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On the 21st of March 1152, four French archbishops gathered to annul the marriage of King Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The union had failed to produce a male heir in a country where female succession to the throne was prohibited. Only eight weeks later, Eleanor married the man who became King Henry II of England in 1154. Over the next half a century she reigned as queen consort and lived to see two of her sons become King of England. What role did Eleanor play in this tumultuous era in the history of France and England?
This is the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The woman known to history as Eleanor of Aquitaine was most likely born in 1122. There is uncertainty around where she was born, but it may have been in the western French city of Poitiers. Eleanor's father was William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Ponthieu. He is known as William the Saint owing to his untimely death whilst on pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela in Spain in 1137. His premature passing set off a chain of events which would catapult his daughter onto the centre stage
of European politics in the middle of the twelfth century. Eleanor was originally named Alienor after her mother, Aénor de Châtellerault, from the Latin meaning 'the other Aenor', but her name became adulterated to Eleanor. Her mother and father had married in 1121. Eleanor was their first child. A second daughter, Petronilla, followed a couple of years after her, and then a boy named William, who sadly died when he was around four years old in 1130. Eleanor's father came from a cultured family and she was taught history, literature,
astronomy and theology growing up, as well as more female courtly pursuits like dancing, needle work and how to play musical instruments such as the harp. Despite possessing these qualities, Eleanor's life, as was entirely common for a daughter of a prominent medieval nobleman, was destined to be shaped by marriage and motherhood. Her position as her father's eldest daughter became especially important after the death of her young brother in 1130, a tragedy that was compounded by the death of Eleanor's mother. What little chance that her father might remarry and have another male heir was terminated when he died on pilgrimage
in 1137. With this, Eleanor was placed under the protection of King Louis VI of France, who acted as her guardian in her teenage years. Eleanor had now become an extremely important person in France's politics, for the Duchy of Aquitaine was a large territory that controlled much of the west of the country. Whoever married her would acquire control over it. Although Louis VI was one of Europe's most powerful monarchs, the French crown was not nearly as powerful in the twelfth century as it would become in early modern times, largely
because of the sheer power and autonomy of the various dukedoms of the kingdom, such as Burgundy, Normandy and Aquitaine, that rivalled the power of the French crown. The roots of Aquitaine as a distinct region of France date back to the time of the Roman Empire, when it was known as Aquitania Prima. It would later be ruled by the Visigoths and then the Franks, two Germanic tribes that had invaded the Western Roman Empire and carved out their own principalities here in the fifth century AD. Eleanor's ancestors were granted the title of Dukes of Aquitaine in medieval times,
although it remained a fiefdom, meaning that Eleanor's family held the duchy with the kings of France as their liege lords to whom they owed homage. The Duchy of Aquitaine, at its greatest extent, consisted of the south-western quarter of modern-day France, making it the largest and arguably the richest of the French dukedoms. Whoever controlled it exercised considerable influence over France's politics. It was this colossal inheritance that Eleanor acquired in 1137. King Louis VI, who now had Eleanor under his protection, consequently devised a plan to marry the young heiress to his son, Louis the Younger, the future King Louis VII.
