"[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. She continued south, crossed the Pyrenees, and travelled through the kingdoms of Navarre and Castile, arriving in Castile before the end of January 1200. Breakdown. Henry was nineteen years old, bull-necked, stocky and . The effigy on her tomb shows a tall and large-boned woman with brown skin, though this may not be an accurate representation. In July 1189, with the death of her estranged husband Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine was finally released from fifteen years of captivity. Eleanor supported her uncle's desire to re-capture the nearby County of Edessa, the objective of the Crusade. 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. In debt and refused control of Normandy, he tried to ambush his father at Limoges. This was duly lifted for long enough to allow Theobald's lands to be restored; it was then lowered once more when Raoul refused to repudiate Petronilla, prompting Louis to return to Champagne and ravage it once more. [26] Over the next 13 years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan. She died in 1776, in Sugarland, Montgomery, Maryland, United States, at the age of 91. 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. When Eleanor died in 1204 at the age of 80, she elected to be buried where she had spent her final years, at Fontevraud Abbey. That made Eleanor a target, and I think it is through this lens that we need to view later criticisms of her, not to mention sordid stories that began to do the rounds. 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. Eleanor's marriage to Henry was reputed to be tumultuous and argumentative, although sufficiently cooperative to produce at least eight pregnancies. Henry lost the woman reputed to be his great love, Rosamund Clifford, in 1176. A bitter feud arose between the king and Thomas Becket, initially his chancellor and closest adviser and later the archbishop of Canterbury. The French royal family retreated to Jerusalem and then sailed to Rome and made their way back to Paris. In The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas Capellanus, Andrew the chaplain, refers to the court of Poitiers. Eleanor secured her freedom by agreeing to his demands. After their return to France and a short-lived reconciliation, their marriage was annulled in March 1152. Neither was heard of for over two months. The second had been made by Henrys younger brother Geoffrey. The Duchy of Aquitaine was the largest and richest province of France. [7] Her parents almost certainly married in 1121. Find 109 people named Eleanor Henry along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. 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. This resulted in the army becoming separated, with some having already crossed the summit and others still approaching it. Unencumbered by baggage, they reached the summit of Cadmus, where Rancon had been ordered to make camp for the night. SHARE. Eleanor was queen consort to Louis VII (113752) of France and Henry II of England (11521204). They have also lived in Columbus, GA and Fort Mitchell, AL. [9] Andreas wrote for the court of the king of France, where Eleanor was not held in esteem. The Lion in Winter will be directed by Tom Hollis. Others were not so fortunate: "No aid came from Heaven, except that night fell. Manage Settings She seems to have exerted a great deal of influence over Louis, something his councillors and courtiers resented. Her four-year-old brother William Aigret and their mother died at the castle of Talmont on Aquitaine's Atlantic coast in the spring of 1130. [6] On the other hand, some chronicles mention a fidelity oath of some lords of Aquitaine on the occasion of Eleanor's fourteenth birthday in 1136. She and Blanche rode in easy stages to the valley of the Loire, and she entrusted Blanche to the archbishop of Bordeaux, who took over as her escort. She was beautiful and just, imposing and modest, humble and elegant; and, as the nuns of Fontevrault wrote in their necrology, a queen who surpassed almost all the queens of the world.. Eleanor of Aquitaine is every bit the match for Henry, and so I decided to write a joint biography of them. 1556332. She was a patron of poets such as Wace, Benot de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn. For good measure, accusations were added that she had engaged in an affair with Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, Henrys father, and that her lust for Henry ruined her marriage to Louis. A marriage between Henry and Eleanor's daughter Marie had earlier been declared impossible due to their status as third cousins once removed. In 1137 Duke William X left Poitiers for Bordeaux and took his daughters with him. In the cost Henry incurred on her care, and her placement at one of her favourite castles at Old Sarum, there is little trace of the vindictive, wronged husband. [5] She lived well into the reign of her youngest son, John. 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. . Eleanor would well have deserved to be named the grandmother of Europe.. Eleanor would remain in England for most of the rest of Henrys life in what is usually characterised as comfortable house arrest. Eleanor was imprisoned for the next 16 years, much of the time in various locations in England. Age Range Adult, Mature Adult Role Size . An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. 