Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire

by Leslie Carroll

  As King of England, Henry’s seat of government was located primarily at Westminster; he ruled his French territories long-distance, through the stewardship of trusted vassals. Nonetheless, medieval courts tended to be itinerant. Touring his kingdom was one of the only ways a monarch could gain an understanding of his subjects’ concerns, and thereby maintain control of his realm. In Henry’s frequent absences—during military campaigns or touring other parts of his vast holdings, including his French provinces—he often named Eleanor co-regent along with his justiciar, or chief minister. Thorough and pragmatic, she zealously upheld Henry’s policies and implemented them in his stead, becoming an astute politician herself. Her vast responsibilities made her an anomaly among women of her era, and until 1163 Eleanor issued documents written under her own name and seal.

  It wasn’t all business, though. The royal couple enjoyed hawking and hunting together, and Eleanor had no trouble keeping up with her athletic, energetic husband. Once again she parlayed her talent for aesthetics into redecorating the palace at Westminster, importing upholstery silks, oil for her lamps, and spices for the kitchen. She insisted that her floor rushes be scented. And because she detested the taste of English beer, she also imported her own wines from Bordeaux.

  As time went on and Eleanor began to lose her preeminence in the royal boudoir, undoubtedly resenting her husband’s numerous paramours, she soon found her political role challenged as well. She had believed herself a full partner in Henry’s governance of their sprawling kingdom, but the appearance of Thomas à Becket changed everything.

  In 1152, Becket, the son of a London merchant, was archdeacon to the Archbishop of Canterbury when Henry made him chancellor of the realm. In short order, Becket became Henry’s most trusted friend and adviser, and before long he assumed many of the administrative duties and responsibilities that had been Eleanor’s purview, including acting as Henry’s regent in his absence.

  However, there was one role that could never be denied her. Eleanor was the mother of the future King of England. All told, she would bear Henry five sons and three daughters, and was forty-five years old when their last born, John, entered the world on Christmas Eve 1166. All but one child lived to adulthood, a remarkable record in an age of tremendous infant mortality.

  On April 18, 1161, the Archbishop of Canterbury died, and Henry decided to replace him with Thomas à Becket, a highly irregular choice, since the chancellor was not even a cleric. Henry arrogantly assumed that appointing his best friend would put the management of both church and state in his pocket; but Becket warned the king that he would take his new ecclesiastical responsibility extremely seriously. When Becket refused to compromise canon law to satisfy Henry’s political agenda, the friendship between the two powerful, brilliant, and excessively stubborn men was torn asunder.

  The rift between Henry and Becket lasted six years and was never entirely repaired. In 1170, Eleanor and Henry were holding their Christmas court at Normandy when the king learned of the archbishop’s most recent defiance of his aims. Henry unleashed the famous Plantagenet temper and in words he would come to deeply regret, exclaimed, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Four of Henry’s knights took him literally, and traveled to Canterbury. They murdered Becket in the cathedral on December 29, unwittingly martyring him—which turned Henry devoutly penitent, and catapulted Becket into the express lane for canonization.

  With Becket in heaven, one might think the tarnished king’s attentions would once again turn toward his queen, but Eleanor had already lost all hope in that regard. In 1166 Henry had met Rosamund de Clifford, the sixteen-year-old daughter of one of his Welsh marchers, or border earls. Although for eight years their passionate affair remained a secret to the outside world, and presumably to much of the court, Eleanor must have known of it or at least suspected what was going on. Henry made no secret that “the Fair Rosamund” was the great love of his life. Eleanor was middle-aged and pregnant when Henry and Rosamund commenced their affair, and by then the royal couple was already squabbling over which of their sons would inherit the crown, as the system of primogeniture (inheritance by the firstborn son) was not yet established.

  In 1168, two years after Henry met Rosamund, Eleanor initiated a marital separation, an event that was confirmed in an 1173 letter written by Rotrou of Warwick, the Archbishop of Rouen. But because they had lands to govern and conflicts to adjudicate, Eleanor and Henry endeavored to maintain a cordial working relationship. The queen still took her place at royal ceremonial occasions and acted as Henry’s deputy when necessary in Anjou and Normandy. Yet from then on, her focus became her children.

