Royal FamilY: the Children of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine

Large families were a plus for royalty and nobility in the Medieval era.  Infant and child mortality was high and whether or not a child survived to adulthood was a matter of luck.  Sons who survived could hope to inherit some or all of their family's domains, but would also serve as commanders, governors or in whatever other position was needed.  Daughters were vital for forging marriage alliances through marriage.  Nor was being illegitimate necessarily a bar to advancement.  The illegitimate son of a king still bore royal blood and could inherit land or titles.  King's daughters by unofficial unions could also hope to marry well.  To that end, many Plantagenet kings had large families, both official and otherwise, who in turn had large families, which makes for plenty of drama and intrigue. The children of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who are somewhat familiar from the movie The Lion in Winter, are a case in point.

Eleanor had been married before, to Louis VII of France.  She had two daughters by him, Marie and Alix.  When Louis and Eleanor divorced, Louis kept custody of the girls, though they maintained a relationship with their mother.  Then Eleanor married Henry, and the childbearing began in earnest.  Their first son William IX, Count of Poitiers, died as a toddler (1153-1156).  The other children lived to grow up, including. Henry the Young King (1155-1183); Matilda, Duchess of Saxony and Bavaria (1156-1189); Richard I the Lionheart (1157-1199); Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany (1158-1186); Eleanor, Queen of Castile (1162-1214); Joanna, Queen of Sicily (1165-1199); and John, King of England (1166-1216).  Three Kings, two queens, a Duchess, a Duke, and a Count.  Henry was intended as his father's heir, taking England, Normandy and Anjou, which is why he was crowned a junior king in his father's lifetime.  This didn't sit too well with Richard and Geoffrey.  Richard was heir to his mother's domains, including Aquitaine and Poitou, but he also wanted his father's inheritance.  So did Geoffrey, who was Duke of Brittany by right of his wife.  John, who would have to be content with land in Ireland if he got anything at all, was hurt at being left out.  Henry, Richard and Geoffrey started a civil war that turned into a rebellion against their own father.  It was in this atmosphere that Henry called his Christmas court at Chinon in 1183 as depicted in the movie.

An often-told story about Henry II is that he once showed a visitor a tapestry or a mural in the Palace of Winchester that showed an adult eagle being cannibalized by its own offspring.  Henry explained that his own sons would do the same to him and he died fighting Richard.  But for all their squabbling, the Plantagenet siblings would stand together against a common foe.  Richard bailed his sister Joanna out of her dispute over her dowry with her husband's successor, Tancred of Sicily.  After the Crusade, he was trying to reach the safety of the domains of his brother-in-law, Henry the Lion of Saxony, when fate in the form of Leopold of Austria got in the way.  Eleanor, who would survive all but two of her children, had to rally support for Richard during his absence on crusade, while keeping John at bay.  It makes for good movies and novels but would have been a hazardous life for anyone who aroused the ire of the power couple of the age or their brood of ravenous eaglets.
 

Places: Fontevrault Abbey, Chinon, France

The Plantagenets may have been a family on the move, going from one castle to another as needs be, the early members of the dynasty had a spiritual home, the Abbey of Fontevrault.

This abbey, with its village of Fontevraud l'Abbaye near Chinons in Anjou was in the heart the early Plantagenet possessions.  It was a double monastery, which meant that it housed both monks and nuns, albeit in separate compounds.  And, both sets of religious were under the direction of the Abbess, who was always either a royal or noble woman.  The Abbey was founded in 1101, by an itinerant preacher called Robert of Arbrissel.  With noble patronage, he founded the Order of Fontevrault, with this abbey as the motherhouse.  Under the Rule of St. Benedict, the Abbey was a strictly-run sanctuary of contemplation and prayer.  Eleanor of Aquitaine was the first member of the Plantagenet family to take the Abbey under her patronage.  In her declining years, she would sojourn at the Abbey, finally taking the veil before her death.  This was a common practice for nobles of the time, to make one last bid for the salvation of their soul by taking Holy Orders before dying.  Eleanor's daughter, Joanna, would do the same in 1199.

