Eleanor was again unwell in early 1201. When war broke out between John and Philip, Eleanor declared her support for John and set out from Fontevraud to her capital Poitiers to prevent her grandson Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, posthumous son of Eleanor's son Geoffrey and John's rival for the English throne, from taking control. Arthur learned of her whereabouts and besieged her in the castle of Mirebeau. As soon as John heard of this, he marched south, overcame the besiegers, and captured the 15-year-old Arthur, and probably his sister Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany, whom Eleanor had raised with Richard. Eleanor then returned to Fontevraud where she took the veil as a nun. Fiona Harris-Stoertz, "Pregnancy and Childbirth in Twelfth-and Thirteenth-Century French and English Law". Journal of the History of Sexuality 21, n°. 2 (2012), pp. 263–281. JSTOR 41475080. A fascinating account of one of the most alluring figures of the Middle Ages by one of Britain's most respected historians.

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. Eugene did not, as Eleanor had hoped, grant an annulment. Instead, he attempted to reconcile Eleanor and Louis, confirming the legality of their marriage. He proclaimed that no word could be spoken against it, and that it might not be dissolved under any pretext. He even arranged for Eleanor and Louis to sleep in the same bed. [24] Thus was conceived their second child—not a son, but another daughter, Alix of France. Wheeler, Bonnie; Parsons, John C., eds. (2008) [2002]. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady (reprinted.). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-60236-6. The celebrated Bernart de Ventadorn dedicated one of his songs to Eleanor as ‘Queen of the Normans’, and after she passed through Germany en route to Jerusalem, a Middle High German poet wrote: ‘If all the world were mine/from the sea to the Rhine/I would gladly give it up/if only the Queen of England/would lie in my arms.’ Despite the many allusions to the extent of her patronage, more sceptical historians have tended to disregard them. But Sullivan points out that we need not choose between the ‘maximalists’ and the ‘minimalists’. ‘We must resist the temptation to transform an ambiguous suggestion into either an affirmation or a denial.’ Which is to say, how Eleanor was perceived mattered as much as what she did. 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

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Kelly, Amy (1978) [1950]. Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. Harvard University Press. ; Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings (1978 edition) at Google Books Official blame for the disaster was placed on Geoffrey de Rancon, who had made the decision to continue, and it was suggested that he be hanged, a suggestion which the king ignored. Since Geoffrey was Eleanor's vassal, many believed that it was she who had been ultimately responsible for the change in plan, and thus the massacre. This suspicion of responsibility did nothing for her popularity in Christendom. She was also blamed for the size of the baggage train and the fact that her Aquitanian soldiers had marched at the front and thus were not involved in the fight. Continuing on, the army became split, with the commoners marching towards Antioch and the royalty travelling by sea. When most of the land army arrived, the king and queen had a dispute. Some, such as John of Salisbury and William of Tyre, say Eleanor's reputation was sullied by rumours of an affair with her uncle Raymond. Eleanor was the eldest child of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, and Aénor de Châtellerault. She became duchess upon her father's death in April 1137, and three months later she married Louis, son of her guardian King Louis VI of France. Shortly afterwards, Louis VI died and Eleanor's husband ascended the throne, making Eleanor queen consort. The couple had two daughters, Marie and Alix. Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage, [2] but her request was rejected by Pope Eugene III. [3] Eventually, Louis agreed to an annulment, as fifteen years of marriage had not produced a son. [4] The marriage was annulled on 21 March 1152 on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Their daughters were declared legitimate, custody was awarded to Louis, and Eleanor's lands were restored to her. Eleanor was tired of Louis -- once she said it was like being married to a monk -- and when she met eighteen-year-old Henry, eleven years her junior and heir to Anjou and all of England, she fell head over heels in lust for him. Meade suspects that sexual attraction, richly spiced with political advantage, was a major justification for her divorce from Louis. Consanguinity was the publicly announced reason permitting annulment. She married Henry eight weeks later. It was a stinging slap at the Capetian, for he and Henry were bitter enemies. Eleanor of Aquitaine will be published as a beautifully bound limited edition by The Folio Society in 2015, with new colour illustrations.

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.

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She had two children with Louis VII: Marie and Alix, both daughters. She had eight children with Henry II: three daughters: Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan; and five sons: William, Henry, Richard (later Richard I “the Lionheart” of England), Geoffrey, and John (later John I of England). This is a chapter in a wider book. It’s a really good chapter as it happens. It’s much more down to earth, rather brutal in refusing to go anywhere that’s not verifiable – and therefore gives Eleanor much less agency. Disappointing though this is, it is a very useful counterpoise to the full biographies. This is the one to go for if you want to know more, but don’t want to to wade through a full biography. It also has he advantage of putting Eleanor in context of the role of Queens that came before and after her in England.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Truth and Tales about the Medieval Queen

Weir, Alison (1999). Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life. Ballantine Books. ISBN 9780345405401. ; Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life (2008 edition) at Google Books Alison Weir's riveting biography draws readers into the rich, intricate world of the early medieval period." ( Fort Worth Morning Star) Louis was a retiring young man best suited, most thought, for the monastery. Eleanor wasted no time -- remember she was still an adolescent -- corrupting (in the mind of her mother-in-law) Louis to the more secular ways of the south. Their marriage was a catastrophe. He was ineffectual, indecisive, inadequate, generally most ofthe "in's" one can apply. Louis' Second Crusade was a disaster. The presence of Eleanor and her ladies with their enormous baggage train made travel difficult. The Pope's personal intervention, virtually dragging them to bed to force reconsumation of their marriage was the catalyst for the final dissolution, because the product of this pathetic reunion was a girl, and Louis' Capetians desperately needed a male to continue the line. This isn’t about Eleanor, either, but the tales included here are contemporary to her and would have been familiar to both Eleanor and Henry II. The true identity of Marie de France is unknown, but one possibility is that she is actually Marie, the abbess of Shaftesbury, who was Henry II’s half-sister.