“Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen”, by Desmond Seward

264 pages, Dorset Press, ISBN-13: 978-0880290555

“In fact one may argue that Eleanor had little, if any interest in revenge, and had made up her mind to rebel from the day that she realized Henry was not going to share his power with her. She had been brought up to be a great ruler, and Henry, like Louis, had deprived her of her destiny…” Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen by Desmond Seward is a biography of one of my favorite historical figures: Eleanor was a 12^th Century member of the Ramnulfids – The House of Poitiers and thus rulers in southwestern France – and was Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right and successively Queen consort of France (1137 – 1152) and England (1154 – 1189) as well as a patron of literary figures and one of the most powerful and wealthiest women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Hers was a life of daring and adventure: the two kings she married certainly had their hands full, with first Louis VII of France seeking an annulment to their marriage and later Henry II of England imprisoned her for helping his sons try to usurp his throne. Oh, and about her children; maybe you’ve heard of them:

• William, who died aged three-years old 
• Henry, “The Young King”, who was crowned and officially ruled by his father’s side 
• Richard, later King Richard I of England, better known as Cœur de Lion 
• Geoffrey, later Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany 
• John, later King John of England (yes, that King John) 
• Matilda, Duchess of Saxony and Bavaria as the wife of Henry the Lion 
• Eleanor, Queen of Castile and Toledo as the wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile 
• Joan, Queen of Sicily and Countess of Toulouse as the wife of William II of Sicily

She lived her life to the fullest and was devoted to Aquitaine and her children (especially Richard the Lionheart). Her life was exciting and intense: when she was not going on Crusade, she was leading troops into battle, or getting some needed down time in a nunnery. She believed in Courtly love and was a champion of everything Arthurian. Her second husband and their reign was a golden age in England, but their marriage was a battle and they were not above using their children to impose their royal wills...all of which makes Eleanor of Aquitaine so disappointing as Seward does her little justice. The majority of the book focuses on the men in her life and not on Eleanor at all, though it seems to be historically accurate with many sources. Getting into more details about the book, I didn’t appreciate how Seward imposed some of his own views on readers, especially when speaking about Richard when he flat out states that it was because of Eleanor that he was gay…not once, but multiple times. His tone was disdainful and reproachful, and I found it annoying and rude. Other than that, as mentioned above, Seward mainly focuses on the men who Eleanor was involved with instead of the Queen herself, which was disappointing to say the least. No doubt there are other, better biographies that do the grande dame justice, and I'll let you know when I find them.