Maybe you have heard of Eleanor of Aquitaine – if not, now is the time. She was the most powerful queen of the Middle Ages and the mother queen who paved the way for all great queens to come: Elizabeth, Maria Theresia and many others. There are not many women who can claim to have been both the Queen of France and the Queen of England during their lifetime. Here is the story of the original “Queen of Europe” as a short continuation of the famous women of history series.
The Queen of France
Most likely born in 1122 in Poitiers, what made Eleanor so special and continued to be a great asset during her whole, long life, was the fact that she was the sole inheritor of the Duchy of Aquitaine in Southwest France. To understand the importance of this Duchy, it should be noted that at the time, France was mostly the area of modern day Île-de-France, Paris and its surroundings. This area was under the tight control of the French king, while the duchies were ruled by vassals who rebelled and changed sides as they willed. The Duchy of Aquitaine was almost ten times larger than Île-de-France.
As so many times in history, the unexpected luck of being the oldest sister in a family of only daughters can bring some advantages (or enormous grievances) to the holder of this honour. For Eleanor, this position meant an arranged marriage with the French king, Louis VII. As one might guess, they were not meant for each other. Eleanor had a shrewd mind, appreciation for politics and their subtlety and worldly, refined tastes, whereas Louis, who was brought up in a monastery, was religious and inflexible. This was clear for the contemporaries too, but for different reasons: Eleanor struggled to give the king a male heir, while Aquitaine would not be completely sieged to France until the eldest son of Eleanor and Louis would inherit their titles. During the years 1137–1152, she gave birth to two daughters. However unsuccessful their marriage was, Eleanor’s years as the Queen of France included a breath-taking amount of participation in different disputes: quarrel with Pope Innocentius II, the occupation of the Duchy of Champagne, and as King Louis felt guilty about having burned the church of the town of Vitry and 1300 inhabitants with it, the Second Crusade. The Crusade itself was a failure and contributed to the downfall of the couple’s marriage. However, the fact that Eleanor was on board in the first place, helped to secure her place as an able leader of her people, as well as taught her a lot about Europe.
The wedding ceremony of Eleanor and Louis VII. Illustration from the Middle Ages. The other King in the boat is not the English King stalking for a chance but Louis VII himself leaving for a crusade.
In March 1152, their marriage was dissolved on grounds of consanguinity, a typical excuse for noblemen to get rid of their wives those days. This time, however, the procedure was more likely wanted by both of them, as Eleanor was more than tired of her monk-like husband, and Louis had perhaps started to doubt the fruitfulness of their marriage.
The Queen wife of England
Eleanor had met Henry, the Duke of Normandy and the future Henry II of England already in 1151 at the French Court. They married in May 1152, only eight weeks after the dissolvement of her previous marriage and despite Eleanor and Henry being even more closely related than Eleanor and Louis. One might argue that, whatever the circumstances, letting go of Eleanor was rather stupid of the French king, as the vast lands of Aquitaine, while theoretically independent, now practically became part of the lands of the English crown. Not only that, but Eleanor also gave birth to eight more children, seven of which survived past childhood – three daughters and four sons. But as fractured as were the European lands, were the royal families.
Eleanor’s grandfather was somewhat impudent troubadour, and Eleanor herself was bright, beautiful and used to the more refined and secular style of living in the Court of Poitiers. Eleanor of Aquitaine,19th Century, author unknown.
All four of the sons (Henri the young king, Richard the Lionheart, Geoffrey and John Lackland) were more troublesome than any parents would probably hope. And as Louis VII had noticed before, Eleanor knew better than anyone that a royal marriage was not something built on mutual trust but rather a political game. To put it simple: old king Henry II was a fiery personality, not planning to alienate his right to preside at the vast areas of England and Northwest France any time soon. This was a cause of constant scrimmage between the four brothers, especially since the oldest was always the main inheritor in name, but in practice enjoyed no autonomy at all while the father was tightly holding on to all the rights on the main kingdom. Eleanor’s dear Aquitaine was also in danger of losing its independence, when King Henry decided to make peace with the long time enemy of Aquitaine, Count of Toulouse Ramon V in 1173. As a gesture of mediation, the Duke performed homage to the young king Henri, even though he held no rights to Aquitaine – a sign which implied that Aquitaine had become a formal part of English Kingdom, while making peace with Toulouse and being ruled over by such English minded monarchs that the Aquitanian loathed.
