Eleanor Of Aquitane

Queen Consort of England and France

So a few weeks ago, a certain person replied to a Note of mine and mentioned the person in the title and said she either admired her or thought she was awesome. I can’t find the Note or what exactly was said but it was enough to get me to Google her and start reading about her.

What an amazing woman for the time she lived in. I know some of the UK’s more famous monarchs but had never looked too closely into Eleanor but I’m glad I did. So I decided to do a kind of history musing for this article so that people can discover this amazing woman from the UK’s history. It’s a bit late coming out but since I’ve started this I’ve returned to the UK and been seeing family and friends and just generally chilling out before I return to my actual job (which is teaching sailors) rather than being on a ship.

So let’s start and learn a small bit about this amazing woman. Elanor of Aquitaine was born in roughly 1122 in the city of Poitiers. She was the eldest child of William 10th, Duke of Aquitaine and Aenor of Chatellerault. She was said to have been named after her mother but was known as Alienor from the Latin “Alia Aenor” which means “the other” Aenor. This soon became Eleanor in English.

Being the eldest daughter to a Duke, her father ensured she had the best upbringing of the time. She learned arithmetic, History, Latin. She learned how to ride a horse, hawking and hunting. She could play games of the time like checkers and chess, she could play the harp and sing. She was even taught domestic skills like household management and the needle arts of sewing, embroidery and spinning and weaving. This ensured that she grew up to be a bit of, by all accounts, a bit of an extrovert, lively, strong willed and very intelligent.

Sadly, when she was young, she lost both her mother and her little brother at the castle of Talmont on Aquitaine’s Atlantic coast in the spring of 1130. This made her the heir presumptive to her fathers domains make her a very eligible bacheloress.

At the rough age of 12-15, her father died. On his deathbed he wished that the King of France, Louis VI was seen as the protector of Eleanor and his lands and to find her a suitable husband. King Louis accepted this guardianship and married the newly Duchess of Aquitaine to his own son, Louis VII. Louis VI who was also known as Louis the Fat and was ill at the time and realised he was unlikely to recover so marrying off his son to Eleanor meant that Aquitaine came under the control of the French Crown. A shrewd move on his part.

(The picture on the left is Eleanor’s wedding. On the right we have the King sailing to the Second Crusade) 

So we find that within months of her father dying, Eleanor was married off by the King of France. After the wedding they toured the provinces of France, seeing to the townsfolk and the land that they would one day inherit. However this was cut short in August when Eleanor’s new husband received a message that his father had died. This led to Louis VII becoming King of France on Christmas day with Eleanor becoming his Queen.

Possessing a high spirited nature, Eleanor wasn’t much liked at court. Louis’ mother thought her flighty and a bad influence. Her conduct was repeatedly criticised by the Church (shock). However the Louis loved his Queen who he thought very beautiful and worldly and I’m sure because of her free spirited nature.

In June 1144 The King and Queen visited the newly built monastic church at Saint-Denis. Whilst there Eleanor asked the head of the church there to influence the Pope of the time to lift an excommunication in exchange for favours. The head of the church was not amused and scolded her for her lack of penitence and interference in matters of state. 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^). In response, the head of the church became more kindly towards her: "My child, seek those things which make for peace. Cease to stir up the king against the Church, and urge upon him a better course of action. If you will promise to do this, I in return promise to entreat the merciful Lord to grant you offspring." In a matter of weeks, peace had returned to France. In April 1145, Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, Marie.

She took part in the Second Crusade, leaving with her Royal ladies-in-waiting and 300 non noble vassals in June 1147. Thought the Crusade itself achieved little, Eleanor was admired and compared to Penthesilea, mythical Queen of the Amazons. It was during this time that her reputation was sullied with rumours of an affair with her Uncle Raymond, Prince of Antioch. It was also during this period that it seems like she was trying to find a way to annul her marriage by bringing up the matter of consanguinity, the fact that she and her husband might be too closely related.

Whilst she was in the Eastern Mediterranean she learned about maritime conventions developing there, which would become the beginnings of what would become admiralty law. She introduced these conventions in her own lands on the Island of Oleron in 1160 and later in England as well.

