Eleanor of Aquitaine, heir to of one of the largest and wealthiest duchies in Europe, was headstrong but wise and had mastered all the rules of the political game before she was twenty. She needed to be stronger than any nobleman and, in a world where a woman's place was as a wife and mother, she fought continually to hold and wield power as a ruler in her own right. Despite being the wife of two kings and mother of three, she was never anything other than her own woman. Eleanor rode in the Second Crusade with her husband Louis VII of France, rebelled against her second husband, Henry II of England, ruled as Queen Regent when her son Richard the Lionheart set off for the Third Crusade and personally negotiated Richard's ransom when he was captured. She outlived all but two of her children. Norah Lofts brings to passionate life this brave and complex woman who was Queen of both France and England, brought us the concepts of chivalry and courtly love and who was compared with Penthesilia, mythical queen of the Amazons.
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