The only issue from the French king's perspective was a condition in Eleanor's father's will that she should retain control over the duchy until her children came of age. Prince Louis had not always been the heir to the French throne, as his older brother Philip had died in 1131, when his horse tripped over a black pig that darted out of a dung heap in Paris, resulting in the 15-year old prince being thrown violently over the horse's head and onto the ground. He was fatally injured and died a day later. As the second-born son,
Louis had been preparing to embark on a pious life of religion. The young prince's religious upbringing would go on to shape his character and actions as king. Louis VI was anxious to make his new heir co-regent quickly after the death of Philip as his own health was not good. This was linked to his obesity, and Louis was known as Louis the Fat. Moreover, in 1137, the king's declining health was further compounded by him contracting dysentery. This prompted him to dispatch his son to Aquitaine, along with 500 heavily armed knights. There,
on the 25th of July 1137, Eleanor married young Louis in the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux. Only a week later, Eleanor's new husband became King Louis VII of France after his father died. It was customary for couples from noble families at the time to exchange wedding gifts to further seal their union. Eleanor honoured this custom by giving her new husband a rock-crystal vase that she had been given by her grandfather, William IX. The artefact is still in existence today and is kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is widely considered to be the only surviving object that
we know for certain belonged to Eleanor. After their marriage, Louis and Eleanor travelled to Poitiers, the capital of Aquitaine, where they were confirmed as Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine. The festivities were short lived, as word soon reached the couple that Louis' father had died and he was now the King of France. They immediately rode to Paris, where they were crowned king and queen consort on Christmas Day 1137. Eventually, after this frenetic series of events, they settled down into married life. The young king, according to contemporary accounts, was devoted to Eleanor,
but she quickly gained a reputation for acting in an improper manner that was unbecoming of a woman of her status. This hostility toward Eleanor was largely due to the fact that she was an outsider, unused to the customs of the Parisian court. She was also, it must be remembered, still a teenager of about 15 years. Whatever the views of the wider court might have been, Eleanor's influence over her new husband became clear one year after their wedding, when Louis, along with a small army, put down a rebellion near Poitiers to protect the Duchy of Aquitaine,
while three years later he undertook a campaign to capture Toulouse, a city which Eleanor laid claim to through her paternal grandmother, Phillipa. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Louis undertook these campaigns at his wife's insistence, it is certain that any campaign in Aquitaine or Toulouse would at the very least have concerned her. What we also know for certain is that Eleanor's arrival at the French court did cause some intrigue, as her younger sister, Petronilla, who had relocated to Paris with Eleanor, began a relationship with the fifty-year
old cousin of the King, Raoul I of Vermandois. The couple soon made a public declaration that they intended to marry, despite the fact that Raoul was already married to Eleanor of Champagne, niece of Theobald II, Count of Champagne. In this instance the queen once again used her influence over the king to have Raoul and Eleanor's marriage annulled on the grounds that they were too closely related. Petronilla and Raoul were then married in 1142. Understandably this union greatly angered the Count of Champagne, who appealed to the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Innocent II,
who declared that Raoul's marriage to Petronilla was in turn invalid, meaning that both of them now faced excommunication as a consequence. King Louis, who had previously quarrelled with the Pope over the state of the Archbishopric of Bourges, was in no mood to relent to Innocent's decision, and so marched on Champagne with an army and assaulted the capital of the lordship, Vitry. It was burnt to ashes, while around 1,000 of the city's inhabitants who had taken refuge in a church also lost their lives. The war against Champagne would go on for two more years,
until peace was finally agreed with the assistance of the French abbot and prominent European cleric, Bernard of Clairvaux. In a private meeting with Eleanor he promised that God would grant her many children if she ceased to be a negative influence over her husband. This had the desired effect, as both Eleanor and her husband soon backed down, and Louis agreed to return Theobald's captured lands to him. He also agreed to cease his opposition to the Pope's choice for the Archbishopric of Bourges, although Raoul and Petronilla remained excommunicated until
Pope Innocent II's death in 1144. For Eleanor the church's blessing seemed to have paid dividends. She gave birth to a daughter named Marie in 1145, who would go on to marry the Count of Champagne's son, Henry, in 1164. The episode in Champagne demonstrates the influence she had acquired over her husband, but even a monarch as powerful as Louis could not fight for long against his own nobles and the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, Louis determined not long afterwards, with the encouragement of the new Pope, Eugene III, to lead a Crusade against the Muslims in the Holy Land. This Second Crusade was triggered by the
capture of the city of Edessa in the Holy Land by Turkish Muslim warlord, Zengi, in December 1144. A year later, on Christmas Day 1145, in Bourges Cathedral, the King made it known that he intended to take the Cross and set sail for the Middle East. Eleanor also took the cross alongside her husband, the reasons for which are still debated today. Some historians contend that Louis could not bear to leave his wife behind in France and decided that she would travel with him, though others argue that it was Eleanor who actually planted the idea of taking the cross