  Eleanor did not exact her revenge against her straying husband by taking lovers of her own. She achieved it through their teenage sons, whom Henry continued to infantilize by ceding them some of his territories in France while denying the boys any authority to govern them. Feeling their oats, the three eldest princes complained bitterly to their mother, who utterly empathized with their want of power.

  By 1172, seventeen-year-old Henry, fifteen-year-old Richard, and Geoffrey, age fourteen, were prepared to stage a revolt against their own father. Full-scale rebellion broke out in 1173. Discontented English barons joined forces with the young princes. At first Henry refused to believe it was his own flesh and blood who had betrayed him, nor did he suspect Eleanor of any complicity; in fact, he had left her at Poitiers to govern Aquitaine in his absence. Then he began to surmise that young Henry alone had been the instigator.

  The chroniclers of the day formed their own opinions. Ralph of Diceto placed the blame for their sons’ sedition squarely on Eleanor’s shoulders. William of Newburgh and Gervase of Canterbury, who described Eleanor as “an exceedingly shrewd woman, sprung from noble stock, but fickle,” shared Ralph’s assessment. And Richard FitzNigel, who seemed to have a thorough comprehension of the teenage male psyche, was convinced that although Henry’s sons “were young, and by reason of their age, easily swayed by any emotion, certain little foxes corrupted them with bad advice, so that at last his own bowels [meaning his wife, Eleanor] turned against him and told her sons to persecute their father.”

  What seems relatively clear is that the uprising was as much a wife’s rebellion against her husband as the revolt of their sons; and Eleanor, who was a tremendous influence on their children, was willing to violate her marriage vows to achieve it. There was neither love, nor honor, nor obedience in her actions. And Henry finally began to realize it. He may even have had spies placed at her court who confirmed the worst. So he commanded the Archbishop of Rouen, Rotrou of Warwick, to persuade Eleanor to patch up the rifts—on threat of her excommunication.

  According to the Patrologiae Latinae: Recueil des historiens, Rotrou, writing to Eleanor, was heartsick that “you, a prudent wife, if ever there was one should have parted from your husband. Once separated from the head, the limb no longer serves it. Still more terrible is the fact that you should have made the fruits of your union with our Lord King rise up against their father. . . . Before events carry us to a dire conclusion, return with your sons to the husband whom you must obey and with whom it is your duty to live. . . . Bid your sons, we beg you, to be obedient and devoted to their father, who for their sakes has undergone so many labours.”

  The archbishop’s plea was ignored. Eleanor had no intentions of reconciling with Henry or reining in their sons. But she did fear that her husband might invade Poitiers, so she set out for Paris, where, ironically (albeit for political reasons), her former husband was obligated as her overlord to protect her. Her anxiety was justified. Eleanor’s party was waylaid as they entered a forest near the border of France. Although she was dressed as a man and had ridden astride in order to avoid detection, her disguise was quickly unmasked. In Henry’s name she was apprehended and escorted to Rouen, where she was “detained in strict custody.”

  The only person “punished” for their sons’ uprising was Eleanor. Henry forgave the princes’ rashness, attributi
ng it to their youth. But he never again trusted them.

  At midday on July 8, 1174, accompanied by Henry, Eleanor was bundled onto a ship bound for England—and further imprisonment—primarily at the wide-moated double-walled Sarum Castle near Salisbury. She was also kept under house arrest in Winchester Castle from time to time. In each location, Eleanor was permitted only a single waiting woman, her personal maid, Amaria; and her communication with the outside world was effectively severed, depriving her of the ability to influence her sons or to shape world events. Her custodians were men that Henry implicitly trusted. Divorcing Eleanor would have meant Henry’s loss of Aquitaine and her other continental territories, so he offered a compromise: take the veil as abbess of Fontevrault Abbey and, contrary to the customary regulations governing a religious vocation, she would not have to relinquish her lands.

