Marriage(s) and Relationships: Married to: King de France Louis VII *The Younger* 25 JUL 1137, Bordeaux Cathedral, Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France, Ended by: Annulment
Child:Marie de France Child:Adelheid Alice de France Married to: King of England Henry II 18 MAY 1152, Bordeaux Cathedral, Bordeaux, France
Child:William of England Child:*TheYoung King* of England Henry Child:Mathilde\Maud of England Child:King of England Richard I *Coeur de Lion* Child:Duke of Brittany Geoffrey Child:Eleonore of England Child:Joan of England Child:King of England John INotes: Countess of Saintonge, Angoumois, Limousin, Auvergne, Bordeaux, Agen.
Other sources day she died 26 Jun 1202 and she was born in Chateau de
Belin. *Burke* thinks
she died 1162.
Source: Brian Tompsett.
Heinrich II. was Eleanore's 2. marriage.
When Eleanor married Heinrich (Henry), she brought with her 42 gowns,
14 pair of shoes, 5 mantles, and 10 undershirts.
Louis VII the Younger, King of France was her 1. marriage.
Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine was successively queen of France and England.
She was an emancipated woman living in the dark middle ages. It is a
conventional rule that all ladies of high rank should be described as
beautiful, but Eleanor of Aquitaine really was beautiful. She was the
richest heiress of France and married King Louis VII of France, whom she
accompanied on a crusade to Palestine. The lively Eleanor and the grave
and pious Louis were ill matched.
Their marriage was annulled on March 18, 1152 on the gronds of
consanguinity.
Two daughters were born in fifteen years, before they were divorced in
1152.
By then Eleanor had fallen in love with the 19 year old duke Henry of
Normandy,
who - with her support - became king of England in 1154. She bore him a
large family.
As the children grew up and Henry took mistresses, the couple grew apart.
Henry even seduced his son Richard's fiancee, a daughter of Louis VII.
When Richard and his brothers revolted against their father, Eleanor
backed them
and was subsequently imprisoned by Henry until his death. She became
regent for her favourit son, Richard Lionheart, when he was on crusade,
and escorted his bride to Sicily. When she also outlived Richard, she
returned to Aquitaine. However, she remained busy and active and
personally arranged the marriage of her Castilian granddaughter to the
grandson of Louis VII. Thus she lived to be about 82, an extraordinary
age in the middle ages.
Eleanore's ancestral palace at Poiters is now the Palace of Justice.
Some of the changes that she made can still be seen.
Shown in the movies:
Portrayed by Martita Hunt in the 1952 film *The Story of Robin Hood
and His Merry Men.*
Portrayed by Jill Esmond in the 1955-58 television series,
*The Adventures of Robin Hood*.
Portrayed by Pamela Brown in the 1964 film, *Becket*.
Played by Katharine Hepburn, whose portrayal won her a Best Actress
Academy Award (Oscar), in the 1968 film *Lion in Winter*.
Portrayed by Jane Lapotaire in the 1978 BBC-2 series *The Devil's Crown*.
A character in Shakespeare's play, King John.
Constance of Brittany makes a bitter speech --the use of baby talk makes
it
one of the most cynical in all of Shakespeare's plays, which is saying a
lot--
to her son Arthur and his grandmother Eleanor, who has backed John
instead of Arthur:
*Do, child, go to it grandam, child;
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will -
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.
There's a good grandam! ...* -
(King John, Act 2, scene 1)
Soure: RoyaList
Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine was an intelligent and emancipated woman
living in the dark middle ages. Although it is a conventional rule that
all ladies of high rank should be described as beautiful, all sources
agree that Eleanor of Aquitaine really was beautiful. In addition, she
was the richest heiress of France and became successively queen of France
and England.
Eleanor was a granddaughter of William IX of Aquitaine (1070-1127), who
was one of the first and most famous troubadours. He was a cheerful man
and an ardent lover of women, who joined the First Crusade. Later he
"abducted" the wife of the viscount of Châtellerault, Dangereuse, and
although he could not marry her, Dangereuse managed to have her daughter
Aenor married to his eldest son William X (1099-1137) in 1121. They had
two daughters, Eleanor and Petronilla, and a son, William Aigret. Eleanor
resembled both William IX and Dangereuse; she possessed the same
intelligence, gaiety,
restlessness and will power. The court of William IX was the centre of
western European culture:
the ducal family was entertained by jongleurs, storytellers and
troubadours. Unlike most of her
contemporaries, male and especially female, Eleanor was carefully
educated and she was an
excellent student. Eleanor's happy childhood ended with the subsequent
deaths of her mother, her
little brother and - in 1137 - her father.
