London, England
She had been doubly blessed, born a great beauty and a great heiress. She would be the only woman to wear the crowns of both England and France, but history would remember her by the name of her beloved duchy—Eleanor of Aquitaine. She would prove to be as controversial as she was captivating, for she never accepted the constraints that their society and the Church imposed upon women, convinced that she could rule as well as any man. At thirteen, she’d wed the King of France, Louis Capet. While Louis had been bedazzled by his lively young wife, he’d been troubled by her strong will and worldly ways, for he’d been meant for the Church, pulled from the cloisters at age ten by the unexpected death of his elder brother. For her part, Eleanor had been heard to say that she’d thought to marry a king, only to find she’d married a monk. Theirs was a clash of temperaments and cultures. Eleanor was a child of the sun-splashed south, where the pursuit of pleasure was not sinful, troubadours were held in esteem, and women were not always demure, docile, and sweetly submissive, whereas Louis was a son of the more austere, staid, and conservative north.
Their marriage endured for fifteen years, though, even surviving the disastrous Second Crusade and the scandal that trailed in Eleanor’s wake after their fateful visit to her uncle’s court at Antioch, where she had attempted to end their union by making use of the tactic that kings had always employed to rid themselves of unwanted wives—arguing that their marriage was invalid because they were related within the forbidden fourth degree. Louis had her taken from Antioch by force and his counselors tarnished her honor by whispering that it was unholy love for her uncle that had prompted such shocking, unwomanly behavior. It was a bitter lesson for Eleanor in the inequities of male and female power; it would not be her last.
What the marriage could not survive was her failure to provide Louis with a male heir. After the birth of her second daughter, he began to believe that the marriage was accursed in God’s eyes, and ended it in March 1152. Eleanor at once returned to Aquitaine and barely two months later, she shocked Christendom by choosing her own husband instead of waiting dutifully for Louis to pick a man acceptable to the French Crown. Her choice could not have been more abhorrent to Louis, both as monarch and man, for she wed the Duke of Normandy, Henry Fitz Empress, nine years her junior, who already had a reputation for boldness and a good claim to the English throne.
If Eleanor and Louis had been mismatched, she and Henry were perfectly matched, two high-flying hawks who lusted after empires and each other. Within two years of their marriage, Henry had taken England and Eleanor was once again a queen. The Angevin domains far dwarfed those held by her former husband, stretching from the Scots border to the Mediterranean Sea, and to those watching in amazement, admiration, or dismay, Henry seemed to be riding the whirlwind. Eleanor proudly rode it with him. She’d failed to give Louis a son; she gave Henry five, four of whom survived to manhood, and three daughters, two of whom wed kings. For twenty years, they soared from triumph to triumph; not even the murder of an archbishop in Canterbury Cathedral dimmed the luster of the Angevin court. And then it all fell apart.
No one was more stunned than Henry when his three eldest sons rose up in rebellion against him, supported by their mother, his own queen. He prevailed, of course, facing untried youths and the militarily inept French king, but their rebellion had dealt him a heart’s wound, one that never fully healed. His sons, he forgave, time and time again as the years passed. Eleanor, he could not forgive, for by blaming her for his estrangement from the sons he loved, he could avoid blaming himself. He concluded that Eleanor had been a jealous wife, resentful of his young mistress known as Fair Rosamund, and he did not believe her when Eleanor told him she’d rebelled because he’d laid such a heavy hand upon her beloved Aquitaine and refused to establish their sons in their own domains. His greatest weakness was an inability to relinquish any of his royal power and his sons chafed under a tight rein, while Eleanor remained his prisoner, held in English castles far from her homeland as summers turned to winters and then summers again, having to watch helplessly as her family tore itself asunder.