  Eleanor staunchly refused. And for the rest of Henry’s life—until 1189—she remained his prisoner, released on special occasions, such as Christmas and Easter, so the family could celebrate the holidays together. Henry also permitted Eleanor to travel on occasion, although under heavy guard, if such journeys concerned their daughters’ betrothal or marriage plans.

  With Eleanor imprisoned, Henry began to live openly with Rosamund de Clifford, although she never usurped the prerogatives or ceremonial duties of the queen. But Rosamund was soon out of the picture, entering Godstow Priory, where she died of unknown causes in 1176 at the age of twenty-six. However, Henry’s bed had not remained cold during Rosamund’s illness; Gervase of Canterbury alludes to the forty-two-year-old king’s efforts in 1175 to annul his marriage to Eleanor because he wanted to marry a different mistress—Princess Alys of France—now in her mid-teens. Alys had been raised at the English court since she was nine years old, and was officially betrothed to Prince Richard. Richard would eventually refuse to wed Alys anyway—not because he was homosexual, as some twentieth-century historians, including A. L. Rowse, are fond of asserting (with scant proof to back it up), but because Alys had been his father’s concubine, a relationship Richard disclosed with great discomfort to her half brother Philip after Philip became King of France.

  Henry’s affair with a French princess created enough of a scandal; seeking to divorce his wife compounded it. A primary argument for an annulment was consanguinity, even though their relation as third cousins hadn’t bothered Henry and Eleanor when they married. Eleanor and Henry were even more closely related than she had been to Louis and that marriage had been sundered for reasons of consanguinity. Not only was it truly remarkable that for several centuries obtaining a Pope’s permission to wed automatically validated an incestuous relationship, but that the reversal of such a papal sanction suddenly made the same legitimately solemnized marriage the sin everyone knew it already was!

  Because Eleanor would still retain her lands after an annulment, Henry tried another loophole: incest. After all, his late father, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, had admitted to an affair with Eleanor and had initially warned Henry to stay away from her. However, repudiation on these grounds at this stage in the game would make their numerous children bastards and leave Henry without a legitimate heir. Even in her deprivation, Eleanor appeared to be retaining the upper hand.

  Tragedy struck the family in 1183 when their oldest son, Henry, died of dysentery. Three years later, Prince Geoffrey was unhorsed and trampled to death during a tournament. Only Richard and John, the respective favorites of their mother and father, remained to duke it out for the grand prize: succession to the English throne.

  But while Henry was in England mustering men for another crusade, rebellion erupted once again in Normandy, led by Richard and backed by Philip of France. In 1188, Henry left England for the last time, hastening to the Continent to quell the uprising. After many of his knights had deserted him for his son, Henry, weak and ill, agreed to parlay with him. A formidable negotiator, Richard demanded that his father cede him all of his continental lands and acknowledge him as the heir to England’s throne.

  Henry died on July 6, 1189, at the age of fifty-six, and Richard was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on September 3, 1189, amid spectacular pageantry.

  On hearing of Henry’s death, Eleanor’s custodians immediately released her. Having endured fifteen years of incarceration, she spent the rest of her life in the service of her sons, acting as regent for Richard while he was off on the Third Crusade and governing a kingdom that reached from the harsh borders of Scotland to the peaks of the Pyrenees.

  In 1191, Eleanor even chose a bride for her favorite son. At the age of nearly seventy, she escorted young Berengaria of Navarre to Sicily to meet up with Richard, who was en route to the Holy Land. But during his return, Richard was captured by Duke Leopold of Austria and subsequently imprisoned by Leopold’s cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI of Germany. Eleanor spent an entire year arranging for the collection of a ransom so immense it amounted to twice the sum of England’s annual revenue.

  Richard spent only a few months of his ten-year reign in England. He died in France in Eleanor’s arms on April 6, 1199, after suffering an arrow wound in the process of besieging Charlus Castle, where he’d heard a treasure had been buried.

  While Richard was on Crusade, Prince John usurped his throne. He pillaged the kingdom for his own ends, and Eleanor, who couldn’t be everywhere at once, was powerless to curb much of his ambition. However, after Richard’s death, she had no choice but to support him. John was her only surviving son, and he was now King of England.

