Category: Eleanor Of Aquitaine

Joan, Countess of Toulouse

4/10/2019

The first week of October 1165 is thought to be the date of birth of Joan, Countess of Toulouse, the third daughter and seventh child of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

In 1176, a Sicilian ambassador, who was in England to discuss Joan's marriage to William II of Sicily, wrote that he found the eleven-year-old princess to be a beauty. The image below is taken from a genealogical roll of the kings of England, it certainly shows she was a pretty girl.

William of Sicily and Joan were married in 1177 in Palermo, their marriage lasted twelve years until his death in 1189. There were no children born of the marriage.

History tells us that Joan and her brother, King Richard I had a close relationship, but this did not stop her being angered by his suggestion that she marry a brother of Saladin, the leader of the Islamic forces during the Crusades. However, negotiations came to nothing and Joan married Raymond, Count of Toulouse, in 1196.

It has been written of Joan that she was 'a woman whose masculine spirit overcame the weakness of her sex' a reference maybe to her heading a force during a siege of a castle while her husband was elsewhere. It is also claimed that showed that she was made of stronger stuff when she avenged her brother's death by having the man who killed him blinded and then flayed alive. However, this story if it be true at all has been linked to their mother, or to Marcadier, a general in the king's army.

In her marriage to Raymond of Toulouse, Joan gave birth to two children, Raymond in 1197 and a child in 1199, however, within a few weeks of the birth Joan was dead.

As a mark of her devotion, she was buried at her brother's side at Fontevraud Abbey.

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Henry the Young King

25/2/2018

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Henry II's reign would see the end of the Anarchy and claims by others to the crown of England and therefore it would be vitally important that Henry have an heir whose right to the throne was not questioned. Henry's new wife Eleanor was said to have been vocal and argumentative and their relationship somewhat ‘fiery’ but despite this Eleanor did manage to give Henry eight children, four of which were sons.

We can only wonder if, in the first months of their marriage, Eleanor was at all worried about her inability to produce male heirs. She must have had some concerns that she did not conceive a child straight away, did she think that the spectre of her marriage to Louis VII of France had come back to haunt her, after all, in all of those fifteen years she never gave the French king a son. However, Eleanor need not of worried, she would be pregnant by the Christmas of 1152 and her first child, a son would be born the following August. Eleanor must have sighed with relief, she knew that her position as wife to the future king of England was secured.

No doubt Eleanor was all the more thrilled when she gave birth to Henry's second son on the 28th February in 1155, this new child would be named Henry after his father. Tragedy struck in the April of 1156 when William, their firstborn died aged just three of a seizure leaving his fourteen-month-old brother Henry as heir to the throne.

History would refer to Henry as the 'Young King.'

Henry would grow, according to one source, into a "lovable, eloquent, handsome and gallant" young man, however, others saw him differently, there would be those who would call a "feckless and fatuous" youth. A written description of Henry tells us that he was "tall but well proportioned, broad-shouldered with a long and elegant neck, pale and freckled skin, bright and wide blue eyes, and a thick mop of the reddish-gold hair." a description that also has been applied to his younger brother Richard, later Richard I.

Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's family are a prime example of a dysfunctional one and this lead to problems on many different levels, especially in regard to their children. Henry would join with his younger brothers Richard and Geoffrey in rebellion against their father. All the son of Henry and Eleanor have distinctive and forceful personalities, and Henry was no different he was seen as having charm and popularity but he was also seen as irresponsible.

At the age of just fifteen, and while his father still reigned, Henry was crowned king and two years following his coronation Henry married Margaret, the daughter of his mother's first husband the above named Louis VII of France and his second wife Constance of Castile. A birth of a son to the couple would secure Henry II's new Angevin dynasty, but it was not to be, Henry the Young King's son died at just three days old in 1177. Henry himself would die just six years later at the age of twenty-eight while on campaign in Limousin in France, probably of dysentery, estranged from his father. After his death, Henry II is said to have stated
"He cost me much, but I wish he had lived to cost me more"

Henry's death left his brother Richard as heir to his fathers throne.

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Eleanor of Castile

14/9/2016

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Eleanor of Castile was the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, she was born on the 13th October 1162
in Normandy.

A pawn like many a noble daughter, Eleanor's marriage in 1174 to King Alfonso of Castile was about securing and strengthening Pyrenean border and granting Aquitaine to Eleanor before her marriage went some way to achieve this. With
regard to the duchy of Gascony, Alfonso later claimed the rights to it stating that it was part of Eleanor's dowry, his threat to invade the duchy came to nothing.

Eleanor, or Leonora as she was known in her home country, had married the king of Castile when she was twelve years old, the couple's first child, a daughter Berengaria, was born when Leonora was seventeen and she had given birth to ten more children by the time she was forty.

It is well known that Eleanor's mother, the aforementioned Eleanor of Aquitaine was a clever and resourceful woman, and Eleanor was no different, she loved the finer things in life, she built cathedrals and chapels but most importantly was responsible for and had control of the lands she owned.

In 1204, Leonora's will stipulated that she rule along side her son in the event of the death of Alfonso whilst his heir was still a child. Ferdinand, Alfonso and Leonora's third son and heir had predeceased his father by three years meaning that the regency clause in Leonora's will came into force when Alfonso died in 1214, when ten year old Henry became king.

Leonora's loyalty to her husband is where she and her mother differed, so devastated by her husbands death, Leonara died
of a broken heart on the 31st October 1214. Her regency only lasted twenty-eight days.

Queen Eleanor of Castile's tomb and that of her husband Alfonso VIII of Castile, lie side by side in the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Burgos, Spain.

