conventions in her own lands on the island of Olron in 1160 (with the "Rolls of Olron") and later in England as well. Eleanor (or Alinor) 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 Chtellerault, the daughter of Aimery I, Viscount of Chtellerault, and Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard, who was William IX's longtime mistress as well as Eleanor's maternal grandmother. In 1202 John was again in her debt for holding Mirebeau against Arthur, until John, coming to her relief, was able to take him prisoner. I wonder whether Eleanor took a hit for the team, tacitly accepting punishment as a ringleader because that allowed their sons to be reconciled to their father quickly: it wasnt their fault, it was their mothers influence. Yet despite his impending death, Louis's mind remained clear. Upon Williams death in 1137 she inherited the duchy of Aquitaine and in July 1137 married the heir to the French throne, who succeeded his father, Louis VI, the following month. The death of her father left her an unmarried teenager and one of the greatest heiresses in Europe. Louis accordingly bolted the gates of Bourges against the new bishop. Henry then went about his own business outside Aquitaine, leaving Earl Patrick, his regional military commander, as her protective custodian. If it had created a well of goodwill, it was to help settle the disputed succession in Henrys favour. Her marriage to Louis was annulled amid rumours that she had indulged in an affair with her uncle, Raymond, Prince of Antioch whilst in the Holy Land. Henry lost the woman reputed to be his great love, Rosamund Clifford, in 1176. The king did not announce the arrest publicly; for the next year, the queen's whereabouts were unknown. She had her tomb placed abreast that she had commissioned for her husband, Henry, suggesting again a fondness that undermines the view of their relationship as fractious and difficult. Age Range Adult, Mature Adult Role Size . King Philip II of France claimed that certain properties in Normandy belonged to his half-sister Margaret, widow of the young Henry, but Henry insisted that they had once belonged to Eleanor and would revert to her upon her son's death. The Duchy of Aquitaine was the largest and richest province of France. Its a fair question. He had met her in 1166 and had begun their liaison in 1173, supposedly contemplating divorce from Eleanor. Her tomb effigy shows her reading a Bible and is decorated with representations of magnificent jewellery; such effigies were rare, and Eleanor's is one of the finest of the few that survive from this period. Many men, horses, and much of the baggage were cast into the canyon below. Eleanor is the subject of A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, a children's novel by E. L. Konigsburg. They were in high spirits on Christmas Eve, when they chose to camp in a lush valley near Ephesus. Marriage to Henry II and administration of England, Armand-Jean du Plessis, cardinal et duc de Richelieu, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eleanor-of-Aquitaine, World History Encyclopedia - Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Ohio State University - eHistory - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Heritage History - Biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Aquitaine - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard I, and Henry II. Eleanor Henry was born on June 7, 1897, and died at age 79 years old in October 1976. In the ensuing Battle of Mount Cadmus, the Turks, who had been following and feinting for many days, seized their opportunity and attacked those who had not yet crossed the summit. One of Louis's avowed Crusade goals was to journey in pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and he stated his intention to continue. 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. She has a twin sister named Emma Henry. Eleanor became the heir presumptive to her father's domains. For Eleanor, the appeal of Henry was probably less some passionate obsession with a younger man than a realistic assessment of who was single and in a position to protect her and Aquitaine. Join Facebook to connect with Eleanor Henry and others you may know. Louis's refusal and his forcing her to accompany him humiliated Eleanor, and she maintained a low profile for the rest of the crusade. What happened next tells us a great deal about Henry, and about King Stephen, and probably helped bring about the end of The Anarchy. The character Queen Elinor appears in William Shakespeare's The Life and Death of King John, with other members of the family. He was ruthless when crossed and some of his contemporaries uneasily credited the story that his family, the Plantagenets, were descended from the Devil a tale that the Plantagenets themselves delighted to encourage. It was, at 75, perhaps her first real mistake. She was portrayed by Mary Clare in the silent film Becket (1923), by Prudence Hyman in Richard the Lionheart (1962), and twice by Jane Lapotaire in the BBC TV drama series The Devil's Crown (1978) and again in Mike Walker's BBC Radio 4 series Plantagenet (2010). When it went horribly wrong, he asked his mom, Empress Matilda, for money to pay his men, but she refused. "[19], Official blame for the disaster was placed on Geoffrey de Rancon, who had made the decision to continue, and it was suggested that he be hanged, a suggestion which the king