August 22, 2023 • 49 mins
Eleanor of Aquitaine is one of the most famous women in European history for good reason. After annulling her marriage from the King of France, she would marry the man who would become Henry II, King of England. But that marriage would sour, and in the end, Eleanor would turn against him.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hey, this
is Dana, the host of Noble Blood. Thank you for listening.
A tiny bit of housekeeping before we get started. If
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the episode description. A little bit more housekeeping. I'm so
excited I'm teaching a course on horror writing because I've
(00:42):
written two novels that came out last year and the
year before, and I'm so excited to be able to
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Going to writing camp growing up and taking creative writing
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(01:03):
to do this with a group, no matter your experience level.
I think it'll be a great opportunity. So that'll be
very fun. If that interests you, sign up. Thank you
for listening. Let's get into this longer than normal episode.
But knowing that the subject matter is Eleanor of Aquitaine,
I think you can understand why I stretched out the
(01:26):
episode just a little bit. Eleanor of Aquitaine, thirty years
old and newly single, knew that there was danger lurking
in the woods on her way back to her home
in Poitier from her father. She had inherited the vast
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and incredibly wealthy duchies of Aquitaine and Poiito in what
is now the south of France, and now that her
marriage to the King of France, Louis the seventh had
been officially annulled, every nobleman in the area knew that
if they kidnapped Eleanor and forced her to marry them,
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all of her wealth and power would be theirs. It
had been Eleanor's choice to annul her marriage to Louis.
He had been madly in love with her, to the
point that his barons were a little confused. Eleanor had
always been a bad fit with the pious and dull Louis.
(02:34):
She had married him when she was fifteen. Eleanor had
come from the glamorous Duchy of Aquitaine in the South,
and she arrived in Paris with an interest in fashion, music,
and poetry that struck the northerners as indulgent. There's a
reason Eleanor of Aquitaine has become such a figure of
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popular imagination over the centuries. She inspired bards and balladiers
and artists. She had accompanied her husband on the Second
Crusade to the Holy Land with her own retinue of
ladies who probably didn't but, according to legend, dressed as Amazon's,
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that crusade had been, to put it briefly, a disaster.
It was the beginning of the end of her marriage
with Louis. Rumors began to swirl while she was on
Crusade that Eleanor was having an affair with her own uncle,
but even then, it wasn't until Eleanor gave birth to
her second child with Louis, another daughter that Louis gave
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in when she asked for an annulment. Louie's barons had
been badgering him for someone less controversial see Eleanor's rumored
affair with her uncle. But the biggest problem was that
they had been married for fifteen years and she hadn't
Louis a son. When you are the king and you
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don't have an heir, that is a huge problem. And
in the twelfth century, and when you are incredibly religious,
you might read it as a sign that God didn't
actually want you to be married to this person. After all,
the Church helpfully annulled Eleanor and Louise's marriage on grounds
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of consanguinity. They were too closely related. In other words,
they were fourth cousins, although of course that hadn't been
a concern going into the marriage when money and land
and title was at stake, but there it was. In
eleven fifty two, Eleanor got her lands back and she
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was free for the first time in her adult life.
But being free didn't mean that Eleanor was safe. On
the the long journey back to Poitier. In her home Duchy,
there were two kidnapping attempts. First, in the town of Blois,
the future Count Theobald the Fifth attempted to seize her,
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but Eleanor was warned in advanced and she managed to
sneak away in the middle of the night on a
barge down the Loire River. And then a second kidnapping attempt,
This time by Jeffrey, Count of Nott, But once again,
someone referred to in a chronicle as her quote, good
(05:34):
angel warned Eleanor, and she managed to get away by
avoiding the main roads and taking a less direct but
more hidden route home. After spending a decade and a
half trapped in a marriage she didn't want. The last
thing Eleanor wanted was to be abducted by a different man.
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But for as long as she wasn't married to a
powerful husband, she would always be in danger, and so
immediately as soon as Eleanor made it home, she sent
a messenger to Henry Than, Duke of Normandy, telling him
to come and marry her as soon as possible. Eleanor
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and Henry had probably made the plan to get married
in advance, before she had even arranged the annulment with
her husband, Louis, King of France. If Louis had known
that she was planning on marrying Henry, he probably never
would have agreed to the annulment at all. Henry Than,
nineteen years old, was the biggest threat to the King
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of France's power. For a little bit more context, this
was an era of feudalism, where people were more loyal
to local lords than the abstract ideas of patriotism vassals,
and if the lords were really powerful, then they were
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overlords to other nobles. The Kingdom of France at the
time was really only a small physical swatch of land
around Paris, but the King of France was the overlord
to vast territories, including Aquitaine and Normandy. But Normandy and
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Aquitaine and all of Eleanor and Henry's smaller holdings combined, well,
that was a vast empire, pretty much the entire western
and southern parts of modern day France. And add in
the fact that Henry had a claim to the throne
of England, for which he wouldn't be a vassal of
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the King of France at all, and you can understand
why Louis wouldn't have been thrilled about this match. You
can probably understand why Eleanor and Henry didn't ask King
Louis's permission to get married, even though they were technically
supposed to better to ask forgiveness than permission, I'm sure
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they reasoned. And to add insult to injury, Eleanor and
Henry were even closer cousins than Eleanor and Louis had been,
But to them this was a golden and promising match.
Eleanor wasn't going to marry a bumbling, ineffective wallflower. Again.
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Eleanor was beautiful, powerful, sophisticated, and rich. Henry, more than
ten years her junior, was vital, handsome, active and ambitious.
He certainly didn't care about Eleanor's scandalous past, or even
the rumors that Eleanor had actually already had an affair
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with his own father. She was too dazzling a prospect.
In a few short years, Henry would successfully win the
throne of England and begin his rule as King Henry
the Second. As the two of them got married in
a relatively tiny ceremony at the Cathedral in Poitiers, it
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must have seemed to Eleanor that her future was opening
up before her. The two of them would rule an
empire together. Henry, the perfect powerful choice in husband, was
saving her from the constant risk of abduction that came
with being an heiress. Eleanor couldn't have known then that
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her marriage to Henry the Second would lead to years
of imprisonment. She couldn't have known that Henry would cut
her off from the outside world, moving her from secret
fortress to secret fortress for sixteen years years, the woman
who had been queen of both England and France would
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be reduced to status as prisoner for a betrayal that
was beyond a king's imagination. I'm Dana Schwartz and this
is noble blood. In eleven fifty four, Henry, Duke of
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Normandy became Henry the Second King of England, the founder
of the Plantagenet dynasty that would last until the Tutors
swept in. If you're wondering how Henry managed that upgrade
for himself, it was through his mother, Matilda. Matilda's father
had been King Henry the First of England, and his
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only legitimate son had drowned in a drunken boat wreck,
the White Ship disaster. If that sounds familiar, we did
an episode on it. Anyway, Without a male heir, the
king had asked all of his nobles to swear an
oath of loyalty to his daughter Matilda, which they did,
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and then the king died and the nobles instead decided
to crown Matilda's male cousin, Stephen. It ushered in a
period in English history known as the Anarchy. But the
important part to our story comes when we fast forward
to Matilda's grown son, Henry, who married Eleanor of Aquitaine
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and then took a fleet from Normandy to England, where
he waged war until he forced King stephen to make
him his heir, so at thirty two years old, Eleanor
of Aquitaine was Queen of England, having already been Queen
of France. Between Henry and Eleanor, they controlled a vast
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amount of incredibly valuable land and a territory that is
now referred to as the Anjovin Empire, although they wouldn't
have called it that at the time. As it turns out,
King Henry and Eleanor were much better at having children
than King Louis and Eleanor had been. In the decade
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and a half after Henry and Eleanor got married, Eleanor
gave birth to five sons and three daughters. The children
that you need to know for this story are her
four surviving boys in age order. They are Henry, Richard, Jeffrey,
and the baby John. In case you're wondering, Eleanor's ex husband,
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Louis remarried to although it would take until his third
wife for him to actually have his long awaited son.
