She Loves Him Not

Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of two kings and mother of three kings, was one of the most famous women of the Middle Ages.  She was known far and wide for her beauty, intelligence, and charisma.  But she was also known for her promiscuity, incestuous relationships, and general disloyalty to her husbands.  Alison Weir, in writing Eleanor of Aquitaine, uses what little written evidence exists from the period in order to piece together a portrait of the life of this fascinating and unique woman.  In studying the relationships Eleanor built with the important men around her, we can view her life as a tragedy.  Eleanor, often characterized as cold and calculating, never seemed to find lasting love.  After spurning the love of Louis VII and Henry II, Eleanor was robbed of the one true love she ever experienced, the bond between mother and son, by Richard I’s crusade and early death.

Eleanor was married for the first time in the year 1137 CE to Louis VII, King of France.  This marriage came about due to the dying wish of her father, William X, Duke of Aquitaine.  This was a political marriage arranged by Louis VI, her future father-in-law, but Prince Louis did not lack any love for the lovely young duchess.  Indeed, after their marriage, it is evident that Louis VII “loved the Queen almost beyond reason” (30) and that “he showed his devotion by allowing her to have her way in most things, and by showering her with extravagant gifts: she took her pick from luxury goods brought to the palace by merchants trading with the Orient” (31).  If Eleanor could have remained content with the devotion she received from Louis, it seems she could have lived comfortably and well-loved.  But Eleanor sought more out of her husband.  Louis was known as a very pious man and seemed to go about life as if he were a monk.  As a result of this, he rarely came to Eleanor’s bed.  Eleanor seems to have had quite a sexual appetite, and even complained that she “had married a monk, not a king” (73).  Eventually Eleanor would seek outlets for her sexual frustration.  When she accompanied Louis on the Second Crusade in 1147, the army was received in Antioch by Raymond of Poitiers, who was Prince of Antioch and Eleanor’s uncle.  Their close relationship quickly led to rumors of an incestuous affair. Eventually Louis was forced to threaten to drag Eleanor from the city by force so that the crusade could continue on to Jerusalem, and this is when Eleanor truly ruined her relationship with her first husband.  She claimed that “’it was not lawful for them to remain together as man and wife, since they were related in the fourth and fifth degrees.’ […] she wanted an annulment. She would relinquish her crown, resume her title as Duchess of Aquitaine, and remain for the time being in Antioch, under Raymond’s protection” (66).  This ultimatum, coupled with the rampant rumors of her incestuous relationship with Raymond, ruins Eleanor’s reputation and her marriage.  While the pope did manage to temporarily reconcile the couple, it was inevitable that they would eventually have an annulment.  Knowing this, Eleanor began searching for a new husband, and quickly took a liking to Henry, Duke of Normandy.  It is recorded by William of Newburgh and others that “while she was still married to the King of the Franks, she had aspired to marriage with the Norman duke, whose manner of life suited better with her own” (85).  By 1152, Eleanor had had her annulment.  That same year she would marry that Norman duke, which would eventually lead to her becoming Queen of England.

Eleanor’s second marriage, to Henry of Anjou, was performed “without the pomp and ceremony that befitted their rank” (90).  Eleanor’s second marriage seemed destined to be happy. There was mutual attraction and love between Henry and Eleanor, and they “had a great deal in common: they were both strong, dynamic characters with forceful personalities and boundless energy. Both were intelligent, sharing cultural interests, and both had a strong sex drive” (92).  When Henry became King of England in addition to Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, he allowed Eleanor “a certain degree of autonomy with regard to her own lands” (93), though he did not allow her complete political control or freedom.  It seemed that their marriage was going smoothly, and Henry certainly allowed Eleanor to exercise her own rights and powers in a way that should have satisfied her.  But after giving birth to eight children in thirteen years, the relationship began to sour slightly.  Having provided Henry with plenty of sons to secure his succession, Eleanor “may well have felt that, having done her duty, she had no need to remain in a marriage that had gone stale” (173).  In 1168, she separated from Henry, choosing to live for the most part in Poitou along with her third son, Richard.  When her second son, Henry, known as the Young King because he had been crowned as the successor to Henry II, decided to challenge his father in rebellion, Eleanor supported him and encouraged her sons Geoffrey and Richard to support him.  This was the fundamental switch in Eleanor’s marriage to Henry II: she no longer felt that her chief loyalties lied with her husband and king, but “her sympathies lay wholeheartedly with her sons and […] she was prepared to resort to drastic measures to ensure that they received their just deserts” (196).  Henry II eventually discovered her part in the plot, and after defeating and forgiving his sons, kept her confined for the remainder of his reign.  Her marriage to Henry fell into complete ruin as “never again would he trust her, nor—for his own security—did he allow her much contact with her children” (211).  For more than a decade she was kept apart from her most beloved son, Richard.

Richard, known to history as the Lionheart, was probably the only man with whom Eleanor ever had a truly loving relationship. He was her heir to the Aquitaine and her favorite child. It is said that Eleanor “idolised him, referring to him as ‘the great one,’ while he, she knew, ‘reposed all his trust in her, next to God” (193).  And Richard loved his mother as well.  When Richard finally became King of England in 1189, one of the first things he did was to free Eleanor from her captivity (248).  Richard made full use of his mother’s political expertise, allowing her to rule in his stead while he was away, and she did all in her power to support him.  As Richard introduced certain measures to improve his standing with the people of England, “Eleanor introduced others designed to win the people’s love for their new sovereign” (249), supporting her son like she had never supported either of her husbands.  But only a year after becoming king and reuniting with his mother, Richard left on crusade.  Richard’s only surviving (legitimate) brother, John, used the opportunity to try and seize control of England.  Eleanor continued to support Richard when she “publicly proclaimed her loyalty to the absent Richard and made every English magnate swear a new oath of fealty to him” (274).  It was Eleanor’s unfailing love and support for Richard that kept the kingdom from falling to Prince John and Philip II of France when Richard was imprisoned in Germany first by Leopold V, Duke of Austria, and then by Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor.  Eleanor grieved for her son and sent letters to the pope pleading for his aid in freeing Richard and relieve her of her state as a “condemned and miserable creature” (284).  When Richard finally returned to his kingdom in 1195, he returned to a land rife with revolt and an emboldened enemy in Philip II.  He spent the rest of his life fighting battles with rebellious vassals and, more often, with France.  In 1199, Richard was fatally wounded by a crossbow bolt. He died on the 6^th of April at Châlus and was buried at Fontevraud. Eleanor was present at his death as well as his funeral.  Eleanor “had lost her favourite son, the man whom she called ‘the staff of my old age, the light of my eyes.’ It had been a terrible blow to her, possibly the worst of the many blows she had been called upon to endure” (313).  Of the twenty-seven years of Richard’s adulthood, Eleanor witnessed only six. Her years in captivity, Richard’s crusade and imprisonment, and his early death robbed Eleanor of her greatest love.

Eleanor of Aquitaine was loved by many, but in her long life she truly loved only one person: her son, Richard.  She spurned the chaste Louis VII because he could not satisfy her lust.  She angered Henry II, the only man that seemed to be a match for her, because she could not reconcile her husband and her sons.  She missed the life of her favorite son.  Her contemporaries demonized her in her youth, and they admired her in her old age.  If they looked a little closer, they would have pitied her.

~Written by Shelby Harris