in her husband's mind. She had a motive for doing so. Her father's brother, Raymond of Poitiers, was the Prince of Antioch, one of the four Christian Crusader kingdoms that had been founded during the First Crusade at the very end of the eleventh century, along with the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli and the County of Edessa. Eleanor's participation in the Second Crusade would also ensure a large contingent of nobles and soldiers from Aquitaine would join the king. Whatever the motives were, the chronology is clear. The king, his wife and their army
of fellow crusaders set off from France in June 1147. They entered the Byzantine Empire in August, where they were received with some suspicion by Emperor Manuel I Comnenus, who feared what the influx of hordes of western Crusaders might bring about in his dominions. Despite this hostility, Eleanor made a considerable impression on the Byzantines as they later portrayed her in accounts as a warrior queen who rode horses in the male fashion at the head of the Crusader army. This interest in the French queen, was reciprocated by the Crusader interest in the
Byzantines. They stayed for over a fortnight in the city of Constantinople, the Byzantine capital. Then they received a message that King Conrad III of Germany, the other great European monarch who had become involved in the Second Crusade, had secured a great victory against the Turks. Not wanting to miss out on the glory, Louis quickly led his forces over the Bosporus and on towards the Holy Land, However, upon entering Anatolia, he learned that the message that had been received in Constantinople informing the French of Conrad's victory was false, and that the German King
had actually been heavily defeated by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Dorylaeum in October 1147. Judging that they had come too far to turn back, the French Crusaders joined with Conrad's depleted forces and pressed on into the hinterland of Anatolia towards Antioch. Their journey would prove to be as difficult as it had been for the Germans. Whilst approaching the summit of Mount Cadmus on the 6th of January 1148, Louis ordered his vanguard to halt and make camp, but its commanders, one of whom was Eleanor's vassal, Geoffrey de Rancon, decided to continue into the next valley, which stretched the Crusaders lines and made them
vulnerable to attack. The Seljuks then launched a surprise attack on their divided camps, resulting in part of the Christian baggage train being captured, while hundreds of Crusaders were slain as they retreated back down the narrow passes or fell to their deaths in the deep ravines. Later Eleanor would be blamed by the chroniclers for the defeat at the Battle of Mount Cadmus, as it was suggested that she had given Rancon the order for the crusader vanguard to march on, splitting the Crusader forces in the process. However, it should be noted that there is no
concrete evidence to suggest where Eleanor was during this incident. Over the coming days, the Turks mounted more raids on the crusaders, as they traversed the Anatolian mountains, and eventually Louis was forced to abandon many of his men and proceed to the Holy Land by ship, which effectively consigned those left behind to death from exposure, starvation or attack by the Seljuk Turks. The King and Eleanor finally arrived at the city of Antioch in March 1148. There they were greeted by Eleanor's uncle, Raymond of Poitiers, but it soon became evident
that there was a disagreement between the French king and his wife. Louis was eager to proceed on to Jerusalem, whilst Eleanor wanted the French to remain at Antioch to aid Raymond in his planned siege of the city of Aleppo about 40 miles to the east of Antioch. Eleanor, for her part, spent many hours in private conversations with her uncle for unknown reasons. Some said she was seeking Raymond's advice, whilst others believed he was attempting to win her support for his plan to attack Aleppo, whilst some chroniclers even accused Raymond and Eleanor of starting an incestuous affair. Modern historians believe this
to be false and the queen and Louis continued to share a bed together after this period. It must be remembered that rumours of Eleanor's promiscuity abounded both during her life and following her death. The thirteenth-century Minstrel of Rheims even claimed that Eleanor had an affair with Saladin, the Muslim leader during the Third Crusade forty years later. This story is completely implausible, as Saladin was a child living in Syria at the time that Eleanor was in the Holy Land. Whatever the purpose of Eleanor's conversations with her uncle,
they resulted in a disagreement over the Crusader strategy, as Eleanor wished to remain in Antioch, while Louis decided they would carry on to Jerusalem. This was a clear sign of the growing split between husband and wife. It was possibly at this time that the idea was floated of a divorce based on consanguinity, the idea that the pair were too closely related to have ever been legally able to marry. However, Eleanor and Louis were, in reality, much more distantly related than many royal and aristocratic couples across medieval Europe. In any event, it would be several years
before the divorce was entered into. In the short term, the Crusaders marched on to Jerusalem and entered the city in May 1148, where they were welcomed by a jubilant crowd, which included the Patriarch of Jerusalem and Conrad. After finishing his pilgrimage with prayer at Jerusalem's holy sites, Louis embarked on a siege of the city of Damascus. This enterprise ended after just four days on the 28th July in failure and retreat. Moreover, the French resources were now running low, as was morale. There is very little mention of Eleanor's activities during this period. As was