Responsibly for the young king and Castile fell to Leonara's eldest daughter Berengaria, however tragedy arrived in the form
of a falling roof tile that struck the young king and killed him. Berengaria, succeeded to Castile in 1217, but within a few months relinquished her title in favour of her son Ferdinand. Berengaria later served as regent, while her son Ferdinand was away on campaign.

It is interesting to see the Castile coat of arms totally covering the tombs of both Alfonso and Leonora, the couple's great
granddaughter Eleanor of Castile, queen to Edward I, was equally as proud of her country. She would use the three towers as inspiration for the Eagle Tower at Caernarfon Castle in Wales that Edward began building in 1293 as part of English defenses against the Welsh.

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King Henry II

5/3/2016

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Henry II was born the eldest of three sons to Empress Matilda and Geoffrey, Count of Anjou.

Henry II, as king of England, owes his place on the throne to the early death of William Adelin, his uncle and King Henry I’s only son and heir, who had perished when a ship in which he was travelling sank in the English Channel. What followed is known as the Anarchy, an era of broken promises and a major fallout between cousins

King Henry II was no clotheshorse, he cared little for appearance and he did love kingship, or at least everything that came with it. He was often rude and had a quick temper, quite a match for the wonderfully feisty Eleanor of Aquitaine who he married in the May of 1152. His children with Eleanor, among others, were Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John.

Henry II was often unfaithful to Eleanor, their relationship was unsettled and stormy and this eventually lead to Eleanor being placed under arrest after she encouraged her children to rebel against their father. During the years of their marriage Eleanor gave her love to Richard, whilst Henry’s affections were with John, even though John was his father's favourite he was given nothing in regards to lands and estates.

Henry's family are a prime example of a dysfunctional one and this lead to problems on many different levels, especially in regard to their children. To many people John was cruel, greedy and ultimately a failure as king, the exact copy of his brother Richard, yet Richard is seen as a hero and John a villain...but that's another story!

Both sons disagreed with their father's policies and had fallen out with him over them. Richard rebelled and took up arms against his father, John conspired sometimes with and sometimes against his elder brothers.

Henry was not oblivious of this, he made a curious statement regarding a painting in a chamber of Winchester Castle, depicting an eagle being attacked by three of its chicks, while a fourth crouched chick waits for its chance to strike. When asked the meaning of this picture, King Henry said:

"The four young ones of the eagle are my four sons who will not cease persecuting me even unto death.
And the youngest, whom I now embrace with such tender affection, will someday afflict me more grievously and perilously than all the others."

Henry's involvement in the death of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, is what Henry is most famous for, yet there was so much more to this king than that.

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Eleanor of Aquitaine

18/5/2015

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Married at the age of thirty to a man ten year her junior, Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the most powerful and fascinating women in medieval Europe. Eleanor was an independent ruler in her own right since she inherited the huge Duchy of Aquitaine and Poitiers from her father. An intelligent and feisty woman, Eleanor, so history tells us, is said to have to have arrived at the cathedral town of Vezelay dressed like an Amazon galloping through the crowds on a white horse, urging men to join the crusades. She also had every intention to go herself, accompanied by three hundred of her ladies dressed in armour and carrying lances.

On the 25th July 1137 she married the son of Louis VI of France, and on Christmas Day 1137 was queen of France.

During her marriage to Louis VII of France, she gave birth to two daughters, however the birth of their second child was a blow for Louis personally and for his dynasty. What Louis needed was a heir and that meant a son, not a daughter. By 1152 Eleanor's marriage to Louis had come to an end, their marriage was annulled and her vast estates, from River Loire to the Pyrenees came under her control. Three months later, Eleanor married Henry, son of Matilda of England and Geoffrey of Anjou. Two years later Henry became King and Eleanor once again became a queen. For Eleanor, history seemed to repeat itself, within a few years Eleanor was having problems with Henry who was a philanderer and constantly unfaithful. Even though Eleanor was said to have been vocal and argumentative and their relationship somewhat ‘fiery’ Eleanor did manage to give Henry eight children. It seems that she was not too perturbed by Henry's womanising but Henry's affair with Rosamund Clifford was the final straw for Eleanor and their marriage was becoming ‘terminally strained’.

By 1173, after twenty years of marriage to Henry, Eleanor had had enough and in a very unusual act for a woman she lead three of her sons in a rebellion against Henry which surprised even him, but by the end of the same year Henry had regained control and Eleanor was imprisoned. This confinement last fifteen years. Out of her five sons, Richard, was her favourite and when Henry II died in 1189 Richard became king. Whilst the ‘Lionheart’ abandoned his country for his preference of fighting, Eleanor supported him. When he was captured on his way home from the Crusades Eleanor used her influence to raise a ransom.

These two carvings are said to be of Eleanor and Henry II in the porch of of Candes St Martin.

Not only was Eleanor a clever and extremely able politician, she was also said to have been beautiful. Her court in France was said to have been known as the Court of Love and Eleanor was a patron of, and encouraged the art of the troubadour which was somewhat strange considering the the act of chivalry stated that women be passive and silent. Eleanor was certainly neither. One story talks of a troubadour named Bernart de Ventadour who was in love with Eleanor.

The following line from a song was said to have been about her:

“You have been the first among my joys and you shall be the last, so long as there is life in me”

Eleanor became unwell for the second time in 1201 but the support of her son John, now king, against King Phillip of France took its toll, and on her return to Fontevraud she became a nun. Eleanor spent the last three years of her life at Fontevraud and it was there, either on the last day of March or the first day of April in 1204. She was buried alongside her husband and son Richard.

The Tomb of Eleanor and Henry II

We have seen that Eleanor was a strong, intelligent and creative woman, she played an important role which is impressive considering medieval women were considered lesser beings

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Joan, Countess of Toulouse

Henry the Young King

Eleanor of Castile

King Henry II

Eleanor of Aquitaine

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