For being such a famous medieval figure, the primary source
writing on Eleanor's day to day life as Queen of
England is astonishingly lif As historian Alison Weir points out
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in her biography, quote, chroniclers rarely mention Eleanor unless it
is to record her presence by the king's side on
various occasions, or the birth of her children, through which
she was fulfilling her prime function as queen end quote.
But throughout her life Eleanor would prove to be an
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adept administrator and a strong willed leader. Trust me, proof
of that will come through. So does that mean that
when she was married to Henry she wasn't really wielding
much political power? Well, maybe we know that when Henry
was away, Eleanor acted as an administrator, and we can
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assume that she did it well enough for Henry to
trust her. The unfortunate fact is the chronicler's writing about
the twelfth century as it was happening, were monks who
just weren't as intrigued by the life of a strong
female queen as we modern audiences are. They just didn't
really think that anything Eleanor was doing aside from having
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children was worth mentioning, but whatever her daily life was like.
In eleven sixty eight, sixteen years after Eleanor married Henry,
she would leave England altogether and set up her own
independent court back on the continent in her own duchy
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at Poitier. It was actually a bit of a the
parent trap situation. She took her favorite son, Richard with
her because he was the heir to Aquitaine. Why did
Eleanor leave her husband and England? Even her husband seemed
to find it a little perplexing at the time, and
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historians have all come up with their own explanations and
counter explanations to try to understand something that we don't
really have primary source proof of in either direction. One
of the big factors that possibly precipitated a falling out
between Henry and Eleanor was a woman named Rosamond de Clifford. Rosamond,
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the daughter of a knight, was the great love of
Henry's life, a mistress he seemed to just legitimately adore,
and she's become a common fixture in art and poetry
about the twelfth century. According to legend Henry built a
labyrinth under his hunting lodge at Woodstock for Rosamond where
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he could meet her without Eleanor finding out. That's just
one of the romantic dramatic stories about their medieval love affair.
The affair between Henry and Rosamond Clifford probably started around
eleven sixty five, a few years before Eleanor would abscond
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to the continent. Could that have been why Eleanor left?
Was she heartbroken, jealous, angry? It's possible, but it doesn't
quite ring true to me. Henry had had affairs before,
He had a number of acknowledged illegitimate children that Eleanor
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was well aware of. And even if Rosamond was different
because Henry was in love, well, Henry had been in
love with an earlier mistress named Rohesa declare. Was it
the public humiliation, the fact that Henry was so openly
involved with Rosamond. Well, Henry would openly flount his relationship
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with Rosamond, but not yet, not for years, not until
Eleanor was captured and in prison. But that was years
down the line. So what made Eleanor leave England and Henry?
We know that King Henry the second was a hard
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man to live with, or at least it seems that
way to me. The English court in the twelfth century
was constantly moving, going from castle to castle, sometimes as
frequently as every few days. It was partly to follow
weather and to follow hunting, partly for sanitation reasons. Imagine
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several hundred people spending an extended period of time in
any one place without indoor plumbing. It was also partly
because Henry was just restless and a slightly chaotic person.
One effect of a scattershot, itinerant court was that it
just wasn't very luxurious. It's hard to set up house
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if you're always moving, and Henry just didn't really care
about expensive things, good wine or good food. There was
a time when a group of monks from Saint Swithum's
at Winchester came to the king complaining that their bishop
was only letting them have ten course meals. Henry's reply,
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and I can't really blame him, Here was quote in
my court. I am satisfied with three parish your bishop
if he doesn't cut your dishes down to the same.
If I had to guess, I would imagine that eleanor
simply preferred the power of being a duchess in her
own territory, then the limitations that came with being a
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queen in England. It was probably a lot of ceremonial
appearances and no real power. Henry was unquestionably the boss
in England at Poitier, Eleanor was in charge. It had
been a decade and a half since the two had
gotten married, and Eleanor had more than done her duty
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in providing Henry children. They had four surviving sons, and
she had reached middle age, at least by medieval standards,
past the age where she would likely have more children.
If love or passion had once existed between Henry and Eleanor,
it was almost certainly gone, seeing as he preferred his mistress. Plus,
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the people in Aquitaine and Poetout never really took to
Henry as an overlord, and the region had descended into
a little bit of chaos. Eleanor going back and reigning
in her vassals was a smart strategic decision for a
couple that was ruling over an incredibly vast and diverse empire.
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However understandable her reasons appear. Eleanor's move to her own
court in Poitier signaled a deep fissure growing in her
marriage with Henry. Though we can't point to a single
event or inciting incident, something had grown rotten between the
pair and it would lead to the most insidious kind
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of civil war, a family turned against itself. It was
around the time that Eleanor moved her court to Poitier
that King Henry the second was settling the matter of
inheritance between his sons. His oldest son, Henry, would receive England,
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Normandy and Anjou crown pickings. At fifteen, King Henry had
a ceremony crowning his son, also Henry Henry, King of England,
not to take his place, but just as a sort
of junior king position. King in training. From this point on,
to make things clearer, will refer to him as the
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young King. So the young King gets England, Normandy and Anjou,
and he's married to King Louis of France's daughter from
his second marriage. Our next son, Richard, gets Acquitaine, which
is why he goes off with his mother Eleanor, and
he is betrothed to another French Princess, Alice of France.
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The next son, Jeffrey, will get Brittany and hold it
as a vassal of his older brother Henry. The baby
John isn't factored in. Maybe he'll go into the church.
Henry hasn't really decided yet. Perhaps you're asking yourself why
King Henry is choosing to divide his property between his sons.
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He built an empire, doesn't it just go to the
oldest son. Well, it was a really big and diverse kingdom,
and King Henry was learning firsthand just how hard it
was to rule over that much land and that many
different groups of people. He would rather his heirs all
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maintain clear power over smaller dominions than see his land
crumble apart and fall into the hands of enemies. Plus,
he really didn't think that any of his sons had
the ability to rule over an incredibly large and complex empire.
Henry's sons, young as they were, were also headstrong and spoiled,
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and though King Henry had granted them lands in theory,
in practice he gave them no real power or control
even as they got older. That would be a problem
for him later on. So remember that Henry gave his
sons titles, but he didn't allow them the independent power
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that went with those titles. Henry was especially restrictive with
the young King. You'd think that in having a full
coronation ceremony for a teenage king, Henry was indicating that
he was prepared to have his son begin to carry
some responsibility for running the kingdom. You would be wrong.
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The coronation was entirely symbolic, and Henry was nowhere near
ready to let the young King actually do anything. To
be fair, the young King sounds well a little annoying.
At the celebration dinner after this symbolic coronation, King Henry
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came out with a boar's head on a platter to
serve to his son. He joked, it's surely unusual to
see a king wait upon a table. The Archbishop of
York was nearby, and he got into the bit, ribbing
the young King and adding, it's not every prince you
can be served at table by a king. But the
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young King did not laugh, he didn't even smile. With
a dead serious face, he replied, certainly, it can be
no condescension for the son of a count to serve
the son of a king. But soon spoiled sons would
be the least of king Henry's problems, at least temporarily.
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If King Henry the Second of England is best known
for one thing, although here in America I think it's
a fair assumption that even that would be generous, it
would be the possibly accidental murder of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop
of Canterbury. The incredibly abridged version of it is Henry
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and Thomas Beckett were good friends. He appoints him Archbishop
of Canterbury, and then Henry begins getting very annoyed at
the way the Church was allowed to disapp in their
own if anyone broke the law. Basically, there was a
separate legal system that meant if someone committed a crime,
if they had taken holy orders, even if they were
(25:12):
just a clerk, the church would be the one who
issued the punishment, and surprise, surprise, those penalties were incredibly light,
even for bad crimes. So King Henry justifiably was annoyed
that random clerks were committing manslaughter or even murder and
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getting away with a metaphorical slap on the wrist. While
Beckett would get mad that King Henry was trying to
infringe on the holy authority of the church. It is
more complicated than that. But these two men would bicker
and slight each other, and then the King of France
or the Pope would step in and they would kiss
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and make up, and then the psycho would start all
over again. As the story goes, King Henry was venting
about Beckett's latest disrespect, and he called out, will no
one rid me of this troublesome priest. Well four of
his men took that as an order and went to Canterbury,
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where they murdered Thomas Beckett. It was one of the
epic historical backfires. Thomas Beckett had been a thorn in
King Henry's side when he was alive. Now that he
was dead, he was King Henry's worst nightmare. Immediately, there
was outcry from the Christian world. An archbishop slain outside
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his church in cold blood. Thomas Beckett was martyred and
made a saint. People made pilgrimages to his shrine and
celebrated miracles that they ascribed to him. Thomas Beckett's blood
would be a stain on King Henry's reputation for the
rest of his life. Eleanor had defended Henry throughout his
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assorted quarrels with Beckett, but we don't know how she
felt once Beckett had been killed. Even though Henry claimed
it had been inadvertent on his part, it was still
just an incredibly bad look all around, and we have
to assume that Eleanor probably didn't look too kindly on it.
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While Eleanor was at her own court in Poitier with
her favorite son Richard, Henry was making a marriage arrangement
for their youngest son John. It was decided that John,
who was five years old at this point, wouldn't enter
the church. After all, he would marry the daughter of
the Count of Marianne, and as his inheritance he would
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get three castles on the continent and some estate in England. Well,
that's all well and good, except the land that the
king was giving to John had already been given to
Henry's oldest son, the Young King. At this point, it
was too much for the young King. He was frustrated
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about being stymied at every turn by his father, all
of the authority he was supposed to have always being undermined,
and now this land that were his just being taken
out from under him, as if he didn't exist. King
Henry sensed the seeds of mutiny in his son, and
so he made it his business not to let his
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oldest boy out of his sight. He left his other sons,
Richard and Jeffrey, with Eleanor at Poitier, because surely the
only insubordination was coming from the young king. In the
middle of the night, the young king slipped away from
his father's camp and absconded to Paris, to the Kingdom
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of France, where he met with his father in law,
King Louis the Seventh, yes Eleanor's first husband. As luck
would have it, the King of France was more than
a willing ear to listen to the young king complain
about the King of England, and Louis encouraged the boy
to rebel against his father. He crowned, you, didn't he,
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King Louis said, already salivating at the prospect of Henry
the Second Empire coming tumbling down. You should be the
one in charge, he whispered. The young king agreed. King
Henry wrote to Paris, demanding that Louis give his son
back by the order of the King of England. You
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must be mistaken, Louis wrote back. The King of England
is here. It was a declaration of war. Henry would
have to fight King Louis the Seventh, fight all of
the nobles who had turned against him over the years,
and fight his own son in order to protect his throne.
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What he didn't suspect was that soon he would be
fighting three of his sons. The young king managed to
sneak to Poitier, and he left with his brothers Richard
and Jeffrey, fighting alongside him. According to one chronicler, the
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two boys quote chose to follow their brother rather than
their father. In this, they say, following the advice of
their mother, Eleanor Eleanor of Aquitaine. Whether it was out
of personal hatred or frustration or bitterness, whether it was
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because she disagreed with Henry's or with the murder of Beckett,
or whether it was simply because she wanted her sons
to have the power that was due to them turned
against her husband. Once she had chosen her side, Poitier
was too dangerous. It did, after all, still belong to Henry.
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Eleanor's sons had already made it to the safety of Paris.
Eleanor would follow them back to the hospitality of the
court of her ex husband war makes strange bedfellows, sometimes
even past literal bedfellows, and for all their history and baggage,
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Eleanor and Louis were united in this case by a
common enemy. But Eleanor never made it to Paris. Though
she changed from women's clothes and disguised herself as a man,
she was intercepted and arrested by Henry said men, who
sent her straight to her husband. It's likely that there
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were spies in her camp. Immediately after Eleanor's arrest, four
prominent men from Poitou were given suspiciously generous grants from Henry.
Henry quietly transported Eleanor back to England, possibly on a
ship from Henry's private fleet called Esneca or Snake. The
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symbolism there very Taylor Swift, would have been a complete coincidence.
The Queen of England was imprisoned secretly in a fortified castle,
likely either Winchester or Old Sauum. Henry understood rebellion coming
from his own sons. It was unfortunate, but it happened.
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But a wife rising up against her husband with something else, entirely,
something unspeakable, It had taken Henry completely by surprise. And
he would never let that happen again. For a moment,
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it seemed as though the young King would be successful
in his rebellion, that the chaos of all of the
rebel forces rising up against Henry the Second would take
him down. And of course the King of Scots had
chosen that exact moment to try to invade England, seeing
as Henry was otherwise occupied. But Henry was an adept
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military leader, and the young King was inexperienced. And though
King Louis took control from the young King, he was
as bad at organizing rebels as he had been in
organizing a crusade all those years ago. When the walls
had been closing in on Henry, he had ridden to
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Canterbury to pay penance for the part that he played
in the death of Thomas Beckett, now sainted. Perhaps this,
his son's rebelling against him, his wife turned against him,
was some sort of divine punishment. Henry walked to the
cathedral barefoot, wearing the itchy woolen smunk of a pilgrim,
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and he stayed all day fasting in prayer. He had
every bishop present give him lashes. He would cleanse his
soul of sin once and for all, and like a miracle,
as he rose from his knees, he got word that
his men had just won a decisive victory and that
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the opportunist King of the Scots had been captured. The
tide had changed, and Henry's sons had no choice but
to accept peace. Though Richard fought until the bitter end,
eventually he threw himself weeping at his father's feet. Henry
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forgave him. Considering the circumstances, the terms Henry settled with
were more than generous. He gave the young king a
reasonable allowance and two castles in Normandy, Richard half the
revenues of Poitou and some castles, and Geoffrey half the
revenues of Brittany. But there would be no more talk
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of them wielding more power, and young John would get
those estates from his brother that had been such a
point of contention in the first place. In fact, John
would get even more land because John, still a child
at this point, had been the only legitimate son who
didn't rise up against his father. He would be his
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father's favorite from that point on. But still Henry forgave
all of his children. He said they were of a
quote tender age, and that they had been led astray
by the people around them, by the scheming King of France,
and by their mother, Eleanor. Henry would forgive everyone who
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had risen up against him in rebellion, except his wife.
Eleanor of Aquitaine would remain in custody, cut off from
the outside world completely, and at her husband's mercy, for
the rest of Henry's life. She likely moved from castle
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to castle, Her movements kept secret because Henry was well
aware that if word of her mistreatment got back to
her home duchies, they might rise up in support of her.
One of the castles, Old Sarum, was located on a bleak,
cold hill near what now is Salisbury. Apparently the castle
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was so drafty that clerks singing in the cathedral couldn't
hear each other over the wind. We know from the
pipe rolls the financial records that the money being spent
on Eleanor was meager. She was allowed one personal maid,
and they shared a bed. Eleanor, queen of two countries,
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mother of a brood of dukes, and well married daughters.
Once the richest woman in Europe, who had dazzled the
world as she had set out on Crusade, was fifty
two years old. At this point. Perhaps you're wondering, why
didn't Henry just annul his marriage with Eleanor. They were cousins,
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after all, there would be a way to annul the
marriage without making his children illegitimate. Well, Henry tried. He
took the first few steps to annul his marriage, even
going so far as to begin making moves to marry
Alice of France, the young woman that had been officially
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betrothed to his own son Richard. But Eleanor still owned
her vast and wealthy property if she wasn't married, and
Henry would lose claim to that if he and Eleanor
were divorced. Perhaps more troubling, if Eleanor were no longer
his wife, she would revert to just being a vassal
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of the King of France, and Henry would have no
authority for keeping her prisoner. She could go back to
Aquitaine to raise her own armies to betray Henry again,
and worse, if they were divorced, she could marry again
to someone else who could help her do it. The
last thing Henry wanted was a rich and powerful enemy
(38:50):
on the southern flank of his empire. Henry tried to
get Eleanor to become an abbess, but she refused, and
the archbishop she appealed to backed her up. Henry couldn't
force Eleanor to become a nun against her will. Eleanor
wasn't willing to give up her claim to her land
(39:10):
or her power. She would rather be alone, imprisoned and
completely isolated, waiting Henry out. Eleanor was allowed no contact
with her family or the outside world to prevent the
chance that she would undermine her husband yet again. A
(39:30):
sympathetic jailer might have told her that her daughter had
become engaged to William of Sicily. Maybe Eleanor overheard the
gossip when her first husband, King Louis the seventh of
France died of a stroke. After six years of complete imprisonment,
Henry allowed Eleanor slightly more comfort, a slightly bigger household,
(39:55):
according to the records, and eventually, after years, Henry would
permit Eleanor back to make appearances at court, even to
see her sons again, though even then Henry's motive was
always political. Eleanor was invited to see her children again
for the first time in eleven eighty four, after Henry
(40:19):
had once again redistributed their inheritance and he wanted Eleanor's
help in assigning Aquitaine to the baby John instead of Richard. Eleanor,
even after years of imprisonment and isolation, refused. Eventually, after years,
(40:46):
Henry would allow Eleanor to go back to Aquitaine to
help him get her vassals in line, but she was
an administrator for him. Though she was getting a modicum
of freedom in exchange for political service, Henry would never
grant Eleanor real power. Henry's problems with bickering, selfish sons
(41:08):
that had plagued him throughout his life didn't end with
that one rebellion. In fact, in eleven eighty three, the
young King would rebel again against both his father and
his brother Richard. It was a disastrous campaign, with the
young King forced to pillage monasteries in order to try
(41:30):
to raise the funds to pay his mercenary soldiers. In
the end, the young King would contract dysentery. As he
lay dying, he tried to absolve himself of his sins.
He slept in ashes and sent a message to his
father begging for his forgiveness and asking him to come
(41:51):
and see him to say goodbye. King Henry was conflicted.
He loved his son still, but he was worried it
might be a trap. Henry sent a sapphire ring and
a letter telling his son that he forgave him, but
he didn't come in person. The young king read his
(42:13):
father's letter before he died. He said he wanted all
of his possessions donated to the poor, except the ring.
He wanted to keep the ring so that his maker
would know before he judged him that his father had
forgiven him. When Henry heard that his son died, the
(42:34):
son that had brought arms up against him again and again,
he wept like a child and fell to the floor.
He cost me much, but I wish he had lived
to cost me more, Henry said. According to legend, a
messenger came to tell Eleanor that her son had died.
(42:57):
Unlike her husband. Eleanor didn't. She said she had already
mourned that she had seen a vision in a dream,
her son lying on his back with his fingers intertwined
like an effigy on a tomb. In her dream, her
son wore his crown, and also a circlet of bright white,
(43:19):
heavenly light, and on his finger she could see the
sapphire ring that she would have had no way of
knowing Henry had sent along. His heir was dead, but
still Henry's sons would fight him. Richard was angry that
he hadn't been yet married to Alice of France, and
(43:42):
so he publicly allied with Philip, Alice's half brother, the
new King of France. By this point, Henry was fifty
six years old and suffering from a bleeding ulcer that
would eventually kill him. Too sick to continue to fight,
he gave in to Richard's demands, which were mostly just
(44:05):
a matter of pride. Before Henry died, he got word
that even his youngest son John had turned against him
in the end and sided with Richard in the fighting.
Once it was obvious that Richard was going to win,
Henry's last words, according to legend, were shame on a
(44:27):
conquered king. Richard, the first Eleanor's favorite son, who would
eventually be known as Richard the Lion Heart, was finally
King of England. He immediately sent a messenger sailing up
from France as fast as possible to order Eleanor's release
from her imprisonment. Now that Henry was dead, Eleanor would
(44:52):
finally be free, and she would be installed as ruler
of England in Richard's name until Richard could get there himself.
But when the messenger arrived to free her, he was confused.
Eleanor was already free. Eleanor had heard that her husband
(45:12):
had died, and everyone knew that her son, Richard was king.
Her release was a foregone conclusion, and so Eleanor had
just demanded that the guards release her. She had freed herself.
(45:33):
That's the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine's imprisonment during her
marriage to Henry the Second. But keep listening after a
brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about
the way Eleanor and Henry's relationship is told in legend.
(45:55):
It was during Eleanor's imprisonment that Henry stopped trying to
high his affair with Rosamond. Clifford chroniclers would enjoy the
pun on her name Rosa mundy meaning rose of the world,
to Rosa immundi or immodest. In eleven seventy five, Rosamond
(46:17):
was sent to a nunnery, probably not because she had
a change of heart about her lifestyle of being a
mistress and decided to become a nun but more likely
because she was ill and needed care. She died a
year later of illness, though that wouldn't stop poets and
balladers from telling the story that she was actually murdered
(46:41):
by Eleanor. Stories have Eleanor finding the secret labyrinth where
Henry was keeping Rosamond and forcing Rosamond to choose between
either a dagger or a bull of poison. It's a
dramatic piece of medieval folklore, but its complete fiction. Eleanor
(47:03):
was completely accounted for in custody when Rosamond died locked
away in a remote fortress castle. It seems that every
woman in Henry's life was imprisoned, his wife Eleanor, of course,
but also poor Alice of France, the daughter of the
(47:23):
King of France, who was betrothed to Henry's son Richard.
Instead of allowing that wedding to go forward, Henry used
Alice as a pawn, keeping her like a glorified hostage,
contemplating marrying her, and in the end, likely turning her
into his own mistress. According to legend, the labyrinth that
(47:48):
Rosamond was forced to stay in was inspired by the
maze in Greek mythology that Daedalus built to contain the minotaur. Except,
of course, Rosamond wasn't a man eating monster. She was
a beautiful woman whose crime was the king being madly
in love with her, queen, princess and mistress. They all
(48:13):
shared the same fate in Henry's story. Noble Blood is
a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankee.
Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwortz,
(48:35):
with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick,
Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is
edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali,
with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke,
(48:55):
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hey, this
is Dana, the host of Noble Blood. Thank you for listening.
A tiny bit of housekeeping before we get started. If
you want to support the show, we have a Patreon
(00:21):
Patreon dot com slash Noble Blood Tales where I upload
episode scripts and bonus episodes. There's also show merch that
I absolutely love, and there's a link to that in
the episode description. A little bit more housekeeping. I'm so
excited I'm teaching a course on horror writing because I've
(00:42):
written two novels that came out last year and the
year before, and I'm so excited to be able to
teach this course. And it's virtual, so no matter where
you are you can sign up. The link is in
the episode description. I'm just thrilled. I love teaching writing.
Going to writing camp growing up and taking creative writing
courses changed my life, so I'm thrilled to be able
(01:03):
to do this with a group, no matter your experience level.
I think it'll be a great opportunity. So that'll be
very fun. If that interests you, sign up. Thank you
for listening. Let's get into this longer than normal episode.
But knowing that the subject matter is Eleanor of Aquitaine,
I think you can understand why I stretched out the
(01:26):
episode just a little bit. Eleanor of Aquitaine, thirty years
old and newly single, knew that there was danger lurking
in the woods on her way back to her home
in Poitier from her father. She had inherited the vast
(01:49):
and incredibly wealthy duchies of Aquitaine and Poiito in what
is now the south of France, and now that her
marriage to the King of France, Louis the seventh had
been officially annulled, every nobleman in the area knew that
if they kidnapped Eleanor and forced her to marry them,
(02:11):
all of her wealth and power would be theirs. It
had been Eleanor's choice to annul her marriage to Louis.
He had been madly in love with her, to the
point that his barons were a little confused. Eleanor had
always been a bad fit with the pious and dull Louis.
(02:34):
She had married him when she was fifteen. Eleanor had
come from the glamorous Duchy of Aquitaine in the South,
and she arrived in Paris with an interest in fashion, music,
and poetry that struck the northerners as indulgent. There's a
reason Eleanor of Aquitaine has become such a figure of
(02:56):
popular imagination over the centuries. She inspired bards and balladiers
and artists. She had accompanied her husband on the Second
Crusade to the Holy Land with her own retinue of
ladies who probably didn't but, according to legend, dressed as Amazon's,
(03:17):
that crusade had been, to put it briefly, a disaster.
It was the beginning of the end of her marriage
with Louis. Rumors began to swirl while she was on
Crusade that Eleanor was having an affair with her own uncle,
but even then, it wasn't until Eleanor gave birth to
her second child with Louis, another daughter that Louis gave
(03:42):
in when she asked for an annulment. Louie's barons had
been badgering him for someone less controversial see Eleanor's rumored
affair with her uncle. But the biggest problem was that
they had been married for fifteen years and she hadn't
Louis a son. When you are the king and you
(04:04):
don't have an heir, that is a huge problem. And
in the twelfth century, and when you are incredibly religious,
you might read it as a sign that God didn't
actually want you to be married to this person. After all,
the Church helpfully annulled Eleanor and Louise's marriage on grounds
(04:26):
of consanguinity. They were too closely related. In other words,
they were fourth cousins, although of course that hadn't been
a concern going into the marriage when money and land
and title was at stake, but there it was. In
eleven fifty two, Eleanor got her lands back and she
(04:50):
was free for the first time in her adult life.
But being free didn't mean that Eleanor was safe. On
the the long journey back to Poitier. In her home Duchy,
there were two kidnapping attempts. First, in the town of Blois,
the future Count Theobald the Fifth attempted to seize her,
(05:14):
but Eleanor was warned in advanced and she managed to
sneak away in the middle of the night on a
barge down the Loire River. And then a second kidnapping attempt,
This time by Jeffrey, Count of Nott, But once again,
someone referred to in a chronicle as her quote, good
(05:34):
angel warned Eleanor, and she managed to get away by
avoiding the main roads and taking a less direct but
more hidden route home. After spending a decade and a
half trapped in a marriage she didn't want. The last
thing Eleanor wanted was to be abducted by a different man.
(05:57):
But for as long as she wasn't married to a
powerful husband, she would always be in danger, and so
immediately as soon as Eleanor made it home, she sent
a messenger to Henry Than, Duke of Normandy, telling him
to come and marry her as soon as possible. Eleanor
(06:20):
and Henry had probably made the plan to get married
in advance, before she had even arranged the annulment with
her husband, Louis, King of France. If Louis had known
that she was planning on marrying Henry, he probably never
would have agreed to the annulment at all. Henry Than,
nineteen years old, was the biggest threat to the King
(06:44):
of France's power. For a little bit more context, this
was an era of feudalism, where people were more loyal
to local lords than the abstract ideas of patriotism vassals,
and if the lords were really powerful, then they were
(07:04):
overlords to other nobles. The Kingdom of France at the
time was really only a small physical swatch of land
around Paris, but the King of France was the overlord
to vast territories, including Aquitaine and Normandy. But Normandy and
(07:25):
Aquitaine and all of Eleanor and Henry's smaller holdings combined, well,
that was a vast empire, pretty much the entire western
and southern parts of modern day France. And add in
the fact that Henry had a claim to the throne
of England, for which he wouldn't be a vassal of
(07:47):
the King of France at all, and you can understand
why Louis wouldn't have been thrilled about this match. You
can probably understand why Eleanor and Henry didn't ask King
Louis's permission to get married, even though they were technically
supposed to better to ask forgiveness than permission, I'm sure
(08:09):
they reasoned. And to add insult to injury, Eleanor and
Henry were even closer cousins than Eleanor and Louis had been,
But to them this was a golden and promising match.
Eleanor wasn't going to marry a bumbling, ineffective wallflower. Again.
(08:31):
Eleanor was beautiful, powerful, sophisticated, and rich. Henry, more than
ten years her junior, was vital, handsome, active and ambitious.
He certainly didn't care about Eleanor's scandalous past, or even
the rumors that Eleanor had actually already had an affair
(08:54):
with his own father. She was too dazzling a prospect.
In a few short years, Henry would successfully win the
throne of England and begin his rule as King Henry
the Second. As the two of them got married in
a relatively tiny ceremony at the Cathedral in Poitiers, it
(09:18):
must have seemed to Eleanor that her future was opening
up before her. The two of them would rule an
empire together. Henry, the perfect powerful choice in husband, was
saving her from the constant risk of abduction that came
with being an heiress. Eleanor couldn't have known then that
(09:42):
her marriage to Henry the Second would lead to years
of imprisonment. She couldn't have known that Henry would cut
her off from the outside world, moving her from secret
fortress to secret fortress for sixteen years years, the woman
who had been queen of both England and France would
(10:05):
be reduced to status as prisoner for a betrayal that
was beyond a king's imagination. I'm Dana Schwartz and this
is noble blood. In eleven fifty four, Henry, Duke of
(10:28):
Normandy became Henry the Second King of England, the founder
of the Plantagenet dynasty that would last until the Tutors
swept in. If you're wondering how Henry managed that upgrade
for himself, it was through his mother, Matilda. Matilda's father
had been King Henry the First of England, and his
(10:51):
only legitimate son had drowned in a drunken boat wreck,
the White Ship disaster. If that sounds familiar, we did
an episode on it. Anyway, Without a male heir, the
king had asked all of his nobles to swear an
oath of loyalty to his daughter Matilda, which they did,
(11:11):
and then the king died and the nobles instead decided
to crown Matilda's male cousin, Stephen. It ushered in a
period in English history known as the Anarchy. But the
important part to our story comes when we fast forward
to Matilda's grown son, Henry, who married Eleanor of Aquitaine
(11:34):
and then took a fleet from Normandy to England, where
he waged war until he forced King stephen to make
him his heir, so at thirty two years old, Eleanor
of Aquitaine was Queen of England, having already been Queen
of France. Between Henry and Eleanor, they controlled a vast
(11:56):
amount of incredibly valuable land and a territory that is
now referred to as the Anjovin Empire, although they wouldn't
have called it that at the time. As it turns out,
King Henry and Eleanor were much better at having children
than King Louis and Eleanor had been. In the decade
(12:18):
and a half after Henry and Eleanor got married, Eleanor
gave birth to five sons and three daughters. The children
that you need to know for this story are her
four surviving boys in age order. They are Henry, Richard, Jeffrey,
and the baby John. In case you're wondering, Eleanor's ex husband,
(12:41):
Louis remarried to although it would take until his third
wife for him to actually have his long awaited son.
For being such a famous medieval figure, the primary source
writing on Eleanor's day to day life as Queen of
England is astonishingly lif As historian Alison Weir points out
(13:04):
in her biography, quote, chroniclers rarely mention Eleanor unless it
is to record her presence by the king's side on
various occasions, or the birth of her children, through which
she was fulfilling her prime function as queen end quote.
But throughout her life Eleanor would prove to be an
(13:25):
adept administrator and a strong willed leader. Trust me, proof
of that will come through. So does that mean that
when she was married to Henry she wasn't really wielding
much political power? Well, maybe we know that when Henry
was away, Eleanor acted as an administrator, and we can
(13:45):
assume that she did it well enough for Henry to
trust her. The unfortunate fact is the chronicler's writing about
the twelfth century as it was happening, were monks who
just weren't as intrigued by the life of a strong
female queen as we modern audiences are. They just didn't
really think that anything Eleanor was doing aside from having
(14:09):
children was worth mentioning, but whatever her daily life was like.
In eleven sixty eight, sixteen years after Eleanor married Henry,
she would leave England altogether and set up her own
independent court back on the continent in her own duchy
(14:31):
at Poitier. It was actually a bit of a the
parent trap situation. She took her favorite son, Richard with
her because he was the heir to Aquitaine. Why did
Eleanor leave her husband and England? Even her husband seemed
to find it a little perplexing at the time, and
(14:51):
historians have all come up with their own explanations and
counter explanations to try to understand something that we don't
really have primary source proof of in either direction. One
of the big factors that possibly precipitated a falling out
between Henry and Eleanor was a woman named Rosamond de Clifford. Rosamond,
(15:18):
the daughter of a knight, was the great love of
Henry's life, a mistress he seemed to just legitimately adore,
and she's become a common fixture in art and poetry
about the twelfth century. According to legend Henry built a
labyrinth under his hunting lodge at Woodstock for Rosamond where
(15:41):
he could meet her without Eleanor finding out. That's just
one of the romantic dramatic stories about their medieval love affair.
The affair between Henry and Rosamond Clifford probably started around
eleven sixty five, a few years before Eleanor would abscond
(16:01):
to the continent. Could that have been why Eleanor left?
Was she heartbroken, jealous, angry? It's possible, but it doesn't
quite ring true to me. Henry had had affairs before,
He had a number of acknowledged illegitimate children that Eleanor
(16:22):
was well aware of. And even if Rosamond was different
because Henry was in love, well, Henry had been in
love with an earlier mistress named Rohesa declare. Was it
the public humiliation, the fact that Henry was so openly
involved with Rosamond. Well, Henry would openly flount his relationship
(16:45):
with Rosamond, but not yet, not for years, not until
Eleanor was captured and in prison. But that was years
down the line. So what made Eleanor leave England and Henry?
We know that King Henry the second was a hard
(17:07):
man to live with, or at least it seems that
way to me. The English court in the twelfth century
was constantly moving, going from castle to castle, sometimes as
frequently as every few days. It was partly to follow
weather and to follow hunting, partly for sanitation reasons. Imagine
(17:30):
several hundred people spending an extended period of time in
any one place without indoor plumbing. It was also partly
because Henry was just restless and a slightly chaotic person.
One effect of a scattershot, itinerant court was that it
just wasn't very luxurious. It's hard to set up house
(17:54):
if you're always moving, and Henry just didn't really care
about expensive things, good wine or good food. There was
a time when a group of monks from Saint Swithum's
at Winchester came to the king complaining that their bishop
was only letting them have ten course meals. Henry's reply,
(18:16):
and I can't really blame him, Here was quote in
my court. I am satisfied with three parish your bishop
if he doesn't cut your dishes down to the same.
If I had to guess, I would imagine that eleanor
simply preferred the power of being a duchess in her
own territory, then the limitations that came with being a
(18:39):
queen in England. It was probably a lot of ceremonial
appearances and no real power. Henry was unquestionably the boss
in England at Poitier, Eleanor was in charge. It had
been a decade and a half since the two had
gotten married, and Eleanor had more than done her duty
(19:02):
in providing Henry children. They had four surviving sons, and
she had reached middle age, at least by medieval standards,
past the age where she would likely have more children.
If love or passion had once existed between Henry and Eleanor,
it was almost certainly gone, seeing as he preferred his mistress. Plus,
(19:28):
the people in Aquitaine and Poetout never really took to
Henry as an overlord, and the region had descended into
a little bit of chaos. Eleanor going back and reigning
in her vassals was a smart strategic decision for a
couple that was ruling over an incredibly vast and diverse empire.
(19:50):
However understandable her reasons appear. Eleanor's move to her own
court in Poitier signaled a deep fissure growing in her
marriage with Henry. Though we can't point to a single
event or inciting incident, something had grown rotten between the
pair and it would lead to the most insidious kind
(20:14):
of civil war, a family turned against itself. It was
around the time that Eleanor moved her court to Poitier
that King Henry the second was settling the matter of
inheritance between his sons. His oldest son, Henry, would receive England,
(20:38):
Normandy and Anjou crown pickings. At fifteen, King Henry had
a ceremony crowning his son, also Henry Henry, King of England,
not to take his place, but just as a sort
of junior king position. King in training. From this point on,
to make things clearer, will refer to him as the
(21:01):
young King. So the young King gets England, Normandy and Anjou,
and he's married to King Louis of France's daughter from
his second marriage. Our next son, Richard, gets Acquitaine, which
is why he goes off with his mother Eleanor, and
he is betrothed to another French Princess, Alice of France.
(21:25):
The next son, Jeffrey, will get Brittany and hold it
as a vassal of his older brother Henry. The baby
John isn't factored in. Maybe he'll go into the church.
Henry hasn't really decided yet. Perhaps you're asking yourself why
King Henry is choosing to divide his property between his sons.
(21:47):
He built an empire, doesn't it just go to the
oldest son. Well, it was a really big and diverse kingdom,
and King Henry was learning firsthand just how hard it
was to rule over that much land and that many
different groups of people. He would rather his heirs all
(22:08):
maintain clear power over smaller dominions than see his land
crumble apart and fall into the hands of enemies. Plus,
he really didn't think that any of his sons had
the ability to rule over an incredibly large and complex empire.
Henry's sons, young as they were, were also headstrong and spoiled,
(22:33):
and though King Henry had granted them lands in theory,
in practice he gave them no real power or control
even as they got older. That would be a problem
for him later on. So remember that Henry gave his
sons titles, but he didn't allow them the independent power
(22:54):
that went with those titles. Henry was especially restrictive with
the young King. You'd think that in having a full
coronation ceremony for a teenage king, Henry was indicating that
he was prepared to have his son begin to carry
some responsibility for running the kingdom. You would be wrong.
(23:16):
The coronation was entirely symbolic, and Henry was nowhere near
ready to let the young King actually do anything. To
be fair, the young King sounds well a little annoying.
At the celebration dinner after this symbolic coronation, King Henry
(23:37):
came out with a boar's head on a platter to
serve to his son. He joked, it's surely unusual to
see a king wait upon a table. The Archbishop of
York was nearby, and he got into the bit, ribbing
the young King and adding, it's not every prince you
can be served at table by a king. But the
(23:57):
young King did not laugh, he didn't even smile. With
a dead serious face, he replied, certainly, it can be
no condescension for the son of a count to serve
the son of a king. But soon spoiled sons would
be the least of king Henry's problems, at least temporarily.
(24:26):
If King Henry the Second of England is best known
for one thing, although here in America I think it's
a fair assumption that even that would be generous, it
would be the possibly accidental murder of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop
of Canterbury. The incredibly abridged version of it is Henry
(24:49):
and Thomas Beckett were good friends. He appoints him Archbishop
of Canterbury, and then Henry begins getting very annoyed at
the way the Church was allowed to disapp in their
own if anyone broke the law. Basically, there was a
separate legal system that meant if someone committed a crime,
if they had taken holy orders, even if they were
(25:12):
just a clerk, the church would be the one who
issued the punishment, and surprise, surprise, those penalties were incredibly light,
even for bad crimes. So King Henry justifiably was annoyed
that random clerks were committing manslaughter or even murder and
(25:34):
getting away with a metaphorical slap on the wrist. While
Beckett would get mad that King Henry was trying to
infringe on the holy authority of the church. It is
more complicated than that. But these two men would bicker
and slight each other, and then the King of France
or the Pope would step in and they would kiss
(25:55):
and make up, and then the psycho would start all
over again. As the story goes, King Henry was venting
about Beckett's latest disrespect, and he called out, will no
one rid me of this troublesome priest. Well four of
his men took that as an order and went to Canterbury,
(26:17):
where they murdered Thomas Beckett. It was one of the
epic historical backfires. Thomas Beckett had been a thorn in
King Henry's side when he was alive. Now that he
was dead, he was King Henry's worst nightmare. Immediately, there
was outcry from the Christian world. An archbishop slain outside
(26:42):
his church in cold blood. Thomas Beckett was martyred and
made a saint. People made pilgrimages to his shrine and
celebrated miracles that they ascribed to him. Thomas Beckett's blood
would be a stain on King Henry's reputation for the
rest of his life. Eleanor had defended Henry throughout his
(27:06):
assorted quarrels with Beckett, but we don't know how she
felt once Beckett had been killed. Even though Henry claimed
it had been inadvertent on his part, it was still
just an incredibly bad look all around, and we have
to assume that Eleanor probably didn't look too kindly on it.
(27:34):
While Eleanor was at her own court in Poitier with
her favorite son Richard, Henry was making a marriage arrangement
for their youngest son John. It was decided that John,
who was five years old at this point, wouldn't enter
the church. After all, he would marry the daughter of
the Count of Marianne, and as his inheritance he would
(27:56):
get three castles on the continent and some estate in England. Well,
that's all well and good, except the land that the
king was giving to John had already been given to
Henry's oldest son, the Young King. At this point, it
was too much for the young King. He was frustrated
(28:19):
about being stymied at every turn by his father, all
of the authority he was supposed to have always being undermined,
and now this land that were his just being taken
out from under him, as if he didn't exist. King
Henry sensed the seeds of mutiny in his son, and
so he made it his business not to let his
(28:41):
oldest boy out of his sight. He left his other sons,
Richard and Jeffrey, with Eleanor at Poitier, because surely the
only insubordination was coming from the young king. In the
middle of the night, the young king slipped away from
his father's camp and absconded to Paris, to the Kingdom
(29:03):
of France, where he met with his father in law,
King Louis the Seventh, yes Eleanor's first husband. As luck
would have it, the King of France was more than
a willing ear to listen to the young king complain
about the King of England, and Louis encouraged the boy
to rebel against his father. He crowned, you, didn't he,
(29:28):
King Louis said, already salivating at the prospect of Henry
the Second Empire coming tumbling down. You should be the
one in charge, he whispered. The young king agreed. King
Henry wrote to Paris, demanding that Louis give his son
back by the order of the King of England. You
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must be mistaken, Louis wrote back. The King of England
is here. It was a declaration of war. Henry would
have to fight King Louis the Seventh, fight all of
the nobles who had turned against him over the years,
and fight his own son in order to protect his throne.
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What he didn't suspect was that soon he would be
fighting three of his sons. The young king managed to
sneak to Poitier, and he left with his brothers Richard
and Jeffrey, fighting alongside him. According to one chronicler, the
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two boys quote chose to follow their brother rather than
their father. In this, they say, following the advice of
their mother, Eleanor Eleanor of Aquitaine. Whether it was out
of personal hatred or frustration or bitterness, whether it was
(30:57):
because she disagreed with Henry's or with the murder of Beckett,
or whether it was simply because she wanted her sons
to have the power that was due to them turned
against her husband. Once she had chosen her side, Poitier
was too dangerous. It did, after all, still belong to Henry.
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Eleanor's sons had already made it to the safety of Paris.
Eleanor would follow them back to the hospitality of the
court of her ex husband war makes strange bedfellows, sometimes
even past literal bedfellows, and for all their history and baggage,
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Eleanor and Louis were united in this case by a
common enemy. But Eleanor never made it to Paris. Though
she changed from women's clothes and disguised herself as a man,
she was intercepted and arrested by Henry said men, who
sent her straight to her husband. It's likely that there
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were spies in her camp. Immediately after Eleanor's arrest, four
prominent men from Poitou were given suspiciously generous grants from Henry.
Henry quietly transported Eleanor back to England, possibly on a
ship from Henry's private fleet called Esneca or Snake. The
(32:29):
symbolism there very Taylor Swift, would have been a complete coincidence.
The Queen of England was imprisoned secretly in a fortified castle,
likely either Winchester or Old Sauum. Henry understood rebellion coming
from his own sons. It was unfortunate, but it happened.
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But a wife rising up against her husband with something else, entirely,
something unspeakable, It had taken Henry completely by surprise. And
he would never let that happen again. For a moment,
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it seemed as though the young King would be successful
in his rebellion, that the chaos of all of the
rebel forces rising up against Henry the Second would take
him down. And of course the King of Scots had
chosen that exact moment to try to invade England, seeing
as Henry was otherwise occupied. But Henry was an adept
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military leader, and the young King was inexperienced. And though
King Louis took control from the young King, he was
as bad at organizing rebels as he had been in
organizing a crusade all those years ago. When the walls
had been closing in on Henry, he had ridden to
(34:03):
Canterbury to pay penance for the part that he played
in the death of Thomas Beckett, now sainted. Perhaps this,
his son's rebelling against him, his wife turned against him,
was some sort of divine punishment. Henry walked to the
cathedral barefoot, wearing the itchy woolen smunk of a pilgrim,
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and he stayed all day fasting in prayer. He had
every bishop present give him lashes. He would cleanse his
soul of sin once and for all, and like a miracle,
as he rose from his knees, he got word that
his men had just won a decisive victory and that
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the opportunist King of the Scots had been captured. The
tide had changed, and Henry's sons had no choice but
to accept peace. Though Richard fought until the bitter end,
eventually he threw himself weeping at his father's feet. Henry
(35:08):
forgave him. Considering the circumstances, the terms Henry settled with
were more than generous. He gave the young king a
reasonable allowance and two castles in Normandy, Richard half the
revenues of Poitou and some castles, and Geoffrey half the
revenues of Brittany. But there would be no more talk
(35:30):
of them wielding more power, and young John would get
those estates from his brother that had been such a
point of contention in the first place. In fact, John
would get even more land because John, still a child
at this point, had been the only legitimate son who
didn't rise up against his father. He would be his
(35:52):
father's favorite from that point on. But still Henry forgave
all of his children. He said they were of a
quote tender age, and that they had been led astray
by the people around them, by the scheming King of France,
and by their mother, Eleanor. Henry would forgive everyone who
(36:14):
had risen up against him in rebellion, except his wife.