typical with Eleanor's life, there arose numerous legends about her activities in the Holy Land, including one which suggested that she brought back silkworms from the Middle East and introduced them to Aquitaine. Eleanor and Louis departed by ship towards Italy. During this journey the royal ships were attacked, and after narrowly escaping, the ships of Louis and Eleanor were then separated by a violent storm. Eleanor's whereabouts remained unknown for two months until her ship was finally brought to port at Palermo in Sicily. Where she was during that two-month period remains a mystery to this
day. The king and queen were finally reunited in Calabria in the late summer of 1149, but Eleanor's relief was soon dissipated by news that on the 29th of June, her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, had been killed and decapitated at the Battle of Inab in northern Syria by Muslim forces. Greatly bereaved, Eleanor now set off with her husband north towards Rome, where Pope Eugenius III had invited the royals to stay in his palace at Tusculum just south of the city. Both Louis and Eleanor separately confided in the Pope about their marital problems during their visit,
but Eugenius adamantly refused to consider an annulment, as they already had a child and had been married for many years. Instead, he blessed the marriage and commanded that it should not be dissolved under any pretext, even encouraging the couple to sleep in the same bed when residing with him. On the 11th of November 1149, Louis and Eleanor at last returned to Paris after an absence of two and a half years. Although they were received by demonstrations of joy, there was underlying discontent pervading France at the complete failure of the Second Crusade. The resentment heightened the discontent between Eleanor and
her husband. Strangely, their already tense marriage was irreparably broken by the birth of their second child, a daughter named Alix, in the late summer of 1150, as the arrival of another daughter was a bitter disappointment to Louis, who, approaching the age of thirty, craved a male heir to succeed him in the Capetian royal line. Indeed, he took this birth of a second daughter as a sign that God did not approve of his marriage. This view was shared by many of his advisors, who encouraged Louis to divorce Eleanor and marry someone less controversial who would deliver him
a son. Louis agreed to initiate proceedings to acquire an annulment in late 1151, and on the 21st of March 1152, four archbishops of France gathered at the royal castle of Beaugency on the Loire River to carry out the separation after receiving the reluctant approval of the Pope. This divorce had immense consequences not just for Eleanor, but for the future of the Western European balance of power, as by renouncing his marriage, the King of France had also renounced his claim to the Duchy of Aquitaine. Following her divorce, Eleanor became the most
coveted woman in Western Europe. Nevertheless, Eleanor already knew who she was going to marry. Indeed, it is likely she had planned it well before her divorce from Louis, as only eight weeks after the annulment, Eleanor was again standing at the altar, this time beside Henry of Anjou, the future King Henry II of England. Eleanor had first met Henry in Paris in 1151. Though she was eleven years his senior, they were attracted to one another and, perhaps more importantly, both Eleanor and Henry stood to gain politically from the marriage. At this time, Henry's lands
included the northern French provinces of Anjou and Normandy, while Henry, who was the grandson of King Henry I, had a strong claim to succeed King Stephen of England and had been engaged in a protracted war to try to cement his claim to the English throne. After arriving at Poitiers, Eleanor sent envoys to Henry requesting marriage, then summoned the chief vassals of her lands to renew their allegiance to her, and to approve her choice of husband. On the 18th of May 1152, Eleanor and Henry were married in the cathedral of Saint-Pierre at Poitiers, much to the fury of
Louis VII, who viewed Henry as a rival. Now, with the addition of Eleanor's considerable provinces, which more than doubled Henry's holdings in France, Louis was left vulnerable. What was worse, Eleanor's second marriage soon resulted in the sons that she and Louis had never been able to have. Over the course of her marriage to Henry, Eleanor bore eight children, including five sons, William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John. The eldest, William, died at the age of three, but Richard, who would come to be known as the 'Lionheart', and John would both inherit the
English crown in later years. The three daughters were named Matilda, Eleanor and Joan. They would go on to marry some of the most powerful men in Europe, including Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, Alfonso VIII, King of Castile, and William II, King of Sicily. Eleanor's unofficial title as, The 'First Grandmother of Europe' is well deserved. In January 1153, after he and Eleanor had completed a tour of Aquitaine, Henry set sail for England at the head of an invasion force, intent on bringing King Stephen to submission. Henry
was now determined to seize the English crown by force, and after months of successful skirmishing, during which Henry took many English towns and castles and cemented a reputation for bravery and military skill, many English barons and bishops urged the two rivals to negotiate. After the death of his eldest son, Eustace, on the 17th of August, King Stephen agreed, and in a November peace conference, he accepted Henry's claim to the throne and agreed to recognise him as his heir. In return, Henry conceded that Stephen would rule England peacefully until his death. Henry did not
have long to wait, as on the 25th of October 1154 King Stephen died. Thus, Henry and Eleanor set sail for England, to take possession of their new kingdom. They were crowned in Westminster Abbey on the 19th of December 1154, after being received by a jubilant London crowd, who hailed the new royal couple as peacemakers, come to restore order after the years of the Anarchy that had characterised the reign of King Stephen. The new royal line established by Henry was known as the House of Plantagenet. Its members would rule England for the next 330 years.
