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

After my failed attempt to get on with the fictional Eleanor, I had much greater success with the factual account by the same author.  Sadly, because 12th century women were pretty much beneath the notice of the monks keeping the records, this supposed biography is actually more of a history.  I still don’t feel like I know all that much about Eleanor as a person.

(This is where a really excellent historical novel, like Wolf Hall, would be good.  There’s a definite gap in the market here, guys, if any of you fancy it.  Just be sure to give me an acknowledgement).

For large chunks of the book, Eleanor is standing about while her respective husbands get on with ruling and rampaging about Europe.  Eleanor was quite the catch, since she brought with her lots and lots of land.  Unfortunately that land was filled with lots and lots of unruly vassals who didn’t fancy being ruled very much and proved to be a whole lot of trouble.  She was first married to Louis of France; but got bored with him after a while, and decided to marry the future Henry II of England instead.

She had eight children with Henry.  They include the Young King Henry who liked nothing better than starting wars against his own father; Richard the Lionheart, of crusader fame; and King John, who doesn’t get a catchy nickname, but is infamous from the Robin Hood legends.  Oh, and for being one of the most useless Kings ever, losing pretty much all of the empire his Dad had spent ages building up and ending up signing all his powers away in the Magna Carta.  Still, at least England got the foundations of democratic rule out of him, so all’s well that ends well.

Here’s what I’ve learned.  12th century England was a totally rubbish place to live.  Ordinary people were just starting to benefit from such new-fangled innovations as the chimney and trial by jury.  These advantages didn’t mean very much though, since if you weren’t being taxed, you were probably being besieged.

As for the Plantagenet Kings of England, it’s hard to imagine a stroppier or greedier bunch of hypocrites.  For all their chivalric ideals, their lives are like an elaborate version of the Katy Perry classic, ‘Hot and Cold’.  You’re BFFs with Thomas Beckett, you want him to be murdered.  You’re swearing undying allegiance to the Pope, then you’re excommunicated.  It’s the same with Eleanor.  First she’s imprisoned for ten years for encouraging all her naughty sons to rise up against Henry, then she’s restored to glory as Queen Regent.  She’s condemned as a harlot, she’s veiled as a nun. She does her best to keep order, but her sons won’t stop fighting each other.  Even in her 70′s she’s having to ride all over France cleaning up John’s mess.

It’s tough to keep up with all the Geoffrey’s and Henry’s and who is paying homage to who and who is whose overlord at any given moment.  Particularly when they won’t stop sleeping with each other’s relations.  For example.  Eleanor divorces Louis to marry Henry, even though she’s slept with his father Geoffrey.  Louis remarries and has a daughter called Alys.  Louis and Henry patch up their differences and decide to marry Alys to Henry’s son Richard.  But Henry fancies Alys himself and ends up having two kids with her.  Eventually Alys gets married off to some random count, though not before John also decides he’d like to marry her.  Did you get all that?

Alison Weir does her best with all their plotting and conniving, and if you can keep it all straight in your head, this is as interesting a history as you’ll find.  It’s certainly going to come in useful for pub quiz knowledge at some point.