Eleanor of Aquitaine was the powerful queen of France, wife of Louis VII, and of England, as wife of Henry II; she was also the mother of ten, including three future kings of England. High-spirited, willful and well educated, Eleanor became the wealthy Duchess of Aquitaine while still a child, making her a highly prized candidate as potential Queen Consort. Entrusted to the guardianship of Louis VI, she was almost immediately married off by him to his son and heir, Louis VII. She and her husband took part in the Second Crusade, with less than stellar results, and eventually their marriage was annulled, on the basis of consanguinity, but actually because she had only produced two daughters in fifteen years. On to Part II for our Eleanor – richer than ever, she now marries the man who becomes Henry II of England (to whom she was even more closely related by blood than to Louis). In the parentage department, she fares quite a bit better – providing Henry with five sons and three daughters. This marriage proves to be a fractious one, and Henry II even has Eleanor put under house (castle?) arrest for sixteen years when she supports one of her sons in his rebellion against the king. The indomitable Eleanor, twice a queen, thrice a mother of kings, outlived everyone, except two of her ten children, and died at the age of eighty-two, still considered an “admirable beautyâ€. The scope of this amazing woman’s fortitude was amply portrayed by Katharine Hepburn in the 1968 movie, The Lion in Winter (for which she received an Academy Award).