Though Henry rapidly established his authority over England, implementing legal reforms and consolidating his power, he found his continental holdings much more difficult to govern, particularly Aquitaine, whose nobles were hostile to outsiders. Eleanor consequently had to exercise an unusual degree of influence over the duchy for a queen consort. Furthermore, though Henry ensured he possessed complete control over the most important matters of state, during the reign's early years, Eleanor acted as regent of England on the numerous occasions when Henry was away on the
continent, running parts of the government in his absence. As queen, and as a pious woman, Eleanor was a great benefactor of religious institutions. She funded the building and restoration of churches, abbeys and cathedrals in Poitou and Aquitaine, as well as the Abbey of Fontevrault in the Loire Valley, which benefited most from Eleanor's patronage. Under her influence, the religious Order of the Abbey grew in influence and prestige. It was here that Eleanor would eventually spend her final years and where she was buried alongside Henry and her son Richard.
In 1168, Eleanor took up residence in Poitiers, establishing her court in the city, along with her favourite son Richard. Although it was Eleanor that initiated this separation from Henry, the king approved of it and was not upset or disturbed by the queen's move, as having dealt with a large Aquitanian revolt in the spring of 1168, Henry thought Eleanor's presence would help pacify the duchy. There is much debate as to why Eleanor decided to spend time at Poitiers. Perhaps her marriage had become strained. Henry was frequently unfaithful and
Eleanor was in her mid-forties after bearing many children. It is possible that Eleanor believed she had done her duty within the marriage and no longer wanted to take an active part in it. Furthermore, living in her own lands with a relative degree of autonomy, allowed Eleanor to exercise greater power than when she was with Henry in England. From 1168 to 1173, Eleanor maintained her own court at Poitiers, one that has become legendary as the so-called 'Court of Love', where chivalric romance was prominent, and the medieval lyrical poetry
of the troubadours flourished under Eleanor's patronage. The queen herself was often mentioned in the poems of the troubadours of south-western France at the time, described admiringly as an elegant and noble woman. However, like so many of the stories surrounding the life of Eleanor, her 'Court of Love' was almost certainly a myth, a literary conceit concocted by Andreas Capellanus, a chaplain at the court of Troyes. He wrote The Art of Courtly Love in the late 1180s which describes Eleanor, along with her daughter Marie, as presiding over a tribunal that made judgements
on intellectual disputes concerning courtly love. Despite these writings, there is no real evidence for this 'Court of Love' in any contemporary sources. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Marie ever visited Eleanor at Poitiers. Thus, Eleanor's appearance in Andreas' work, owes far more to her reputation than to her actual actions. Whilst Eleanor was at Poitiers, pressure was growing on King Henry II's rule from his eldest son Henry. With the treaty of Montmirial in January 1169, the king divided his vast
inheritance between his three eldest sons. Henry was to receive England, Normandy and Anjou, Richard would be granted Aquitaine, while Geoffrey would acquire Brittany. Furthermore, the young Henry was crowned as King of England in June 1170, in anticipation of his succession, and was dubbed the 'Young King'. However, the Young King took after his father in his restless desire for power. He found having titles without any real power infuriating, and in his anger a rift began to grow between the Young King and his father, who refused to cede any effective political power to
his son. Furthermore, King Henry was increasingly isolated politically, primarily due to the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in December 1170 by four of Henry's knights, an act which Henry had not explicitly ordered and deeply regretted, yet one in which he was still implicated, and which shocked Christian Europe. Eleanor was amongst those who were angry at Henry for the incident, and after living separately for five years she sided firmly on the side of her sons in the growing family quarrels. She knew that the more power that they gained,
the more political influence she herself would hold in western France. Henry was also coming under growing pressure from his vassals, especially in Poitou and Aquitaine, who resented his heavy-handed imposition of centralised royal authority. After Henry's dramatic loss of international prestige following the murder of Becket, they sensed an opportunity to overthrow the authority of the English King, and their growing rebelliousness was encouraged by Eleanor, her sons, and King Louis of France, who relished the chance to undermine the might of Henry's continental empire. The stage was thus set for the most dangerous rebellion ever to confront
Henry II. Although Eleanor's precise role in the build-up to the uprising is not certain, it is clear that she was a key player in helping to form the hostile coalition that confronted the English King in 1173. In March of the same year, the Young King escaped from his father and fled to Paris, where he and King Louis pledged to assist each other against their common enemy. Eleanor soon sent his younger brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, to Paris, to join him in revolt, whilst encouraging the lords of her southern lands to rise up. Fearing for her safety in Poitiers,
Eleanor left for Paris too sometime between the end of March and the beginning of May 1173. However, on her journey the queen was captured by men in Henry's pay and sent to his castle in Rouen. For the King, her actions constituted an extremely bitter betrayal and he had Eleanor confined as his prisoner. Contemporary chroniclers were unanimous in condemning Eleanor's treachery, as her actions violated every medieval concept of the duties and loyalties of a wife. Whilst sons rebelling against fathers was a fairly common occurrence in this period, it was virtually unheard of for a queen to rebel against her husband.