Believing in Eleanor’s loyalty might have been Henry’s biggest mistake. While some historic accounts love to indulge in stories about King Henry’s legendary mistress, Rosamund Clifford, it is more likely that the cause of the ultimate downfall of the royal couple’s marriage where the political dissensions over Aquitaine. In 1173, young Henri, Richard, Geoffrey and Eleanor all rebelled against the king in protest of the politics of inheritance. Even though Eleanor and her sons had many formidable allies, the Great Rebellion was defeated in early 1174. While Henry took the resistance as a heaven’s punishment on him (involved as he had been in the murder of his great friend Archbishop Thomas Beckett) and forgave his sons, Eleanor was imprisoned until 1180.
Queen Eleanor poisoning the mistress of her husband, the pure and beautiful Rosamund Clifford is a recurring story theme. However, the story is historically impossible and degrading towards the shrewd and patient Eleanor. Evelyn De Morgan: Queen Eleanor & Fair Rosamund, beginning of the 20th century.
However, things were far from over. Pivotal for Eleanor was the moment her eldest son Henri died. This happened in 1183 when the young King was rebelling once again, but contracted dysentery. He died begging for his father’s forgiveness, which Henry granted him by sending him his ring. Young Henri had also begged for the liberation of his mother, and greater freedom was thusly granted to Eleanor, if in name only. Nevertheless, during the following years Eleanor was summoned to the court whenever her sons were fighting. Her authority over the sons (especially her favourite Richard) and her lands of Aquitaine were manifest in her calm dealing with the situations and the solutions she offered. Richard, the next heir to the crown, refused to surrender Aquitaine for his youngest brother John, even in exchange of Normandy and Anjou, the lands his father was still firmly holding on to. To end the fight, he agreed to relinquish them to his mother, who was the original holder of the rights.
Eleanor mediating between her sons John (in blue) and Richard (in red). James William Edmund Doyle in 1864.
The Mother Queen of England
During her first years as the Queen of England, Eleanor was overshadowed by King Henry’s powerful mother, Matilda. After Matilda’s death in 1167, Eleanor was forty-five and stepped on the political stage as the foremost lady of England. When Henry II died in 1189, Eleanor’s favourite, Richard the Lionheart was crowned as the King of England. Eleanor was immediately freed from her arrest and she de facto ruled England in Richard’s name while he spent most of his time quarrelling and crusading across Europe and Middle East. Eleanor had great influence over the Council of Regency, as well as her lingering youngest son. If you remember the two competing kings from Disney’s version of Robin Hood, you might recognize them as John the Phony and Richard the Good king. The maneless lion John whining about his mother always liking Richard the most is historically quite accurate! However, Richard died from a shot of a mere crossbowman as early as in 1199. As Geoffrey too had met his fate in a jousting tournament in 1186 (his good friend and the son of Louis VII, Philip II almost casting himself into the grave from grieving), John was the next in line.
John’s stormy reign meant more problems for Eleanor. As she was retrieving a bride for John from Castile, her trusted escort, famous warrior Mercadier was slain, and exhausted Eleanor, at the age of seventy-six, fell badly ill twice after the incident. In 1201 she took the veil as a nun in Fontevraud and died in 1204. At this point only two of her children were alive, John the Lackland and Queen Eleanor of Castile.
Heritage
The accounts on Eleanor are sadly quite lacking, since the contemporary histories like to focus on the deeds of the kings instead. But there are still bits and pieces we know that make her special – how and why? While Eleanor certainly seemed to fulfil her duties as a royal bride in Henry II’s court, it was her patience, persistence and low-key cunningness that made her out-live and out-wit both of her royal husbands. She lived to be eighty and travelled a lot, changed courts, participated in a crusade, retrieved a bride for her son, got ambushed twice, and evaded several tries to kidnap her. Despite all the rumours and revolts, she never lost the respect of her family or the faith of her people in Aquitaine. Thanks to her immense presence in European politics and influence on the future of England and France, she is remembered as one of the most powerful queens of all time.
Eleanor of Aquitaine has been portrayed in numerous plays, books and films. Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor in the 1968 film The Lion in Winter by Anthony Harvey. Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role.
What she could not do, however, was to secure the might of the English Crown in mainland Europe, as the reign of John the Lackland saw the crumbling of the English vassal territories in France. But then again – maybe she was not trying to do that in the first place. The only vassal state that remained on the other side of the canal even after John’s death was Eleanor’s dear Aquitaine, after all.
Source: This article is largely based on the book She-Wolves by Helen Castor (Faber and Faber Limited 2010).
Pictures: All pictures are hosted by Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain in the United States.