The later Plantagenets would turn their patronage to other orders and churches but Fontevrault continued to enjoy royal patronage, particularly under the Bourbon family.  Several Bourbon women served as Abbess.  In 1789, the Revolutionary government of France ordered the confiscation of all property of the church.  In 1792, the community at Fontevrault was dispersed and its last Abbess died in poverty in Paris.  At that time, the mortal remains of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, Richard I of England, Isabella of Angouleme (wife of Henry I), Joanne of Sicily and her son Raymond of Toulouse were scattered to the four winds.  The gisants or tomb effigies were damaged, and some, such as Joanna's effigy which was intended to kneel at the head of Henry's tomb, were never replaced.  The Abbey was later used as a prison (1804-1963), and some members of the French Resistance in World War II were shot there.  After 1963, the Abbey was turned over to the French Ministry of Culture and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Queen: Joanna of Sicily

Plantagenet women were not damsels in distress waiting for their men to rescue them.  They ran countries, led armies, conducted diplomacy, patronized artists and scholars, and when the situation called for it, they got their brothers (or any other man) told off in a hurry.

Joanna (or Joan) was one of the youngest of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's large brood.  Eight years separated Joanna from her old brother Richard (aka the Lionheart).  Joanna (1165-1199) was born at one of her father's favorite places in Angers.  She spent much of her time as a girl under her mother's care, drifting between Winchester and Poitiers.  In 1176, when she was 11 years old, ambassadors from Sicily asked her hand in marriage for their king, William II.  The marriage would be celebrated, but the couple wouldn't begin living together until Joanna began menstruating, indicating that she was capable of child bearing.  The couple had no children and William died in 1189, leaving Joanna a widow and his out-of-wedlock son Tancred as his only heir.  In those days, being born out of wedlock wasn't necessarily a barrier to inheritance if a man had the means to take his rights by force.

Tancred seized the lands guaranteed to Joanna by her marriage contract, or tired to.  He was also holding Joanna captive when her brother Richard arrived in Sicily in 1190 as part of the Third Crusade.  Richard demanded her safe conduct and return of her dowry money.  Tancred defied him until Richard seized a monastery, the castle of La Bagnara, and decided to stay the winter in Massena.  Tancred realized there was only one way of getting rid of two Plantagenet siblings and returned Joanna and her money.  Things only got worse for Tancred when Richard and Joanna's mother, Eleanor, arrived in Sicily with Richard's intended bride, Berengaria of Navarre. 

Eleanor handed Berengaria off to Joanna and returned to England to deal with John if he made any false moves in Richard's absence.  Joanna, Berengaria and Richard sailed for Acre.  A storm ensued and his ship was blown to Crete.  Joanna and Berengaria ended up in Cyprus where the local Byzantine ruler, Isaac Comnenus, seized Joanna's dowry and Richard's crusading funds.  Isaac was courteous enough to the women, but intended to keep the money until Richard attacked the port of Limasol, threw Isaac into a dungeon, married Berengaria and took her along with him and Joanna on the crusade.  The two women remained at Acre while Richard pursued his crusade.

Then, one of the stranger episodes in Joanna's history began to unfold.  Richard soon realized that Saladin the Magnificent was not called that for nothing and that he and his fellow crusaders were in for more of a war than they realized.  In his turn, Saladin realized that Richard was just crazy enough to be dangerous.  When Richard proposed a truce, Saladin was ready to talk.  Then Richard proposed to marry Joanna to Saladin's brother and top general, Al-Adil.  Joanna loved Richard but this was not in her game plan.  She pleaded and begged, threatened and quarreled.  When Richard persisted with this insane idea of marrying a Christian princess to a Muslim, she went over his head to the Church leaders in Acre.  Not even being Queen of Jerusalem on an equal footing with Al-Adil as King, and the assurances that she could retain her Christian faith were going to dissuade her.  The churchmen warned Richard that he faced excommunication if he allowed the marriage and Richard backed off the idea.  Joanna was equally unimpressed with Phillip II of France, who backed off in his turn.  His father had been married to Joanna's mother Eleanor and one lion queen in the family was enough.

Joanna was too valuable a widow to be left unmarried.  She eventually married Raymond VI, Count of Tolouse and bore him two children, Raymond VII and a daughter, Little Joanna.  Raymond was trying to hold on to his own estates in the Holy Land and Joanna was described as supporting him by herself commanding the forces laying siege to the castle of a rebellious vassal.  When the situation proved too much she did what all sisters do, ask big brother to step in.  But by that time, unbeknownst to her, Richard was already dead.  Joana returned to Europe, widowed and pregnant again.  She sought refuge at Fontevrault Abbey in France where, after her child was born dead, she was veiled a nun and died in her turn.  Her tomb, with its effigy showing her kneeling at the head of her father, Henry II, was destroyed during the French Revolution.