Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“If you find
yourself going through hell, keep going.”
Winston
Churchill
Eleanor
of Aquitaine
1122-1204
This
is a biography of one of the most fascinating people in history. Her
life reads like a soap opera so I will give the main characters soap
opera nicknames to save space and they are:
Eleanor
of Aquitaine………..Ellie
Henry
II, King of England….Hank
Louis
VII, King of France…..Lou
Eleanor’s
real name was Alia-Aenor meaning “another Aenor”. Eleanor’s
mother’s name was Aenor of Chatellerault and a female birth was of
no consequence in the high middle ages, they were looking for male
heirs to carry on the family name. Her father was William X, Duke of
Aquitaine, one of the richest men in Europe and Ellie was his eldest
child and the apple of William’s eye. William died when Ellie was
15 and he left everything to her making her the richest woman in
history to date. William had contacted the king of France, Louis VI
earlier and requested that in the event of his death Louis VI would
promulgate the marriage of Ellie and Louis’ son who would become
Louis VII, king of France. Louis VI obliged William and after much
pomp and circumstance, Ellie and Lou were married eventually making
Ellie the Queen of France. There was one stipulation. Ellie made
the Aquitaine estate exempt from being absorbed into the French
realm. Aquitaine estate was in what is now south central France.
Now here is where the fun starts. The 2nd
Crusade began a few years after Lou became King and he being a very
pious man, did the Pope’s bidding and started gathering an army to
go to Jerusalem and try to kick out the Muslims. Ellie joined in the
fervor and personally began recruiting men to go. She even offered
2,000 of her own vassals. Not only that, she insisted on going on
the Crusade herself being the first woman to do so. Upon arrival in
the Holy Land, Ellie became enamored with all those knights in
shining armor and decided it was party time, especially with her
uncle Raymond, a French knight. Many people were not pleased that
Lou brought Ellie with him, but Lou was so enamored with his young
bride that any thing she wanted was OK with him. Lou was an
ineffective military leader; he was more of a religiously pious man.
He was pretty wimpy on the whole. Even before leaving on the
Crusade, Lou and Ellie were estranged and after they returned Ellie
wearied of Lou’s weaknesses and began looking for a way out of the
marriage. She found that they had a mutual relative which made their
marriage illegal and Lou granted a divorce but kept custody of their
two children. While all of this was going on, Ellie was scanning the
countryside looking for a virile and powerful bachelor. She found
one in the 19 year old Henry, the Duke of Normandy who was heir to
the English throne. Ellie wrangled a meeting with Hank and had a
series of sleepovers. Ellie was a sexually experienced 30 year old
woman and Hank was a 19 year old virtual virgin meaning that Hank
didn’t have a chance. Soon after this encounter he and Ellie were
married. Eventually Hank was crowned Henry II, the King of England
and Ellie as Queen. Ellie and Hank squabbled from the git-go
primarily because of what Ellie perceived as Hank’s indiscretions
with other women. Although it was well known that Ellie’s
pantyhose had been on fire continuously since the Crusades and she
had innumerable trysts and brief encounters herself. You men that
are married and those that have been married will understand how
Ellie was able to justify this hypocrisy in her own mind, nearly all
women are capable of it. In fact one of her lovers was probably
Hank’s father Geoffrey of Anjou who counseled Hank to not mess with
Ellie from the start. But in spite of all of that, Ellie delivered
Hank five sons and three daughters in a span of 13 years. They were
William, Henry, Richard (the Lionhearted), Geoffrey, John, Matilda,
Eleanor and Joan. Hank had many, many illegitimate children also.
In spite of her obvious hypocrisy, Ellie went to France and started
planning the unseating of Hank with the help of the King of France
among others. She called in two of her sons to help plan a coup but
her sons ain’t buying what Mom is selling and tell Hank what is
going down. Hank took a ship over to France, gathered up Ellie and
headed back to England. As soon as the ship docked at Southampton
Hank sent her to the Castle of Winchester to cool her heel under
house arrest. Ellie remained under arrest for 15 years in spite of
her sons beseeching Hank to release her. While Ellie was paying her
dues in Winchester, Hank struck up a liaison with an Irish beauty
named Rosemund Clifford. Normally, Hank was discreet with his
mistresses, but he flaunted Rosemund for several years. Rosemund
died in 1176 and was buried in the nunnery at Godstow and Hank
contributed largely to the nunnery in her behalf. Hank died in 1186
and the unquestioned heir to the throne was he and Ellie’s son
Richard. The only problem here was that Richard had been captured on
the way home from yet another Crusade and was being held for ransom
in a castle in Austria. Upon hearing of Hank’s death, Richard got
word back to England to immediately release his Mother. Ellie was
released and immediately beseeched the Pope to engineer the release
of her son which he did...for a price. After an enormous ransom had
been paid with a large chunk going to the Vatican, Richard was
released and returned to England and was crowned King. During all of
this time Ellie had engineered the marriage of two of her daughters
to the King of Castile and the King of Navarre respectively. Ellie
lived through the reign of Richard and a large part of the reign of
her son King John also. It was her son King John that signed the
Magna Carta declaring that the king was not omnipotent and granted
certain rights. This document was the first its kind and laid the
foundation for human rights everywhere. Ellie returned to Aquitaine
for a while and in fact directed the defense of her castle from an
attack by some of her grandchildren. What I am trying to tell you is
that greed knows no limits even up to trying to savage your own
grandmother. Ellie eventually tired of all of this hassle and went
to the place of Hank and Richard’s tombs, Fontevraud Abbey, and
took the oath of a nun. She lived the rest of her days in relative
serenity. In 1204, at the age of 81, Ellie died and was buried along
side her husband Henry II and son Richard I.
