Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine

Queens of Europe eleanor of aquitaine [Music] eleanor of aquitaine duchess in her own right and queen of france at 15 she traded an unhappy marriage with King Louie the seventh for a younger man who she helped make king henry ii of england but when their marriage turned sour as well she supported their sons against him in one of the worst family feud's in history eleanor was the eldest child of william the 10th Duke of Aquitaine and I nor do chaton rule her maternal grandmother was the longtime mistress of her paternal grandfather the adulterous couple arranged a marriage between their children who were luckily not close blood relatives Eleanor was named after her mother I nor her name in French a Leonor is from the latin alia ayan or which means the other ayan or her parents kept a bonny and glittering court that was renowned throughout europe unlike most noble girls of the time Eleanor's father ensured that his bright daughter had a top quality education she learned arithmetic astronomy literature and history riding Hawking and hunting she also acquired the feminine skills of household management embroidery conversation dancing and games such as backgammon and chess she also played the harp and sang eleanor was described as outgoing lively intelligent strong-willed and beyond beautiful she was followed by a younger sister petronella and then a younger brother William as the only male child William was heir to the Duchy of Aquitaine but at four years old both he and their mother died of illness the eight-year-old motherless Eleonora now became the heir presumptive when eleanor was 15 her beloved father fell gravely ill he took his two daughters to Bordeaux and left him in the protection of his most loyal vassal the archbishop he feared that upon his death Nobles would kidnap the young girls and marry them in order to take control of Aquitaine with his dear daughters in safe hands William went on pilgrimage while there he dictated a will that bequeathed his domains to Eleanor and appointed King Louis the 6th of France as her guardian he then died at the age of 38 as duchess of the most valuable territory in france teenage eleanor was now a highly eligible heiress when williams loyal vassals across the Pyrenees and reached King Louie to inform him of the situation the king moved quickly to engage Eleanor to his own side thus bringing Aquitaine under the control of the French crown and greatly increasing its power seventeen-year-old Prince Louie rode to Bordeaux with five hundred Knights and married Eleanor almost immediately following the wedding of the couple were enthroned as Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine the newlyweds set out on a tour of their provinces but within a few days news reached them that Louis father had died of dysentery they returned to Paris where they were crowned king and queen of France on Christmas Day Louie was the second born son and as such was trained for the priesthood from an early age but when his older brother Philip died in a horse riding accident Louie became the heir though his life changed he remains a deeply pious man he adored his beautiful and worldly own bride and granted her every whim spending buckets of money on her eleanor was less impressed with Louis she had grown up with tales of gallant chivalrous knights and instead found herself married to a prudish rather puny boy neither did she enjoy life in the frigid and uptight north her southern manners and clothing scandalized the court especially her mother-in-law Adelaide of muddy in Eleanor's sister petronella fell in love with count Raoul of Vermont wha who was in conveniently already married King Louie allowed him to annul his marriage but his first wife's brother count Theobald the second of champagne went to war with the king and respond Raul and petronella were duly excommunicated by the Pope the war lasted for two years and resulted in the Royal Army occupying champagne there more than a thousand people sought refuge in a church in the tree while the Royal Army set fire to their town but the church caught fire as well and everyone inside was burned alive horrified Louis sought peace with Theobald who agreed to lift his ban on Raul and petronella 's marriage but as soon as Louie's troops marched away Theobald went back on his word and Louis again returned to ravage the region Eleanor went to Theobald ally bernard of clairvaux to try and broker a peace deal but he scolded her for involving herself in politics the Queen played her cards well broke down in tears an ass Bernard to excuse her behavior as she was melancholy over not having given birth to any children in her seven years of marriage bear nog became kindly toward her and within weeks peace was restored in France the reason Eleanor had failed in her duty to give Louie an heir was squarely on his shoulders he was far too pious to go to bed regularly with his wife the following year the 23 year old queen finally gave birth to her first child a daughter Marie