The Rebellion of 1173 to 1174 saw little open warfare. However, many castles were besieged and lands ravaged as Henry's sons and the King of France used scorched earth tactics to decimate swathes of the English king's territory. Yet, despite the strength of their coalition, the Young King and Louis were unable to effectively organise the divided rebel groups into a cohesive force, while Henry II retained the support of the vast majority of the English nobles, who feared invasion and instability above all. The summer of 1173 saw Henry fight tirelessly across
his lands to suppress the rebellion. After a winter lull, the spring of 1174 saw fighting break out again in force. Then the rebels' lack of unity and Henry's ceaseless energy saw the revolt begin to lose momentum after the invasion of England by William the Lion, King of the Scots, was repulsed. William was captured by Henry's troops led by Ranulf de Ganvill in the summer of 1174, leading to the English rebels suing for peace that July. William even acknowledged Henry as his feudal overlord. This forced Louis and the Young King to call off their
planned invasion of England. Then, when their attack on Rouen in August ended in retreat back to Paris in the face of Henry's advance, the rebellion was virtually at an end. For Henry, this was a great victory against considerable odds. It restored his international reputation from the tarnished state it had been in after the death of Saint Thomas Becket. The outcome of these events was that a peace was reached on the 30th September 1174 between Henry and his sons at Montlouis. The King generously gave money and castles to his remorseful sons,
but he did not cede any real political power. Unusually, he inflicted a distinct revenge on Eleanor. While Henry proclaimed a general amnesty for all those who had risen up against him, this was not extended to his wife. After travelling to England with Henry on the 8th of July 1174, Eleanor was placed under house arrest. For the remainder of Henry's life, until 1189, she would remain a virtual prisoner and was only permitted limited contact with her children. The King dealt with Eleanor so discreetly that very little is known about her life during these years.
She was mostly kept under detention at Winchester Castle. Although Eleanor lived in fairly luxurious surroundings here, the king ensured she was completely cut off from the outside world, as he had first-hand proof of how dangerous Eleanor could be. The king then enjoyed several years of peace before the Young King revolted again in the early 1180s. Richard's harsh suppression of rebellious barons and the ruthless enforcement of his authority in Aquitaine, which he now ruled in Eleanor's absence, caused his bitter vassals to look to the Young King to challenge Richard.