The orphaned Eleanor was the richest heiress in France thus a marriage
was arranged for her to its
king, Louis VII (1121-1180). Louis had been brought up for an office in
the church, but he had
become heir to the French throne after the death of his elder brother. He
was a weak, dull, grave
and pious man and he and the lively Eleanor were ill matched. Louis never
understood his young
wife, but he appears to have adored her with a passionate admiration. It
wasn't until 1145 that a
daughter, Marie, was born. Meanwhile, Eleanor was eager to govern her own
duchy, since she
knew the troublesome Aquitainians better than anyone.However, Louis'
councillor, the Abbot Sugar, resented her influence in
governmental matters.
When Louis went on the Second Crusade to Palestine, Eleanor raised a
company of women to
join her and thus she accompanied her husband to the Holy Land. In
Antioch Eleanor was warmly
received by her uncle Raymond, who reminded her of her happy childhood in
Poitiers. Eleanor
and Raymond were of the opinion that Jerusalem could best be secured by
driving back the Turks
in the north, but Louis VII rejected the plan and a quarrel followed.
Quietly Louis began
preparations for his departure and after dark Eleanor was forcibly
conducted from Antioch. Soon
the crusade became a complete failure and even Louis' brother Robert
quickly rushed home. On
their way back to France, Louis and Eleanor visited the pope to plead for
a divorce. Instead, the
ope tried to reconcile them and induced them to sleep in the same bed
again.
Back in France their marriage was worse than ever and Eleanor was
horrified to realise that she
was pregnant. After the birth of a second daughter in 1150 and the death
of Louis' chief minister,
Eleanor was no longer the only one who wanted a divorce. She finally got
it in 1152. She was still
the richest heiress of France and on her way from Paris to Poitiers she
had to outwit two would-be
seducers. By then Eleanor had fallen in love with duke Henry Plantagenet
of Normandy (1133-1189), who was her junior by eleven
years. Their marriage, barely 8 weeks after her
divorce, made Henry master of most of today's France. With Eleanor's
support Henry became
king of England too in 1154.
Although Eleanor's first marriage had resulted in only two daughters born
in fifteen year, Eleanor
bore Henry five sons and three daughters. As the children grew up and
Henry openly took
mistresses, the couple grew apart. Eleanor was 44 years old, when she
gave birth to their youngest
son, John Lackland. By then she had discovered the existence of Rosamund
Clifford, the most
famous of Henry's mistresses. Later Henry even managed to seduce the
fiancee of his son Richard,
who was a daughter of Louis VII and his second wife.
In 1169 Henry sent Eleanor to Aquitaine to restore order as its duchess.
Once more the ducal
palace at Poitiers became the centre of all that was civilised and
refined. Troubadours, musicians
and scholars were welcomed at Poitiers. There, in 1170 Eleanor reconciled
with her first born
daughter Marie of France, countess of Champagne. Marie's protégé,
Chrétien de Troyes,
composed, at Marie's suggestion, the romance of Lancelot and queen
Guinevere. In addition,
Marie had a "code of love" written down in thirty-one articles. They
described feminist ideas far
beyond the 12. century cult of chivalry. In addition, Eleanor sponsored
the "courts of love" in
which men having problems with the code of love could bring their
questions before a tribunal of
ladies for judgement. At Christmas 1172 Henry summoned his wife and sons
to his court. When in
1173 their sons revolted against their father, Eleanor backed them and
was subsequently
imprisoned by Henry until his death in 1189.
By then three of their sons had already died and Henry's successor was
Eleanor's favourite son,
Richard I Lionheart (1157-1199), who appreciated his mother's advice.
When he went on
crusade, Eleanor became regent. Although Richard was a homosexual, he was
supposed to
provide England with heirs, so Eleanor escorted his bride-to-be to
Sicily. When Richard was killed
in 1199, he was succeeded by his youngest brother, John Lackland
(1166-1216). Eleanor
returned to Aquitaine and retired in the abbey of Fontevraud. She
remained busy and active and
personally arranged a the marriage of her Castilian granddaughter to the
grandson of Louis VII.
Thus she lived to be about 82, an extraordinary age in the middle ages.
Bibliography:
Hallam, E. (ed.): The Plantagenet Encyclopedia (An alphabetical guide to
400 years of English
history), Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990
Kelly, A.: Eleanor of Aquitaine (and the four kings), Harvard University
Press, 1951
Lofts, N. : Queens of Britain, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977
Meade, M.: Eleanor of Aquitaine (A biography), Penguin Books, 1977
Owen, D.D.R.: Eleanor of Aquitaine (Queen & Legend), Blackwell, 1993
Novels:
Plaidy, J.: Courts of Love, Fontana/Collins, 1989
Lofts, N.: Eleanor the Queen, Fawcett Crest, 1955
Source: Joan Bos.
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