but cracks were beginning to show in the royal marriage and the king and queen were arguing more often and becoming increasingly estranged lui guilt-ridden over the massacre in the tree wished to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land he and Eleanor both took the symbol of the cross and set out on crusade the Duchess of Aquitaine recruited three hundred vassals and her loyal ladies-in-waiting to accompany them the company stayed for three weeks in Constantinople where Eleanor was greatly admired they then marched on through the fur gian mountains on their way to Eleanor's uncle Raymond of Antioch they were encouraged by stories that the German army had recently won a great victory but along the mountain route they came across the unburied bodies of the Germans who had in fact been massacred the army was now disheartened and began to fall to disorder Louie was an ineffectual military leader and was unable to keep order Eleanor's army much better managed marched ahead while Louie was slowed down by the baggage train and unarmed pilgrims when Eleanor reached the summit her commander decided to continue marching on rather than camp to wait for the rest of the army Louie's army was trapped and attacked by Turks many men horses and much of the baggage were cast into the canyon below the royal guards were slaughtered while Louie who addressed in pilgrims garb was able to escape unnoticed when he finally caught up with his wife in Antioch he blamed her for the disaster she in turn brought up the issue of their consanguinity or that they were third cousins which was grounds for annulment it was rumoured that she was having an affair with her uncle Ramon's of Antioch Louis forced Eleanor to accompany him on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem which humiliated her after the catastrophic campaign the unhappy couple made their way back to France due to their argument they took separate ships and were attacked by Byzantines and blown off course for two months they were nearly given up for dead but Eleanor ship eventually made it to Italy where she took the opportunity to ask the Pope for an annulment he refused and tried to reconcile the royal couple when Louis finally joined his wife in Rome the Pope led husband and wife to a special bed he had prepared for them and encouraged them that with his blessing they would surely conceive unable to refuse the Pope the couple did indeed conceive their second child but as it was another daughter Alex and not the promised male heir the miserable couple were finally granted their annulment custody of Marie and Alex was granted to Louis but Eleanor maintained her Duchy of Aquitaine on her journey home to Lourdes attempted to kidnap and marry her in order to claim her lands but she had a much better second husband in mind she wrote immediately to duke Henry of Normandy asked him to come to Aquitaine and marry her he did not hesitate on the couple were Wed in a quickie ceremony Elinor was 30 and Henry only 21 and they in fact were more closely related than Elinor had been to lui but what did that matter in the light of true love and power Elinor's support bolstered Henry's campaigns against his cousin King Stephen of England whom he believed had wrongly seized the throne from his mother Matilda following the death of his own son at Eustace Stephen gave in and named Henry his heir in 1154 Stephen died and Henry and Elinor were crowned king and queen of England the couple had a tumultuous relationship and argued relentlessly but they got on well enough to conceive eight children William Henry Matilda Richard Joffrey Elinor Joan and John Henry was habitually unfaithful and fathered several children out of wedlock Elinor was ambivalent to her husband's dalliance 'iz and even raised one of his illegitimate sons herself Henry's rule was plagued with problems a bitter feud with Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury ended in Beckett's murder at the hands of Henry's Knights and Henry it was forced to publicly humble himself in order to avoid excommunication the king frequently attempted to exercise power over Aquitaine but the Lord's there would only answer to Eleanor Eleanor's eldest son William died at the age of three her second son Henry married Margaret of France the daughter of her ex-husband Louis and his second wife after 15 years of marriage Eleanor and Henry had had enough of each other when their daughter Matilda married Henry of Saxony Eleanor accompanied her and decided to stay in France the mother and daughter along with sons Richard and Joffrey set up what became known as the court of love which was dedicated to the virtues of courtly love and chivalry Marie Eleanor's oldest daughter by King Louie of France was a frequent guest back home in England Eleanor's eldest surviving son became a jousting champion and a hero of the people he was crowned coking by his father and was known as Henry the young king he was a proud and vain young man who lacked any real interest in governing but grew frustrated at his