ignored. What was Eleanor of Aquitaines childhood like? Consanguinity was grounds for annulment in the medieval period. Geoffrey of York, for example, was an illegitimate son of Henry, but acknowledged by Henry as his child and raised at Westminster in the care of the queen. Eleanor, nearly 80 years old, fearing the disintegration of the Plantagenet domain, crossed the Pyrenees in 1200 in order to fetch her granddaughter Blanche from the court of Castile and marry her to the son of the French king. Website:Matt Lewis Home (mattlewisauthor.com)Blog:Matts History Blog Hopefully interesting snippets and thoughts (wordpress.com)Twitter: @MattLewisAuthor. As the mother to Richard the Lionheart, she helped him sure up his succession, find him a wife, manage his lands while he was on campaign, and spring into action at the age of 68 to raise and personally deliver his ransom when he was taken prisoner on the way home from the Holy Land. Louis's long march to Jerusalem and back north, which Eleanor was forced to join, debilitated his army and disheartened her knights; the divided Crusade armies could not overcome the Muslim forces, and the royal couple had to return home. Although he had been invested as such on 8 August 1137, a messenger gave him the news that Louis VI had died of dysentery on 1 August while he and Eleanor were making a tour of the provinces. The French, both soldiers and pilgrims, taken by surprise, were trapped. The two leaders seemed just as happy to dodge a showdown and met at least once to discuss things as their armies hovered behind them. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (NJ) (11) Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City (NJ) (7) Cease to stir up the king against the Church, and urge upon him a better course of action. Of all her influence on culture, Eleanor's time in Poitiers between 1168 and 1173 was perhaps the most critical, yet very little is known about it. Here they were ambushed by a Turkish detachment, but the French proceeded to slaughter this detachment and appropriate their camp. On her way back to Aquitaine, Eleanor had been the subject to two kidnap attempts that aimed to force her into marriage. Eleanor was not. His goal throughout his reign was to recover and restore all of the rights held by his grandfather Henry I, and he would pursue these ferociously and doggedly. [9][16], Possessing a high-spirited nature, Eleanor was not popular with the staid northerners; according to sources, Louis's mother Adelaide of Maurienne thought her flighty and a bad influence. Facebook gives people the power to. She actively prepared for Richards coronation as king, was administrator of the realm during his Crusade to the Holy Land, and, after his capture by the duke of Austria on Richards return from the east, collected his ransom and went in person to escort him to England. Eleanor had only two daughters by Louis VII, but to her new husband she bore five sons and three daughters. [36] By the time of her death she had outlived all of her children except for King John of England and Queen Eleanor of Castile. She immediately sent word to Henry to come promptly and marry her, and meanwhile summoned her principal vassals to renew their allegiance to her as Duchess of Aquitaine. Others were not so fortunate: "No aid came from Heaven, except that night fell. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 4 daughters. Eleanor, aged 12 to 15, then became the duchess of Aquitaine, and thus the most eligible heiress in Europe. Beyond that, I think it created a relationship between Stephen and Henry that prevented all-out slaughter in 1153 when Henry returned in earnest as the twenty-year-old Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou and Maine, to claim the crown of England. By this marriage she hoped to ensure peace between the Plantagenets of England and the Capetian kings of France. Eleanor had lived an incredibly full medieval life before she even met Henry. He proclaimed that no word could be spoken against it, and that it might not be dissolved under any pretext. Most recently, she was portrayed by Eileen Atkins in Robin Hood (2010). Any prolonged dispute between Henry and his sons played into the French kings hands and was a dynastic risk to all that Henry and Eleanor had built. It feels like something we could do with more of today. On 21 March, the four archbishops, with the approval of Pope Eugene, granted an annulment on grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree; Eleanor was Louis' third cousin once removed, and shared common ancestry with Robert II of France. Some, such as John of Salisbury and William of Tyre, say Eleanor's reputation was sullied by rumours of an affair with her uncle Raymond. . I hope I have done them justice in my biography and tried to view them more as people than political caricatures. Eleanor, who was about thirty, had already been queen of France for fifteen years through her first marriage and by her second she would soon be queen of England. Archbishop Samson received assurances from Louis that Eleanor's lands would be restored to her. At this point, Eleanor was 49 - already deemed an elderly woman. She was the eldest of three children. Although the figures are intended as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, and William Marshall, the story is an entire invention. The king had many mistresses, but although he treated earlier liaisons