Duchess of Aquitaine
A Novel of Eleanor
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"Love is for peasants," Eleanor said. "We make alliances. And I intend to make a very good one."
Beautiful and brilliant, Eleanor is the daughter of the duke of Aquitaine, whose glittering court is the twelfth-century birthplace of courtly love. For all of the duke's boasts that Eleanor has the brains of a man and the soul of a warrior, everyone knows that a girl of fifteen cannot possibly hold the richest dukedom in France. Everyone, that is, except for her dying father, who insists on leaving Eleanor his most valuable provinces—and making her prey to the first baron who rides in to kidnap her.
In order to safeguard her lands and her life, Eleanor devises a scheme to marry the heir to the throne of France. But she must learn to be careful what she wishes for. Eleanor's alliance to Louis VII may be a dazzling one, but her husband is a cautious man, originally intended for the priesthood, whose wit and courage do not always match Eleanor's own; and she ultimately finds herself seeking an even greater match with Henry II of England.
Sweeping from the courts of Paris to the perils of the Crusades, Duchess of Aquitaine gloriously illuminates the life of one of the most powerful, resourceful, and fascinating women in all of history.
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Already queenly at 15, Eleanor is heiress to Aquitaine and Poitou in her own right and therefore outright prey to any vassal or lord able to get to her first upon her father's untimely death. Never less than lightning-minded, the fair duchess decides that the only lord and master she'll have is the next king of France. Louis VII, however, is a disappointing husband, and during the ill-conceived and poorly prosecuted Second Crusade (1147 1149), she learns just how disappointing he is. Henry Plantagenet, meanwhile, a mere child when she marries Louis, sees in her a beautiful lady, straight and sharp as a sword. Having decided to divorce Louis, Eleanor looks to Henry's father, Geoffrey of Anjou, as her next husband, until she meets Henry. Vivid descriptions of life in the Holy Land and of the Byzantine Court match vivid characterizations; Eleanor emerges as a formidable woman bent on marrying for herself and her political aspirations.