And so the impetuous Young Henry joined with the Barons of Aquitaine and invaded Richard's territory in 1182. When Henry II stopped his eldest son's allowance in response, the Young King formed a mercenary band and raided and looted territories throughout southern France. However, in June 1183, the Young King fell violently ill with dysentery and died at the age of 28. After the shock death of the Young King, from the late summer of 1183, Eleanor was allowed greater freedom, resuming her place as Queen and occasionally appearing at Henry's side in public,
but there were no obvious signs that the couple's personal estrangement had ended. By 1189, Henry had reached the age of 56. Although he was twelve years younger than Eleanor, a lifetime of relentless activity had left him suffering from numerous health problems, including a bleeding ulcer. Thus, only six years after the death of Young Henry, the King died on the 6th of July 1189 in his castle at Chinon and was buried at the nearby Fontevraud Abbey. And so, Richard I was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey on the 3rd September 1189, following his father's
death, in front of an enthusiastic gathering. One of his first acts as king was to formally order the release of Queen Eleanor from captivity. Despite having been a prisoner for 15 years, Eleanor emerged with ferocity onto the European political scene at the age of 67. For the remaining 15 years of her life, she would play a more influential political role than ever before, as the queen was able to exert far more influence over her children, than she did over her late husband. With Richard in Aquitaine, Eleanor set about drumming up support for her son in England,
a country that Richard had barely visited. Upon travelling to Westminster, the Queen received oaths of loyalty from the lords of England on behalf of the King. In addition, Eleanor passed a host of laws, in an attempt to endear the English people to their new king, including ordering the release of vassals who had rebelled against Henry II. The 31-year-old Richard, sailed to Portsmouth on the 13th of August, where, thanks largely to Eleanor's efforts, he was greeted with great public enthusiasm. Nonetheless, Richard the Lionheart, who was a French lord by temperament,
had very little interest in administering his new domain. Rather he immediately threw himself into preparing for the project that dominated his imagination - the Third Crusade. On the 2nd of October 1187 the Muslims led by their brilliant military commander, Saladin, had occupied Jerusalem and massacred the Knights Templar, causing the leaders of Western Europe, urged on by Popes Urban III and Clement III, to initiate a new crusade. After implementing heavy taxes on the English people and the nobility to pay for his supplies, Richard departed
from England in December 1189 for France with the ultimate aim of making his way to the Holy Land. In his absence he left Eleanor unofficially in charge of the English government. Her imprisonment had made Eleanor increasingly pious, yet her tenacious energy had not been eroded in the slightest, and in Richard's absence she transacted the business of state using her own seal on official documents, demonstrating the qualities of a benevolent ruler, and greatly impressing contemporary chroniclers. Eleanor also had to deal with the intrigues of
Richard's younger brother, John, who was furious at Richard's intention to name his four-year-old nephew, Arthur of Brittany, as his heir He travelled up and down England in an attempt to gain support amongst the English. Philip II of France had left the Crusade due to illness. Upon his return to France in 1191, Eleanor realised that the King presented another threat to Richard's authority in Europe, and after John and Philip formed an alliance in early 1191, the Queen spent considerable time and energy, thwarting the intrigues of these two princes during Richard's
absence. Upon hearing in February 1192 that John was preparing to cross the channel with an army to join with Philip, Eleanor travelled to England from Normandy to stop him. After making every English magnate swear a new oath of fealty to Richard, Eleanor threatened to confiscate John's castles and estates if he defied her. He backed down initially, but as the crusaders began arriving home in the winter of 1192, having failed to recapture Jerusalem, Eleanor received a letter from the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, stating that Richard had been taken captive by
the Emperor's cousin, Duke Leopold of Austria, whom he had offended whilst on crusade. Leopold's overlord, Henry VI, was a ruthless man, who was an enemy of the Plantagenets after Henry II had supported his great rival, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. Leopold now sought to exact revenge on his son and heir. After taking control of the prisoner, Henry demanded an extortionate ransom of 100,000 silver marks, a sum equivalent to twice the annual revenue of England. With her customary vigour, Eleanor set to work raising the King's ransom, whilst keeping the kingdom united
and again blocking John's attempts to claim the throne. Though England was already financially exhausted after the crusade, Eleanor imposed a levy demanding a quarter of every person's annual income, as well as extracting wealth from churches and abbeys; nor were these efforts limited to England, as Eleanor sent officials into Anjou and Aquitaine to collect ransom money. With the money raised, Eleanor herself set out for Germany in December 1193, and was received on 2nd February 1194 by the Emperor at his court in Mainz. However, Henry VI then announced that Philip
and John had offered him an even greater ransom sum, to hand over Richard to the King of France, and it was only after 48 hours of negotiations that Eleanor and Richard's German allies persuaded the Emperor to release the King. With the triumphant return of the crusader king to England on the 12th of March 1194, all rebellious support for John was crushed. Richard quickly re-established his authority, forgiving his troublesome younger brother, whom he did not regard as a serious threat. John was obedient to his brother for the remainder of his reign.
