Weir - Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Alison Weir

This book is dedicated with heartfelt thanks to my agent, JULIAN ALEXANDER and to JILL BLACK who has edited so many of my books.

Acknowledgments

I should like to extend very special thanks to my editor, Anthony Whittome, for his creative input and his unflagging enthusiasm for this project, and to my commissioning editor, Will Sulkin, for his tremendous support. Gratitude is also due to Lily Richards for her indefatigable picture research.

As always, I must express my thanks to my agent Julian Alexander, without whom this book would not exist: he kept faith with this project for many years before its acceptance. I am grateful also to his former assistant, Kirstan Romano, for all her kindness. Finally, as ever, thank you, Rankin, my husband, and John and Kate, my children, for putting up with me while this book was in preparation. I could never have done it without you.

Contents

Preface xix

Prologue: 18 May 1152 1

1 "Opulent Aquitaine" 3

2 "A Model of Virtue" 21

3 "Counsel of the Devil" 37

4 "To Jerusalem!" 55

5 "A Righteous Annulment" 73

6 "A Happy Issue" 89

7 "All the Business of the Kingdom" 104

8 "Eleanor, by the Grace of God, Queen of England" 120

9 "The King Has Wrought a Miracle" 141

10 "Conjectures Which Grow Day by Day" 158

11 "The Holy Martyr" 177

12 "The Cubs Shall Awake" 189

13 "Beware of Your Wife and Sons" 198

14 "Poor Prisoner" 211

15 "Shame, Shame on a Conquered King!" 231

16 "The Eagle Shall Rejoice in Her Third Nesting" 248

17 "The Admiration of Her Age" 260

18 "The Devil Is Loosed!" 279

19 "The Staff of My Old Age" 300

20 "The Most Reverend Eleanor" 314

21 "The Brood of the Wicked Shall Not Thrive" 326

22 "A Candle Goeth Out" 336

Notes on the Chief Sources 347

Bibliography 355

Notes and References 375

Genealogical Tables 407

Index 423

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A Note on Names and Spellings

Different variations of the names of people and places occur in twelfth-century sources. For example, the names Matilda, Maud, and Mahalde are interchangeable, as are Alice, Aaliz, and Alais.

For the sake of clarity, I have used different spellings of the same name to identify different people. Eleanor's daughter is called Alix, Richard Is betrothed of the same name Alys, and the Lord John's betrothed Alice. All are accurate renderings. A similar differentiation has been used with the name Amaury/Aymer/Aimery. Louis VII's daughter, often called Margaret in other works, is here referred to by the French version of her name, Marguerite.

Eleanor, who would have called herself Alienore, is referred to by the more familiar anglicised version of her name.

As in many other history books, William the Marshal is throughout referred to as such, even though he did not acquire his office of Marshal until 1199.

Although Eleanor was Countess of Poitou and Duchess of Aquitaine, I have occasionally used the name Aquitaine as a blanket term covering both her domains, although I have tried to differentiate between them wherever possible.

Many place names have changed since the twelfth century, and where appropriate I have given the modern name in parentheses. Some places no longer exist; wherever possible, I have attempted to discover their exact or approximate location.

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Illustrations

Palais de Justice, Poitiers Roger- Viollet

William IX, Duke of Aquitaine. Manuscript illumination, fr. 12473 fol. 128 Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

Louis VII, King of France. Manuscript illumination from "Grands Chroniques de France," fr. 2813 fol. 223 Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

Rock crystal vase, 12th c, from the Abbey of Saint-Denis, now in the Louvre Reunion des Musees Nationaux-- Daniel Amaudet

Retable of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (detail), anon., 12th c, Museo de Mallorca, on loan from the Sociedad Arqueologica Luliana

Count Geoffrey of Anjou. Enamel tombstone, c. 1152, Musee de Tesse, Le Mans Giraudon

Eleanor's seal, from a charter in the Archives de France Atelier de photographic du Centre historique des Archives nationales, Paris

Engaged capital, thought to portray Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, 1934 (34.115.4ab)

Tomb of Matilda, daughter of Henry II, and Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, Brunswick Cathedral, late 12th c. AKG London

Effigy of Henry the Young King (detail), late 12th c, Rouen Cathedral Roger-Viollet

Effigy of Henry II (detail), late 12th c, Fontevrault Abbey AKG London

Effigy of Richard I (detail), 1199-1200, Fontevrault Abbey AKG London

Effigy of Berengaria of Navarre (detail), after 1230, Le Mans Cathedral Geoffrey Wheeler

Effigy of King John (detail), c. 1225-1230, Worcester Cathedral Geoffrey Wheeler

Mural from Sainte-Radegonde, Chinon, c. 1196 By courtesy of Les Amis du Vieux Chinon

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Effigy of Isabella of Angouleme (detail), mid 13th c, Fontevrault Abbey Geoffrey Wheeler

Effigy of Eleanor of Aquitaine (detail), c. 1204, Fontevrault Abbey AKG London

The tombs of the Plantagenets in the Abbey of Fontevrault Bildarchiv Foto Marburg

Maps

The Angevin Empire in 1154 xv

Europe and the Holy Land in the Twelfth Century xvi

England in the Twelfth Century xviii

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[map of the Angevin Empire in 1154 removed]

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[map of Europe and the Holy Land in the Twelfth Century removed]

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[map of Richard I's route during the Third Crusade, 1190-1194 removed]

[map of Eleanor's journey, 1190-1191 removed]

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[map of England in the Twelfth Century removed]

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Preface

When, after completing several books on the late mediaeval and Tudor periods, I suggested writing a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, it was put to me that it would be impossible for a biographer to do justice to a woman who lived eight centuries ago: that so few of her utterances or letters have come down to us that I would never be able to bring her to life as a real person to whom my readers could relate.

It was a valid point, because for the earlier mediaeval period, the sources that so vividly illuminate the characters of the Tudors-- diplomatic reports, letters, memoirs, diaries, biographies-- rarely survive. And there is a perception, common among those who are more familiar with the later period, that such monkish chronicles as we do have are mostly credulous, biased, and ill informed. In some cases, this is indeed so, particularly in respect of the period covering the early years of Henry II's reign, for which there is a paucity of contemporary sources; but there are a considerable number of English chronicles of outstanding quality for the latter part of the twelfth century.

The twelfth century in general is readily accessible to us today because it was an age of burgeoning scholarship that is now regarded as the first Renaissance, an age that gave birth to a succession of outstanding and perceptive chroniclers, whose relatively objective accounts of the personalities and events of their times document a wealth of facts, detail, and contemporary opinion.

Many of these writers were eyewitnesses to the events they described; most were well-educated, intelligent men, who were familiar with the court and the great figures of their age. From the pages of their chronicles, as well as from other surviving records, it is possible to garner a considerable amount of material on Eleanor. It is true that there is a lot we still do not know about her-- for example, no description of her appearance survives-- and that monkish chroniclers in general did not consider women, even queens, sufficiently important to merit much

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space in their works; but her deeds speak for themselves, as do her surviving charters and letters. I make no apology for quoting two of those letters at length, as they give such insights into Eleanor's character, as well as her state of mind at the time they were written.