father's refusal to grant him any real power egged on by his father-in-law King Louie he travelled to France to raise an army and talked his younger brothers Richard and Joffrey into joining him in rebellion against their father Eleanor supported her sons against her estranged husband and encouraged their efforts while the family was locked in battle eleanor was captured by Henry's forces brought back to England and held prisoner for 16 years she was let out on special family occasions like Christmas and weddings but otherwise kept away from her sons meanwhile King Henry carried on a very public affair with his mistress Rosamund Clifford a beautiful young woman known as the rose of the world he hoped that by flaunting the affair he might push Eleanor towards an annulment but he was disappointed Rosamund died mysteriously in her mid-twenties and rumours circulated that she may have been poisoned by one of Eleanor's sons or stabbed in a bathtub by an assassin sent by Eleanor herself in 1180 three young King Henry's army it was besieged by his father's and he was forced to flee while wandering aimlessly through Aquitaine the 28 year old caught dysentery feeling his death drawing near Henry was overcome with remorse for the sins he had committed against his father he wrote to the king begging that he would forgive his mother and set her free upon young King Henry's death the lands his mother had granted him in Normandy it fell into dispute Phillip the second now King of France following King Louie's death claimed the territory should now belong to his sister Margaret the young Kings Widow but King Henry of England insisted that the lands revert back to Eleanor and he allowed her the freedom to return to France and press her rule in Normandy for the next six years Eleanor and Henry were more often together and she was given more prominence in government but the Queen was still kept under supervision so that she would not cross her husband again in 1189 King Henry heartbroken over the betrayal of his family died and his oldest surviving son became King Richard the first his first order was to set his mother free she was his closest advisor and held a considerable influence over the Regency Council that ruled while Richard was away for four years fighting on crusade on his journey home Richard was captured by Holy Roman Emperor Henry the Six and his mother raised the ransom money and secured his release upon his return home King Richard always much more interested in the thrills of battle than the drudgery of governing soon got involved in more warfare in France while touring battlements without armor he was struck by an arrow and died of infection in his mother's arms his brother John Eleanor's last living son inherited the throne John asked his now 77 year old mother to travel to Spain an escort one of his sister Queen Eleanor of Castile daughters to France to be married to the dauphin looy eleanor met her two granddaughters and judged that the younger launch was better suited to be a queen she and the 12 year old set out across the Pyrenees but Eleanor fell ill and entrusted launch to the care of the Archbishop of Bordeaux young Eleanor had been more than fifty years earlier the archbishop now Saab launched safely the rest of the way Eleanor went to phone travel and John soon visited her there but the indomitable Queen wasn't done yet when war broke out between John and King Philip of France she supported John and Road to prevent her grandson Arthur the first Duke of Brittany from taking control Arthur besieged his grandmother in the castle of mergo but John wrote to her aid and rescued his mother Eleanor retired to a monastery to live out her final years in peace she died in 1204 at the age of 82 and was entombed in foam temporal Abbey next to her husband Henry and her son Richard Eleanor of Aquitaine was a woman of great wisdom and tenacity who didn't allow the limitations placed on her sex to get in the way of doing what she wanted or what she thought was right though she was twice unhappy in marriage her deep devotion to her children and her boldness are legendary if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe comment your thoughts and check out my other royal history videos if you really want to help please consider supporting me on patreon a link is in the description thank you for watching you

Channel: History Tea Time with Lindsay Holiday

Views: 527,571

Keywords: history, documentary, royal family, nobility, royalty, sex, bbc, the crown, british history, england, scandal, royal wedding, pregnancy, feminist, women, europe, historic costumes, medieval, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Aliénor de Aquitaine, france, french history, paris, king henry ii, king louis vii, king of france, king of england, queen of england, queen of france, queen consort, strong female character, family feud, Poitiers, crusades, pope, richard lionheart, robin hood, king john

Id: wMLE2stlCR8

Length: 15min 55sec (955 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 18 2020