The same could not be said of King Philip of France. During the final five years of Richard's short reign, the English king was engaged in a bitter struggle with Philip, tirelessly defending his territories against the aggressive ambition of the French King, Eleanor meanwhile, lived at the Abbey of Fontevrault for the final years of Richard's reign, looking toward the salvation of her soul and death, as by 1199 the Queen was 77 years old. Richard's conflict with Philip was brought to an end on the 13th of January 1199 when a five-year truce was concluded without the Lionheart ceding any of his territory to Philip. Richard's reign
would end less than three months later when he was struck by an arrow whilst besieging the castle of a rebellious Aquitanian vassal. He died of his wound on the 6th of April 1199 at the age of 41 after declaring John as his heir. Eleanor was at the bedside of her beloved son when he perished, and she saw to it that he was buried at the Abbey of Fontevrault, at the foot of his father's tomb. Of immediate importance to Eleanor, following Richard's death, was to ensure that her son John received his inheritance, as the ever troublesome Philip II proclaimed Richard's nephew Arthur of
Brittany, who was residing with the French King in Paris, as the rightful heir to his empire, leading to numerous vassals in the province of Anjou declaring themselves for Arthur. The Queen responded by ordering the devastation of the lands of any vassal disloyal to her son, and Arthur's support in Anjou was soon quashed. Furthermore, Eleanor embarked on a tour of her southern lands to consolidate support for John in Aquitaine and Poitou. When John was crowned as King of England in May 1199 his continental holdings were secure, thanks largely to the actions of his mother.
In late 1199, Philip concluded a truce with John, recognising the English King as Richard's successor and providing for the marriage of Philip's heir to one of John's Castilian nieces, the daughters of his sister Eleanor. It was decided that Queen Eleanor should travel to Castile to select one of the princesses and convey them back to France, a strenuous journey for a woman in her late seventies, yet Eleanor welcomed the opportunity to see her daughter for the first time in 30 years. Following the truce, Eleanor set off from Poitiers and was ambushed and
captured just south of the city by a rebellious vassal, Hugh de Lusignan, who demanded she grant him the title of Count of La Marche in return for her release. She agreed after deciding that the Castilian marriage was of greater importance than a disputed fiefdom. She then crossed the Pyrenees and travelled onwards to the court of Castile in late January 1200. There she chose 16-year-old Blanche to marry the French heir, a choice that would prove to be a wise one, as Blanche of Castile would ultimately become almost as formidable a queen as her grandmother, keeping
France stable during the minority of her son, the future Saint, Louis IX. Eleanor arrived back in southern France in April, where she soon made her final impact on the European political stage after war again broke out between John and Philip. The queen immediately declared her support for John, outraged at Arthur of Brittany's invasion of Poitou to claim the province for himself. In late July, Eleanor set out from Fontevrault with a military escort to install herself at Poitiers to deter Arthur's advance. She stopped on the way to lodge at the castle of Mirabeau some twenty miles
north-east of Poitiers. However, Arthur learned of her whereabouts, and then besieged the castle, intending to take the old queen hostage. Instructing her men to defend the fortress, Eleanor smuggled out a message to John, requesting aid. Upon receiving the letter, the King immediately marched to the castle, arriving on August 1st, and in a surprise attack the besiegers were overcome, Arthur captured, and Eleanor freed and escorted to safety. In her final defining act, Eleanor had helped John to achieve the greatest military victory of his reign.
Returning to Fontevrault Eleanor took the veil and became a nun for the remainder of her life. She died on the 1st of April 1204 at the age of 82 and was buried in between her husband and her son. During her final years, the old Angevin empire was falling apart around her as the ineffectiveness of King John was ruthlessly exploited by Philip of France. By 1205 he had taken control of Normandy, Anjou and Poitou. Eleanor's immediate legacy was marred, by the fall of her empire, and medieval thirteenth-century chroniclers ensured her reputation was dominated by the
rumours of the scandals of her youth, rather than the wise and pious rule that defined her later years. In reality, the collapse of John's continental holdings following Eleanor's death demonstrates her skill in managing the political and military in France while she was alive. It was only when Eleanor withdrew from political life that the empire she had spent so much of her life working to uphold collapsed. The fact that the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine has been, and continues to be, surrounded by legend and myth, speaks to the fierce grip she held on the
imagination of medieval Europe. She has gone from being portrayed as an evil and scandalous queen throughout the nineteenth century, to a romantic heroine in the twentieth. Even today her failings and her achievements are often exaggerated. Eleanor had a remarkably long career as a political figure in Europe and an important impact on history, in an era when women were so often relegated to a servile role. Indeed, there are not many more influential figures in the history of medieval Europe. As the nuns of Fontevrault wrote after she died, "she surpassed
almost all the queens of the world." What do you think of Eleanor of Aquitaine? Was she really a charming seductress, using her attractiveness to the greatest degree possible, or was she an intelligent stateswoman primarily motivated by fierce loyalty to her children? Please let us know in the comment section, and in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.
