Wednesday

                                                  Musings and History

In addition to my daily history items I have over 300 essays and biographies...I think it is time to spread them around, here is the first. Enjoy

                            

                                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 Ellie making her the richest woman in history to date. Before he died 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 2^nd 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 the Muslims out. 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 literally 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 and 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 git-go. 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 Germany. 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 in England. 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 (The Lionhearted).

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.

              

                  Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow