Mother of Lions: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Part 2

Much to Louis of France's chagrin, Eleanor's marriage to Henry of England was more than fruitful.  In addition to three girls, Eleanor, Matilda and Joanna, she bore him no less than five boys, William (died young), Henry, Geoffrey, Richard and John.  Just as Eleanor and Louis had had incompatible personalities, Henry and Eleanor were too much alike.  Both were intelligent, calculating, hot-tempered and used to being in control.  They loved each other as much as they fought each other.  Henry had several mistresses and a few biological children, the idea of which irked Eleanor to no end.  Like many women of her class and era, she expected that her husband would sleep around.  However, any offspring posed a nuisance and a threat to her own growing brood, something Eleanor would never tolerate.

Matters were further complicated as the boys grew up.  Henry, Jr., was expected to inherit England and Normandy.  Geoffrey was married to a woman who was Duchess of Brittany in her own right.  That left Richard to inherit his mother's lands of Aquitaine and Poitou.  Henry, the Young King, though crowned as a junior king to his father, was never allowed to exercise real power.  He also sensed a threat in his brothers Geoffrey and Richard.  Eleanor's barons in Aquitaine weren't about to accept Henry II as their overlord and were constantly on the verge of rebellion.  Richard, likewise, refused to acknowledge Henry as their father's heir.  England and Normandy would be his if he could take them by force, and he intended to.  By 1167, whatever love or need for each other Henry and Eleanor thought they possessed was spent.  Henry's romance with Rosamund de Clifford was common knowledge.  After Christmas, Eleanor left for Poitou, agreeing to an amicable separation from Henry.  While on her way there, Eleanor was nearly ambushed by the troublesome Lusignan family, and only saved by the efforts of a young knight named William Marshal, whose career she helped to sponsor later. 

 Between 1168 and 1173, Eleanor remained in Poitou.  Legend has her presiding over Courts of Love with her daughter Marie, where lovelorn knights and maidens posed questions regarding the various complexities of relationships, which were ruled on by a salon of older, more experienced nobles.  Modern historians doubt such courts existed.  Eleanor's own properties were vast and subject to constant threat from Henry, from Louis, and from rival houses like the Lusignans.  She was most likely too busy to untangle other people's relationships.  She may have presided over a salon-type court, and was known to patronize troubadours and scholars of various subjects, but that's likely as far as it went.  In England, Henry was in an open feud with his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket and, by 1173, was at war three ways with Henry the Young King, Geoffrey and Richard.  The issues were, as they were always, power and money.  Sources differ as to the role Eleanor played in instigating her sons.  However, once they rose against their father, she decided to back her children.  In 1174, near Rouen, she was captured and returned to England, a prisoner, where she would remain for the next several years.

Henry and his sons patched up an uneasy peace.  Likely the thought that his sons would come after him again kept Henry from executing or divorcing Eleanor.  She was moved to various castles, treated as a queen, but kept under close supervision.  Her contact with her sons was strictly monitored.  Tragedy struck in 1183 when Henry, the Young King, died while in another revolt against his father.  Years later, Eleanor would write to Pope Celestine III that she was haunted by young Henry's memory.  Geoffrey would die in a tournament in 1186.  Finally, Henry II died while trying to quell a rebellion of both Richard and John.  Back in England, Eleanor was immediately released from captivity to await Richard's return to his realm.  No time for retirement.  There was work to do.