Eleanor of Aquitaine would remain in custody, cut off from
the outside world completely, and at her husband's mercy, for
the rest of Henry's life. She likely moved from castle
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to castle, Her movements kept secret because Henry was well
aware that if word of her mistreatment got back to
her home duchies, they might rise up in support of her.
One of the castles, Old Sarum, was located on a bleak,
cold hill near what now is Salisbury. Apparently the castle
(36:58):
was so drafty that clerks singing in the cathedral couldn't
hear each other over the wind. We know from the
pipe rolls the financial records that the money being spent
on Eleanor was meager. She was allowed one personal maid,
and they shared a bed. Eleanor, queen of two countries,
(37:21):
mother of a brood of dukes, and well married daughters.
Once the richest woman in Europe, who had dazzled the
world as she had set out on Crusade, was fifty
two years old. At this point. Perhaps you're wondering, why
didn't Henry just annul his marriage with Eleanor. They were cousins,
(37:44):
after all, there would be a way to annul the
marriage without making his children illegitimate. Well, Henry tried. He
took the first few steps to annul his marriage, even
going so far as to begin making moves to marry
Alice of France, the young woman that had been officially
(38:04):
betrothed to his own son Richard. But Eleanor still owned
her vast and wealthy property if she wasn't married, and
Henry would lose claim to that if he and Eleanor
were divorced. Perhaps more troubling, if Eleanor were no longer
his wife, she would revert to just being a vassal
(38:26):
of the King of France, and Henry would have no
authority for keeping her prisoner. She could go back to
Aquitaine to raise her own armies to betray Henry again,
and worse, if they were divorced, she could marry again
to someone else who could help her do it. The
last thing Henry wanted was a rich and powerful enemy
(38:50):
on the southern flank of his empire. Henry tried to
get Eleanor to become an abbess, but she refused, and
the archbishop she appealed to backed her up. Henry couldn't
force Eleanor to become a nun against her will. Eleanor
wasn't willing to give up her claim to her land
(39:10):
or her power. She would rather be alone, imprisoned and
completely isolated, waiting Henry out. Eleanor was allowed no contact
with her family or the outside world to prevent the
chance that she would undermine her husband yet again. A
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sympathetic jailer might have told her that her daughter had
become engaged to William of Sicily. Maybe Eleanor overheard the
gossip when her first husband, King Louis the seventh of
France died of a stroke. After six years of complete imprisonment,
Henry allowed Eleanor slightly more comfort, a slightly bigger household,
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according to the records, and eventually, after years, Henry would
permit Eleanor back to make appearances at court, even to
see her sons again, though even then Henry's motive was
always political. Eleanor was invited to see her children again
for the first time in eleven eighty four, after Henry
(40:19):
had once again redistributed their inheritance and he wanted Eleanor's
help in assigning Aquitaine to the baby John instead of Richard. Eleanor,
even after years of imprisonment and isolation, refused. Eventually, after years,
(40:46):
Henry would allow Eleanor to go back to Aquitaine to
help him get her vassals in line, but she was
an administrator for him. Though she was getting a modicum
of freedom in exchange for political service, Henry would never
grant Eleanor real power. Henry's problems with bickering, selfish sons
(41:08):
that had plagued him throughout his life didn't end with
that one rebellion. In fact, in eleven eighty three, the
young King would rebel again against both his father and
his brother Richard. It was a disastrous campaign, with the
young King forced to pillage monasteries in order to try
(41:30):
to raise the funds to pay his mercenary soldiers. In
the end, the young King would contract dysentery. As he
lay dying, he tried to absolve himself of his sins.
He slept in ashes and sent a message to his
father begging for his forgiveness and asking him to come
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and see him to say goodbye. King Henry was conflicted.
He loved his son still, but he was worried it
might be a trap. Henry sent a sapphire ring and
a letter telling his son that he forgave him, but
he didn't come in person. The young king read his
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father's letter before he died. He said he wanted all
of his possessions donated to the poor, except the ring.
He wanted to keep the ring so that his maker
would know before he judged him that his father had
forgiven him. When Henry heard that his son died, the
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son that had brought arms up against him again and again,
he wept like a child and fell to the floor.
He cost me much, but I wish he had lived
to cost me more, Henry said. According to legend, a
messenger came to tell Eleanor that her son had died.
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Unlike her husband. Eleanor didn't. She said she had already
mourned that she had seen a vision in a dream,
her son lying on his back with his fingers intertwined
like an effigy on a tomb. In her dream, her
son wore his crown, and also a circlet of bright white,
(43:19):
heavenly light, and on his finger she could see the
sapphire ring that she would have had no way of
knowing Henry had sent along. His heir was dead, but
still Henry's sons would fight him. Richard was angry that
he hadn't been yet married to Alice of France, and
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so he publicly allied with Philip, Alice's half brother, the
new King of France. By this point, Henry was fifty
six years old and suffering from a bleeding ulcer that
would eventually kill him. Too sick to continue to fight,
he gave in to Richard's demands, which were mostly just
(44:05):
a matter of pride. Before Henry died, he got word
that even his youngest son John had turned against him
in the end and sided with Richard in the fighting.
Once it was obvious that Richard was going to win,
Henry's last words, according to legend, were shame on a
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conquered king. Richard, the first Eleanor's favorite son, who would
eventually be known as Richard the Lion Heart, was finally
King of England. He immediately sent a messenger sailing up
from France as fast as possible to order Eleanor's release
from her imprisonment. Now that Henry was dead, Eleanor would
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finally be free, and she would be installed as ruler
of England in Richard's name until Richard could get there himself.
But when the messenger arrived to free her, he was confused.
Eleanor was already free. Eleanor had heard that her husband
(45:12):
had died, and everyone knew that her son, Richard was king.
Her release was a foregone conclusion, and so Eleanor had
just demanded that the guards release her. She had freed herself.
(45:33):
That's the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine's imprisonment during her
marriage to Henry the Second. But keep listening after a
brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about
the way Eleanor and Henry's relationship is told in legend.
(45:55):
It was during Eleanor's imprisonment that Henry stopped trying to
high his affair with Rosamond. Clifford chroniclers would enjoy the
pun on her name Rosa mundy meaning rose of the world,
to Rosa immundi or immodest. In eleven seventy five, Rosamond
(46:17):
was sent to a nunnery, probably not because she had
a change of heart about her lifestyle of being a
mistress and decided to become a nun but more likely
because she was ill and needed care. She died a
year later of illness, though that wouldn't stop poets and
balladers from telling the story that she was actually murdered
(46:41):
by Eleanor. Stories have Eleanor finding the secret labyrinth where
Henry was keeping Rosamond and forcing Rosamond to choose between
either a dagger or a bull of poison. It's a
dramatic piece of medieval folklore, but its complete fiction. Eleanor
(47:03):
was completely accounted for in custody when Rosamond died locked
away in a remote fortress castle. It seems that every
woman in Henry's life was imprisoned, his wife Eleanor, of course,
but also poor Alice of France, the daughter of the
(47:23):
King of France, who was betrothed to Henry's son Richard.
Instead of allowing that wedding to go forward, Henry used
Alice as a pawn, keeping her like a glorified hostage,
contemplating marrying her, and in the end, likely turning her
into his own mistress. According to legend, the labyrinth that
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Rosamond was forced to stay in was inspired by the
maze in Greek mythology that Daedalus built to contain the minotaur. Except,
of course, Rosamond wasn't a man eating monster. She was
a beautiful woman whose crime was the king being madly
in love with her, queen, princess and mistress. They all
(48:13):
shared the same fate in Henry's story. Noble Blood is
a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankee.
Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwortz,
(48:35):
with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick,
Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is
edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali,
with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke,
(48:55):
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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