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. On television, she has been portrayed in this play by Una Venning in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre version (1952) and by Mary Morris in the BBC Shakespeare version (1984). Publishers Weekly. Stephens oldest son died, his other son expressed no desire to become king, and Stephen adopted Henry as his son and appointed him heir to England. [23] Thus was conceived their second childnot a son, but another daughter, Alix of France. Henry II's troops besieged the town, forcing his son to flee. From this were birthed not only tales of an affair with Raymond as the only possible explanation for Eleanor dissenting from her husbands decision, but also later stories of Eleanor planning to run away and marry Saladin, who was around twelve or thirteen at the time. The duke then set out for the Shrine of Saint James of Compostela in the company of other pilgrims. Yet despite his impending death, Louis's mind remained clear. Copyright 1998 - 2023 Sharon Kay Penman. The play premiered on Broadway in 1966 and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie. Although their sons and other rebels were swiftly forgiven and rehabilitated. Contemporary sources praise Eleanor's beauty. I particularly liked the story of him bringing a small mercenary force to England when he was fourteen to chance his arm. In autumn 1145, Pope Eugene III requested that Louis lead a Crusade to the Middle East to rescue the Frankish states there from disaster. Eleanor played a key role in raising the ransom demanded from England by HenryVI and in the negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor that eventually secured Richard's release. Blurry borders and ill-defined authority were no good to Henry. Eleanor has featured in a number of screen versions of the Ivanhoe and Robin Hood stories. [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. Louis became involved in a war with Count Theobald by permitting Raoul I, Count of Vermandois and seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife Eleanor of Blois, Theobald's sister, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, Eleanor's sister. As such, I asked him to stop by and talk about his newest book, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine: Founding an Empire. Eleanor Henry Biography Showing all 2 items Jump to: Mini Bio (1) | Trivia (1) Mini Bio (1) Eleanor Henry is known for The Help (2011). Its incredible how theyve stuck despite a lack of real evidence for them, and plenty of political motivations for seeking to undermine her. They now oversaw territories that sprawled from Hadrians Wall to the south of France. In 1183, the young King Henry tried again to force his father to hand over some of his patrimony. He fled to Paris. Updates? 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). She died in 1204 at the monastery at Fontevrault, Anjou, where she had retired after the campaign at Mirebeau. A few weeks later, Eleanor's father-in-law died and her husband succeeded him as King Louis VII. Eleanor's purported relationship with her uncle Raymond,[21] the ruler of Antioch, was a major source of discord. This suspicion of responsibility did nothing for her popularity in Christendom. She stayed for two months at the Castilian court, then late in March journeyed with granddaughter Blanche back across the Pyrenees. As he is forced to reconstruct the shattered settlement of his domains, it is to her that he turns for help. Fans of medieval historical fiction wont want to miss this. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Such disobedience was reportedly common. Eleanor was again unwell in early 1201. What happened next tells us a great deal about Henry, and about King Stephen, and probably helped bring about the end of The Anarchy. I position this move not as a mark of a cooling in their relationship, which had never required constant physical proximity, but as a reward. See more characters from William Shakespeare. 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. Horrified, and desiring an end to the war, Louis attempted to make peace with Theobald in exchange for his support in lifting the interdict on Raoul and Petronilla. This notorious affair caused a monkish scribe to transcribe Rosamund's name in Latin to "Rosa Immundi", or "Rose of Unchastity". The marriage was now doomed. Henry II was elsewhere, attending to his own affairs after escorting Eleanor there. 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. He reportedly "nimbly and bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots which God had provided for his safety" and managed to survive the attack. Accordingly, Louis declared on Christmas Day 1145 at Bourges his intention of going on a crusade. She may well have encouraged her sons to rebel against their father in 1173 and after that he kept her penned up as a prisoner in England until he died in 1189. She preferred him to her grandson Arthur, Duke of Brittany because the latter had been raised under French wings, out of her control. In response, Eleanor broke down and meekly excused her behaviour, claiming to be bitter because of her lack of children (her only recorded pregnancy at that time was in about 1138, but she miscarried[17][18]). [11] Later, during the first four years of HenryII's reign, her siblings joined Eleanor's royal household. Many men, horses, and much of the baggage were cast into the canyon below. [9][13][14] Louis donated the vase to the Basilica of St Denis. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. 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. Later, at King Roger's court in Potenza, she learned of the death of her uncle Raymond, who had been beheaded by Muslim forces in the Holy Land. Late in July 1156, Eleanor left England to join Henry in Anjou with her two younger children. In the 2019 video game expansion Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, Eleanor is a playable leader for the English and French civilizations.[43]. 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. On 18 May 1152 (Whit Sunday), eight weeks after her annulment, Eleanor married Henry "without the pomp and ceremony that befitted their rank."[24]. 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