  But the Plantagenet family feud was far from over. Arthur of Brittany (the son of Eleanor and Henry’s son Geoffrey and his wife, Constance of Brittany) allied himself with King Philip of France and set to besieging John’s continental territories. In 1202, at the age of eighty, the intrepid Eleanor was imprisoned by Arthur’s army at Mirabeau castle, where she had taken refuge from the ongoing strife between John and Philip. Eleanor cleverly played for time, allegedly negotiating with her rebellious teenage grandson from a castle window. She managed to get a message to John, who came to her rescue and defeated Arthur and his forces. Arthur was taken prisoner and never heard from again.

  It was the dowager queen’s last hurrah. Exhausted and ailing, she retired to the Abbey of Fontevrault, placed herself in the care of their nurses, and, according to abbey records, took the veil herself. She died there on April 1, 1204, at the age of eighty-two and was buried in the abbey church beside the tombs of her husband Henry and their son Richard. Her effigy depicts a serenely beautiful woman clasping a book.

  Today, Eleanor’s legacy—flinty and strong, courageous and tenacious—endures. When even a queen was expected to be little more than a walking womb, Eleanor of Aquitaine made history—not only as the wife of two kings, but as one of the most powerful and influential women of all time.

  EDWARD IV 1442-1483

  RULED ENGLAND: 1461-1470 AND 1471-1483

  and

  ELIZABETH WOODVILLE

  1437-1492

  married 1464-1483

  “The most beautiful woman in the island of Britain [with] heavy-lidded eyes like those of a dragon. . . .”

  —Compliment paid to Elizabeth Woodville by a fifteenth-century writer

  LEGEND HAS IT THAT THEY “MET CUTE.” THE WIDOWED mother of two young boys, Elizabeth Woodville waylaid the tall, dark, and handsome King Edward IV in the shadow of an oak tree in Whittlebury Forest, and threw herself on his mercy. She’d become involved in a land dispute related to her first marriage and urged him to intercede on her behalf.

  In his prime, the six-foot-three-and-a-half-inch Edward was quite an impressive sight, a snappy dresser with soft brown hair, hazel eyes, and a straight nose. He was purportedly struck by Elizabeth’s “mournful beauty” and fell deeply in lust. It was evidently mutual. So, His Majesty did what he always did when he saw an attractive woman: he propositioned her. But Elizabeth—described by Thomas More as “both fair, of a good favor, moderate of stature, well made and very wise�
��—wouldn’t consent to be his mistress, “and so increased his passion by her refusals that he came to realize that he could not live without her.” The tree was subsequently named “the Queen’s Oak” and became a cult destination for diehard romantics. From meeting to marriage, Edward’s courtship of Elizabeth Woodville had all the makings of a fairy-tale romance—a Cinderella story avant la lettre.

  Elizabeth Woodville’s parents had also made a socially mismatched marriage. She was the oldest of twelve children born to Jacquetta Woodville, the widow of Henry V’s brother, the Duke of Bedford, as well as a descendent of Charlemagne and a member of the royal family of Luxembourg. Elizabeth’s father was Sir Richard Woodville, a lowly but brave knight who had served in Bedford’s train. Jacquetta had wed the middle-aged duke when she was a teenager, making her the second-highest lady in England for a time. After Bedford died in September 1435, a relationship between Jacquetta and Sir Richard began to flourish. The two wed without the king’s permission and on March 1, 1437, Jacquetta had to pay a hefty fine of £1,000 (over $731,000 today) for her disobedience. However, the couple was pardoned that October, and Sir Richard Woodville proved himself a brave and gallant courtier. On May 8, 1448, Henry V elevated him to the peerage, creating him Baron Rivers.

  It was the era of the Wars of the Roses, a series of violent skirmishes between the feuding aristocratic houses of York and Lancaster—each of which descended from King Edward III, and each of which believed they had a more legitimate right of succession. The Woodvilles fought for the Lancastrian cause, as did Elizabeth Woodville’s first husband, Sir John Grey of Groby.