Random Facts That Prove Eleanor of Aquitaine Was Not to Be Messed With (16 items)

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  (#12) She May Have Had An Affair With Her Uncle

  While she was traveling in the Middle East with her husband, Louis VII, on the Second Crusade, Eleanor met up with her paternal uncle, Raymond, ruler of Antioch. Raymond welcomed his niece and nephew into his principality, but some contemporary sources suggest more: they allege incest between uncle and niece. 

  Raymond was a bastion of culture in comparison to the monk-like Louis, and Eleanor and her hubby were suffering marital difficulties at the time. Raymond also had much in common with Eleanor, such as her love of all things luxurious.

  Despite these historical rumors, however, there is no concrete evidence to support this claim. 
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  (#7) Even In Her Old Age, She Traveled Europe As A Diplomat

  After she was released from prison, Eleanor remained politically active. She served as an unofficial regent in England for her son, Richard the Lionheart, while he was crusading. Eager to arrange royal alliances, she went abroad in 1199 when she was in her late seventies.

  Eleanor traveled to Castile, visiting her daughter, also named Eleanor, who was Queen of that country, as well as her many grandchildren. Her task was to ally her own family yet again with the royal clan of France – Eleanor, once married to a king of France, and Henry often opposed their rivals across the Channel. The prince in question was the grandson of Eleanor's ex-husband (by another wife): the eventual Louis VIII of France.

  Eleanor met her granddaughters and picked one of them, Blanca, to become a queen and marry Louis. This diplomatic maneuver was a true success: Blanche became a powerful consort and mothered many sons, including Saint-King Louis IX.
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  (#5) She Was Ambushed Once And Nearly Kidnapped Twice 

  Prior to her marriages, Eleanor constantly faced the threat of abduction: as a rich heiress without a husband, greedy lords may have sought to kidnap her, marry her against her will, and claim her lands and wealth as their own. This threat was one reason why, shortly before his passing, her father arranged her marriage to the eventual Louis VII, and another reason why Eleanor was most likely concerned for her own safety once she divorced Louis.

  Despite her newfound freedom upon this separation, Eleanor knew she couldn't enjoy the luxuries of single life for long; she had to find a new husband for her own protection. After a council annulled her first marriage, she went home to Poitiers, barely evading two different captors: Theobald, Count of Blois (who would later marry one of her daughters), and her future brother-in-law, Henry Plantagenet's younger brother, Geoffrey. Fortunately, Eleanor took an alternate route home and arrived safely – she arranged a marriage to a new protector soon after.

  In 1200, Eleanor was successfully ambushed and held captive by one of her son John's enemies, Hugh of Lusignan. Her imprisonment wasn't for the gain of her land, however: Hugh attacked Eleanor in order to extort John's support in Hugh's claim to a random piece of land.
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  (#11) Her Second Husband Imprisoned Her For 16 Years

  Eleanor's second husband, the eventual King Henry II of England, was perhaps more suited to her in terms of sensuality and ambition, but the temperamental Plantagenet didn't hesitate to punish his wife if he saw fit. Fed up with Henry's rule and infidelities, Eleanor eventually backed her sons' rebellion – led by Richard – against their father. The effort failed, and Henry captured a fleeing Eleanor, whom he may also have suspected of having tried to harm his favorite mistress.

  Starting in 1173, he kept his wife in prison for 16 years, forcing her to live in relative seclusion in various castles in England, including Salisbury Castle. Henry moved Eleanor often and only allowed her to see her family on special holidays. Only after Henry's passing in 1189 did Richard, then the king, free his mother.
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  (#4) She Went On The Second Crusade With Her First Husband

  Eleanor was exceptionally well-traveled for a woman of 12th-century France. 

  Louis VII and his German counterpart, Conrad, led the charge for yet another Christian Crusade in 1147, though many French citizens, Eleanor included, were unenthusiastic about traveling such a great distance merely to reinforce the Crusader vassal states. In Louis's eyes, however, the crusade was an opportunity to atone for his sins (including burning a church full of people), so Eleanor eventually agreed to join him on the journey.

  The Crusade (1147–1149) was a terrible failure, both personally and militarily. Louis and his allies did little to aid their Frankish cousins in the Middle East, and his relationship with Eleanor deteriorated drastically during their time away. The French also lost many men at The Battle of Cadmus; this massacre of Frenchmen was blamed on Eleanor because she allegedly became an unwitting pawn in a Turkish attack.
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  (#8) She Advocated For The Tradition Of Courtly Love

  In true family tradition, Eleanor promoted the literary genre of courtly love, which advocated a particular code of conduct for women and the knights who lived to serve and love them. Whether or not Eleanor ever established a formal "academy" in Aquitaine to teach chivalry to men and women is unknown, but she may have instructed her ladies-in-waiting and male attendants to follow its precepts.

  Marie of Champagne, one of Eleanor's daughters from her first marriage, fostered the tradition even more than her mother at her court in Champagne.

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