Every time I've sat down to write this review, I've thought about how long it's been since I read The Captive Queen, and how little of the story I remember, and abandoned my post half-way. But then I realised that none of the 'book reviews' I've written in the past have been book reviews at all. I've just read a book, written down whatever I was thinking at the time, gone off onto a tangent about the Wars of the Roses, and published that for all and sundry to read.
I must confess that when I read The Captive Queen, I knew next to nothing about Eleanor of Aquitaine. A few months earlier, I had read Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park, in which Eleanor Douglas admits to being named after Eleanor of Aquitaine. And, believe it or not, that was the first time I ever read Eleanor's full title. Up until that point, she had just been King Henry II's 'Queen Eleanor' to me.
But that's the whole point of reading, isn't it? Why would anyone ever read anything if they knew everything that there was to be known? After I read The Captive Queen, I read more about Eleanor, and now I do know who she is. And she fast became one of favourite Queens, too (Which is more than I can say about Elizabeth Woodville, that conniving Lancastrian widow who managed to fulfill her dynastic ambitions even though no one liked her). Here's why.
When the story begins, Eleanor is still married to her first husband, King Louis VII of France. She had been one of the most sought after brides in Europe, which is evident by the fact that, by virtue of his marriage to her, Louis has possession of Aquitaine, one of the largest French duchies of the time. But Louis and Eleanor [I'm writing about the King and Queen of France and I can only think about Louis from One Direction and his girlfriend Eleanor] don't have any sons - and besides, Eleanor doesn't really love Louis any way. So she annuls their marriage, giving her inability to produce a male heir as the reason, and then promptly marries Henry Plantagenet.
Henry becomes the new Duke of Aquitaine, then he becomes the King of England, and the two have a lot of sons together... And then their sons grow up. And that's when the trouble begins.
King Henry has his eldest son, also Henry, crowned the 'Young King' in Westminster, the only time in English history that an heir was crowned while the present King was still on the throne. And I think we know why it was never done again - having been crowned, the Young King wants more power and authority than his father was willing to let him have. He leads a revolt against his father, the King, supported by his younger brothers and his mother.
When Henry gets wind of the fact that his wife is helping their sons to rebel against him, he locks her in a tower at Sarum (And you thought things like that only happened in fairy tales!) and takes a mistress, Rosamund Clifford, while Eleanor sits in the tower, regretting her life choices.
And then, one by one, the rebellious sons start dying. When the Young King dies, Henry briefly lets Eleanor out of her prison so that they can grieve together, and then again when Geoffrey dies and then again when their daughter, Eleanor, gets married to the King of Castile. At long last, King Henry dies too, Richard becomes King and Eleanor is let out of her tower. Hurray!
Eleanor of Aquitaine lived until she was 82, a surprisingly long time when you consider the fact that there were virtually no medical facilities at the time. She died during the reign of her last son, and second to become King, John, as a nun in Fontevrault Abbey - a less than fitting end for woman who had been Queen of both England and France and ruler of Aquitaine and Poitiers in her own right.
I have a feeling her life would have turned out very differently if she had lived today.
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This was the first time that, after reading a historical novel, I learnt absolutely nothing about the life in court. Usually, there the protagonist is a woman who is pottering around her palace, plotting with her women of the bedchamber, going into confinement to give birth, ordering gowns for coronations. Nothing of that sort happened in The Captive Queen (or maybe it did, and I just wasn't paying attention). It was too fast paced to allow for n. Maybe Eleanor compared the English food to what she was used to having in France, but apart from that it was just historical event after historical event after historical event. The Anarchy, Thomas Beckett's murder, Princes going to war against Kings, sons going to war against their father - it's a little wonder, really, that the Angevins are said to be descended from the Devil.
Alison Weir has also written a non-fiction account of Eleanor of Aquitaine's life, but I am never going to read that. I have a feeling that it'll be like studying.
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The Captive Queen can be purchased on Amazon (click here), or Flipkart (here) if you live in India.
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