The names of few medieval monarchs and their queens are better
known than Eleanor of Aquitaine, uniquely queen of France and queen
of England, and her second husband Henry II. Although academically
labelled medieval', their era was the violent transition from the
Dark Ages, when countries' borders were defined with fire and
sword. Henry grabbed the English throne thanks largely to Eleanor's
dowry because she owned one third of France. Their daughters also
lived extraordinary lives. If princes fought for their succession
to crowns, the princesses were traded - usually by their mothers -
to strangers for political power without the bloodshed. Years
before what would today be marriageable age, royal girls were
despatched to countries whose speech was unknown to them and there
became the property of unknown men; their duty the bearing of sons
to continue a dynasty and daughters who would be traded in their
turn. Some became literal prisoners of their spouses; others
outwitted would-be rapists and the Church to seize the reins of
power when their husbands died. Eleanor's daughters Marie and Alix
were abandoned in Paris when she divorced Louis VII of France. By
Henry II, she bore Matilda, Alienor and Joanna. Between them, these
extraordinary women and their daughters knew the extremes of power
and pain. Joanna was imprisoned by William II of Sicily and worse
treated by her brutal second husband in Toulouse. If Eleanor was
libelled as a whore, Alienor's descendants include two saints,
Louis of France and Fernando of Spain. And then there were the
illegitimate daughters, whose lives read like novels
General
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