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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Eleanor of Aquitaine Biography ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE, (c.1122-1204). A queen of France and afterward of England. She was the granddaughter of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, and succeeded her father in 1137. She was married in the same year to Louis VII of France. Her lively and somewhat frivolous disposition and her love for pleasure did not fit her for the society of a husband who was naturally austere, and who from religious conviction had adopted many ascetic habits. In the Holy Land whither she accompanied him in 1147, her conduct was scandalous; finally a divorce was pronounced under the pretext of kinship in 1152. Eleanor soon gave her hand and possessions to Henry Plantagenet, who in 1154 mounted the throne of England as Henry II. In 1170 Eleanor induced Henry to invest their son, Richard the Lion-Hearted, with her personal dominions and aided him in his rebellion against Henry II in 1173. Consequently she was placed in confinement, where she remained till the death of her husband (1189). As soon as he died she regained her liberty and reigned as regent until Richard's arrival from France. She also held this position during Richard's absence in the Holy Land, which began in 1190. She continued to be prominent in public affairs, whenever need arose, until she retired to the abbey of Fontevrault, where she died, April 1, 1204. By Louis VII she had two daughters; by Henry, five sons and three daughters. Two of her sons, Richard and John, became kings of England; and two of her daughters queens, one of Castile and the other of Sicily. Consult: Ramsay, Angevin Empire (London, 1903); Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (ib., 1887); Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins (ib., 1905); Adams, History of England, 1066-1216 (ib., 1905). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 572. |