discreetly, he flaunted Rosamund. More than a thousand people who sought refuge in the church there died in the flames. He may have done so to provoke Eleanor into seeking an annulment, but if so, the queen disappointed him. They have also lived in Columbus, GA and Fort Mitchell, AL. Eleanor was related to Henry even more closely than she had been to Louis: they were cousins to the third degree through their common ancestor Ermengarde of Anjou, wife of Robert I, Duke of Burgundy and Geoffrey, Count of Gtinais, and they were also descended from King Robert II of France. [9] Eleanor rode to Westminster and received the oaths of fealty from many lords and prelates on behalf of the king. Historical fiction author Elizabeth Chadwick wrote a three-volume series about Eleanor: The Summer Queen (2013), The Winter Crown (2014) and The Autumn Throne (2016). Eleanor recruited some of her royal ladies-in-waiting for the campaign as well as 300 non-noble Aquitainian vassals. Hugues de Toucy, archbishop of Sens, presided, and Louis and Eleanor were both present, as were the archbishop of Bordeaux and Rouen. If there was an assumption that she wasnt up to the task, that only drove her harder to prove that she was. [4] The marriage was annulled on 21 March 1152 on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [12] William requested of the king that he take care of both the lands and the duchess, and find her a suitable husband. I suspect she felt her duty to protect the duchy even more keenly because she was a woman in a world increasingly wary, if not downright fearful, of female rule. She was perhaps the most powerful woman in 12th-century Europe. He even arranged for Eleanor and Louis to sleep in the same bed. Check out Eleanor Henry's Bio Now . From 1147 to 1149 Eleanor accompanied Louis on the Second Crusade to protect the fragile Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, founded after the First Crusade only 50 years before, from Turkish assault. [4] There was, however, another prominent Eleanor before herEleanor of Normandy, an aunt of William the Conqueror, who lived a century earlier than Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanors conduct during this expedition, especially at the court of her uncle Raymond of Poitiers at Antioch, aroused Louiss jealousy and marked the beginning of their estrangement. Eleanor's daughter, Queen Eleanor of Castile, had two remaining unmarried daughters, Urraca and Blanche. She seems to have exerted a great deal of influence over Louis, something his councillors and courtiers resented. Manage Settings See more characters from William Shakespeare. Some of the times he got himself into the deepest trouble, such as the Toulouse Campaign in 1159 and the Becket Affair that ended so tragically in 1170, it was because he wanted his rights clearly defined from these grey areas. [9] Over the next few years Eleanor often travelled with her husband and was sometimes associated with him in the government of the realm, but still had a custodian so that she was not free. In the 1964 film Becket, Eleanor is briefly played by Pamela Brown to Peter O'Toole's first performance as a young Henry II. Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine: Founding an Empire, Matts History Blog Hopefully interesting snippets and thoughts (wordpress.com). He shunned all majesty, preferring to send his Chancellor Thomas Becket to Paris to make a splendid, showy entrance to the city because, well, it just wasnt Henrys style. In December, Eleanor gathered her movable possessions in England and transported them on several ships to Argentan. She had been locked away by her husband since 1173, following her complicit involvement in her sons' rebellions against Henry II. [28], Some scholars believe that the "court of love" probably never existed since the only evidence for it is Andreas Capellanus' book. As the heiress of the House of Poitiers, which controlled much of southwestern France, she was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Louis and Eleanor, on separate ships due to their disagreements, were first attacked in May 1149 by Byzantine ships. As these were the days when kidnapping an heiress was seen as a viable option for obtaining a title, William dictated a will on the very day he died that bequeathed his domains to Eleanor and appointed King Louis VI of France as her guardian. Neither was heard of for over two months. Historian John Speed, in his 1611 work History of Great Britain, mentions the possibility that Eleanor had a son named Philip, who died young. Eugene did not, as Eleanor had hoped, grant an annulment. If she is reading at all, and not still observing and listening. It was rumoured by some that Eleanor had had an affair with Henry's own father, Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, who had advised his son to avoid any involvement with her. They now oversaw territories that sprawled from Hadrians Wall to the south of France. After their return to France and a short-lived reconciliation, their marriage was annulled in March 1152. Breakdown. Henry imprisoned her in 1173 for supporting the revolt of their eldest son, Henry the Young King, against him. Henry lies still, his eyes closed, holding his regalia, as he probably never was in life. Eleanor supported her uncle's desire to re-capture the nearby County of Edessa, the objective of the Crusade. 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