This
tale of Eleanor is by no means complete with all the plots, intrigues
and travels that occurred throughout her long life. But in summary
she was the richest woman in history up until that time, the Queen of
two countries, the mother of two Kings and the mother of two Queens.
What a magnificent life.
This
Date in History September 5
1957
Jack Kerouac has his blockbuster book “On the Road” published.
Jack’s book is considered the textbook of the restless beat
generation and he lived all that he wrote about. He hitchhiked his
way around the country taking mental notes as he went. Once he
started writing he would tape several sheets of paper together so he
would not have to stop his train of thought. One section of his
manuscript for On
The Road was
120 feet long of single spaced type. He was notorious for staying
awake for days with the use of “uppers” and oceans of coffee
while creating his novels. Jack also gave us The
Dharma Bums
and The
Subterraneans
among others. Jack was a two fisted-drinker as are/were many of the
writers of the world. He died in Florida of an internal hemorrhage
at the age of 47. What a waste of a God given talent.
1992
Prince is acknowledged to be the wealthiest of all the “pop”
singers when he signed a $100M contract on this day. As I have said
in the past, I don’t get it. He can’t sing a lick. But I did
find out that on many of his albums he wrote all the music, produced
it, was the musical director and played ALL the instruments. I
concede that the dude must have been very musically gifted, but I
still think his music sucks, talent notwithstanding.
1969
Army Lt. William Calley is charged with murder of Vietnamese
civilians in the village of Mi Lai in 1968. An American patrol had
been harassed for days by a Viet Cong unit. The patrol came into the
village expecting to find the Cong hiding in the village. They were
not there so the soldiers started killing the villagers instead at
the behest of Lt. Calley. They killed over 200 women, children and
old men. Calley was convicted and given life imprisonment. Through
a series of appeals and pardons he served 3½ years.
1863
The Confederacy ordered 3 ironclad warships from the British Laird
shipyard. The ships are to be built with a large iron probe
protruding from the bow that would obviously be used against US ship
blockading Confederate ports. The US Minister to Great Britain got
the blueprints of these ships and sent a message to the British Lord
of the Admiralty. The message read “There is no sense in me
reiterating to your Lordship that the construction of these vessels
means war with the United States, is there?” The ships were not
built.
1917
The Battle of the Marne begins in WWI. Let me tell you something
folks, this was to be the war to end all wars and it was almost that
with this battle. As always the Germans were trying to defeat France
and the French in an uncharacteristic show of military prowess
attacked the advancing Germans in a surprise maneuver. There were 2
million men involved in this one battle. 2 MILLION, for crying out
loud. How can you make a “surprise” move with that many men but
they did. They attacked the German right flank and after 4 days of
continuous combat the exhausted Germans withdrew. There were 100,000
casualties in one day. After the Germans withdrew, everybody dug in
and trench warfare ensued. It became a war of attrition meaning who
could stand to lose men and who couldn’t? It was a meat grinder
for both sides.
1958
Boris Pasternak gave us Dr.
Zhivago.
There is not much anyone can say about this book except that it is
one of the milestones in world literature along with others like War
and Peace,
A
Tale of Two Cities,
etc. What a wonderful and diverse universe we have available for us
in literature.
1972
Some of you may be young enough to remember what happened at the
Munich Olympics but on this day Arab terrorist (does that sound
familiar) attack the Israeli dorms and took nine athletes as hostage
in hopes that Israel will release their terrorist brethren being held
in Israel in return for the release of the athletes. It didn’t
happen. German police had set up an ambush at the airport but the
Arab rats smelled out the ambush and killed all the hostages. Some
of the terrorists escaped but as usual, Israel sent out the Mossad
which is their secret assassin group to hunt these pigs down. It
took a while, but the Mossad killed all of those pig sucking Arabs.
I have a logic question. Are all terrorists Arabs or are all Arabs
terrorists? Is there a middle ground? If there is, how do we
honkies know where that is when their clergy wants us all dead or
subjugated to Islam?
Sorry
for the sermon but I have been hearing about those sons-of-bitches
all of my life. During WWI US Gen. John J. (Black Jack) Pershing
started having problems with the Palestinians. He resolved it by
immediately executing those that had attacked and buried them all
with dead pigs. No more problems.
Born
today:
1638
King Louis XIV, Monarch of France. He said “I could better
reconcile all of Europe than I could two arguing women.” Hey Lou,
nothing has changed from that day to this.
1902
US movie maker Daryl F. Zanuck. He said “Any of my
indiscretions were with people, not actresses.” Daryl had his
finger on the pulse of Hollywood.
1929
US comedian Bob Newhart. He said “I don’t like country music.
I don’t mean to denigrate those that do. To those that do,
denigrate means to “put down.” Bob, shut up.
1940
US actress and sex symbol Rachel Welch. She said “I was invited
to Chicago because Chicago is one of our fifty-two states.” I was
going to tell her what a stupid bitch she is, but after a second look
I will say “Rachel baby, nobody is perfect, except maybe yours.”
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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