Eventually, in the spring of 1149, she and her husband returned home, on separate ships. Due to storms and attacks the ships got separated and neither heard from the other for over 2 months. She eventually landed at Palermo in Sicily whilst the King landed in Calabria and she set out to meet him. They then travelled to Tusculum to see Pope Eugene III to seek and annulment. This annulment wasn’t granted and instead the Pope tried to reconcile the King and Queen. This led to another child for them both. Not the son that the King had wanted but a daughter, Alix of France.

With the marriage now doomed, the Pope now granted and annulment on the grounds of consanguinity withing the fourth degree. Their two daughters were declared legitimate and custody awarded to King Louis with assurances that Eleanor’s lands would be restored to her.

(King Henry II of England)

Once this was all settled, Eleanor travelled to Poitier’s. On the way, tow lords, Theobald V, Count of Blois and Geoffrey, Count of Nantes tried to kidnap and marry her for her lands. They failed and as soon as she arrived, she sent envoys to Henry II, Duke of Normandy and future King of England, asking him to come and marry her at once. Eight weeks after her annulment to the King of France she was remarried to Henry.

Henry became King of England on 25th October 1154. By this time Elanor was heavily pregnant. Over the next 13 years she bore the King of England 5 sons and 3 daughters. Their relationship was said to be tumultuous and argumentative although I believe there must have been some sort of love their for her to bare him so many children. Unfortunately, as I’m sure all Kings were like, Henry II had a lot of affairs. It is unknown if Eleanor did but it is possible. Her marriage to the King became extremely strained when he publicly admitted to an affair with Rosamund Clifford, known as the Rose of the World.

The children of The King and Queen were all married off, making sure these two cemented their claims to various lands and by December 1167 she was gathering all her movable possessions so that they could be transported to Poitier’s with an agreed separation from the King did not stop her. She spent Christmas there and appeared to agree to a separation from King Henry.

In 1173, Eleanor and King Henry’s second born son, known as Henry the Younger, egged on by the Kings enemies launched the Revolt of 1173-1174. Two of his brothers also participated. Eleanor is said to have convinced Henry the Youngers two brothers to join with him. Eventually the young men left for Paris to see the King of France and Eleanor was then said to encourage the the lords of the south of Franc to rise up against the King of England.

During this time Eleanor travelled and was captured by the King of England. The King did not announce this publicly and they soon both returned to England where Eleanor was imprisoned for the next 16 years in various locations. During this time she became more and more distant from her sons, though she was released for special occasions like Christmas. During this time she lost her son, Henry the Younger to dysentery.

When Henry the Younger died, King Philip of France tried to claim that certain portions of Normandy now belonged to the French Crown though Henry the Younger’s widow. For this reason, King Henry summoned Eleanor to Normandy where, over the next few years she was granted more freedom but still had a custodian so was never truly free.

Upon King Henry II’s death in July 1189, his and Eleanor’s third born son Richard the III became king. He would always be known by his epitaph Richard the Lionheart. Richard’s first act was to order the release of his mother from prison. She rode to Westminster, receiving oaths of fealty Lords and prelates on behalf of the King. She now ruled England in her sons name whilst he was engaged first in the Third Crusade and then was captive by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. She wielded considerable influence during this time. She played a key role in getting her son released from the Holy Roman Emperor.

She Survived Richard the Lionheart and lived well into the reign of the next King, John I. During this time, war broke out between England and France. Eleanor had been travelling through France to secure favourable marriages to try and keep the peace but this was unsuccessful. She was ill during this period and the travelling would not have helped.

Eleanor died in 1204 and was entombed in Fontevraud Abbey next to her husband King Henry II and Richard the Lionheart. Her tomb effigy shows her reading the Bible and is decorated with beautiful jewellery. It is said the Eleanor’s is one of the finest that survive from that period of time. However, during the French Revolution, the abbey was sacked and the tombs were disturbed and vandalised. Consequently the bones of all three, and others, were exhumed and scattered, never to be recovered. A sad end to a strong Queen.

So there we go. It’s not the best article on her life. I’m not a historian by any stretch of the imagination. I hope you enjoyed reading about her life. I glossed over a lot of the parts and you‘ll be surprised at how detailed her life is despite the time.

I hope you enjoy and I hope I find you all happy and healthy.

Vulkan