But For A Penis…. Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.

Angevin rage, touchy and unforgiving. Gerald of Wales likens him to a hammer. Although good-looking, he had his father’s ferocious, bulging grey eyes. Unlike the young king he was bored by tournaments, although he had a natural and savage taste for real warfare in which, even at this early age, he showed no mercy to his adversaries. On the other hand, he had his mother’s love of music and poetry, wrote excellent songs in both the Poitevin dialect of French and Provencal and composed tunes for them, sang in choirs and enjoyed the company of troubadours. Later Bertran de Born was to become a close friend and gave him the Provencal nickname of Oc-e-no (yea-and-nay), though he could be single-minded enough. He had a respect and affection for his mother that was probably excessive, and no doubt deep sympathy for her wrongs, imagined or otherwise; but he had little love for his father. Indeed from his youth Richard was the most formidable of Eleanor’s sons; he, too, wanted more power and more independence.

      Her third son, Geoffrey, was only fifteen, though he too was precocious. Dark haired and not as tall as Henry or Richard, he was perhaps the most intelligent of the family and certainly the most untrustworthy. Benedict of Peterborough referred to him, when he had grown into a charming and thoroughly evil man, as ‘a son of iniquity and perdition’, and even as a boy Geoffrey must have been dangerous enough. He wanted to enjoy his wife’s duchy of Brittany at the earliest possible opportunity.

      By 1173, therefore, Eleanor’s plan was ready. She had decided that, young as they were, her three rather alarming elder sons were capable of leading her revolt. Henry’s wife and children prepared to overthrow him.

       Did You Know?

       Eleanor of Aquitaine is said to be responsible for the introduction of built-in fireplaces, first used when she renovated the palace of her first husband Louis in Paris. Shocked by the frigid north after her upbringing in southern France, Eleanor’s innovation spread quickly, transforming the domestic arrangements of the time.

       ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE BECOMES QUEEN OF FRANCE

      Louis and Eleanor were married in July 1137, but had little time to get to know one another before Louis’ father the king fell ill and died. Within weeks of her wedding, Eleanor found herself taking possession of the drafty and unwelcoming Cîté Palace in Paris that would be her new home. On Christmas Day of the same year, Louis and Eleanor were crowned king and queen of France.

      Louis and Eleanor’s first years as rulers were fraught with power struggles with their own vassals–the powerful Count Theobald of Champagne for one–and with the Pope in Rome. Louis, still young and intemperate, made a series of military and diplomatic blunders that set him at odds with the Pope and several of his more powerful lords. The conflict that ensued culminated in the massacre of hundreds of innocents in the town of Vitry—during a siege of the town, a great number of the populace took refuge in a church, which was set aflame by Louis’s troops. Dogged by guilt over his role in the tragedy for years, Louis responded eagerly to the Pope’s call for a crusade in 1145. Eleanor joined him on the dangerous–and ill fated–journey west. The crusade did not go well, and Eleanor and Louis grew increasingly estranged. After several fraught years during which Eleanor sought an annulment and Louis faced increasing public criticism, they were eventually granted an annulment on the grounds of consanguinity (being related by blood) in 1152 and separated, their two daughters left in the custody of the king.

       ELEANOR BECOMES QUEEN OF ENGLAND

      Within two months of her annulment, after fighting off attempts to marry her off to various other high-ranking French noblemen, Eleanor married Henry, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. She had been rumored to have had an affair with her new husband’s father, and was more closely related to her new husband than she had been to Louis, but the marriage went ahead and within two years Henry and Eleanor were crowned king and queen of England after Henry’s accession to the English throne upon the death of King Stephen.

      Eleanor’s marriage to Henry was more successful than her first, although not lacking in drama and discord. Henry and Eleanor argued often, but they produced eight children together between 1152 and 1166. The extent of Eleanor’s role in Henry’s rule is largely unknown, although it seems unlikely that a woman of her reputed energy and education would have been wholly without influence. Nonetheless, she does not emerge again into a publicly active role until separating from Henry in 1167 and moving her household to her own lands in Poitiers. While the reasons for the breakdown of her marriage to Henry remain unclear, it can likely be traced to Henry’s increasingly visible infidelities.

       ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE AND THE COURT OF LOVE

      Eleanor’s time as mistress of her own lands in Poitiers (1168-1173) established the legend of the Court of Love, where she is reputed to have encouraged a culture of chivalry among her courtiers that had far-reaching influence on literature, poetry, music and folklore. Although some facts about the court remain in dispute amidst centuries of accumulated legend and myth, it seems that Eleanor, possibly accompanied by her daughter Marie, established a court that was largely focused on courtly love and symbolic ritual that was eagerly taken up by the troubadours and writers of the day and promulgated through poetry and song. This court was reported to have attracted artists and poets, and to have contributed to a flowering of culture and the arts. But to whatever extent such a court existed, it appears not to have survived Eleanor’s later capture and imprisonment, which effectively removed her from any position of power and influence for the next 16 years.

       ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE: IMPRISONMENT

      In 1173, Eleanor’s son “Young” Henry fled to France, apparently to plot against his father and seize the English throne. Eleanor, rumored to be actively supporting her son’s plans against her estranged husband, was arrested and imprisoned for treason. Once apprehended, she spent the next 16 years shuttled between various castles and strongholds in England, suspected of agitating against her husband’s interests and said by some to have played a role in the death of his favorite mistress, Rosamund. After years of rebellion and revolt, Young Henry finally succumbed to disease in 1183 and died, begging on his deathbed for his mother’s release. Henry released her, under guard, to allow her to return to England in 1184, after which she rejoined his household at least for part of each year, joining him on solemn occasions and resuming some of her ceremonial duties as queen.

       ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE: REGENCY AND DEATH

      Henry II died in July 1189 and their son Richard succeeded him; one of his first acts was to free his mother from prison and restore her to full freedom. Eleanor ruled as regent in Richard’s name while he took over for his father in leading the Third Crusade, which had barely begun when Henry II died. On the conclusion of the crusade, Richard (known as Richard the Lionheart) returned to England and ruled until his death in 1199. Eleanor lived to see her youngest son, John, crowned king after Richard’s death, and was employed by John as an envoy to France. She would later support John’s rule against the rebellion of her grandson Arthur, and eventually retire as a nun to the abbey at Fontevraud, where she was buried upon her death in 1204.

       All the characters in this novel are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental... except for those individuals listed as a part of the index who are believed to have lived at some time in their lives, or pretended to do so!

       The Norman Conquest

      In 1066, William Duke of Normandy invaded England and made good his claim to be King of England as well as Duke of Normandy. He had the claim due to an earlier marriage between the two royal families. The Bayeux tapestry, a remarkable piece of embroidery, depicts the epic battle at Hastings in cartoon-like form. William brought much of his French speaking court to England with him, assigning titles and landholdings