I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Rating ⭐
So this review will actually be pretty brief because I will be honest that I did not finish the book.
Shocking, as it covers some of my most favorite time periods.
But a terrible slander occurred attempting to - either accidentally or on purpose - stain the reputation of my beloved Eleanor of Aquitaine. At best it was poor research; at worst it was lazy research. Neither of which I can abide.
I made it through the reign of Henry I, chugging along nicely. Then came the chapter I was most excited about, because Eleanor was sure to receive several mentions over the course of Henry II's reign.
Yet one of the very first appearances of Eleanor early on in Henry II's chapter mentions Eleanor on Crusade with her first husband, Louis VII. The author states, "Her alleged sexual relationship with her uncle, Raymond, Prince of Antioch, led to the end of her marriage."
Nope nope nope.
First, there's no actual evidence that she had an affair with Raymond. He was the only family she had left besides her sister, and they had not seen each other in several years. These rumors did not start until a couple decades later, likely because we do not know what actually happened that made Eleanor refuse to leave Antioch in the first place. Had the two really had an affair, it would have been an immediate scandal. They were far more closely related than Eleanor and Louis (third cousins, once removed). Some contemporary chroniclers were already hostile to Eleanor, even in her lifetime and more most certainly after her death. Despite my love for the Middle Ages, it - and the entirety of human history - reeks of misogyny, and almost all of the chroniclers were men. Women who did write mainly lived in convents and wrote of their religious experiences. Even Christine de Pizan came along a couple hundred years after Eleanor.
Secondly, even if she had had an affair with her uncle, that is not what ended her marriage to Louis VII. Eleanor did not want to leave Antioch. She wanted Louis to join forces with Raymond, but he refused. She was forced to go by Louis, with some accounts stating he forcibly put her on the boat himself. When they returned from Crusade, Eleanor wanted nothing to do with her husband. It certainly did not help that she learned her uncle had been captured and beheaded at the Battle of Inab. They were guests of Pope Eugenius III after a slog of a trip to get back home.There had already been talk of getting the marriage annulled prior to this, and it was brought up once again. The Pope refused the request and at one point threatened excommunication if they did not attempt to work things out. He insisted they sleep together while there and of course Eleanor ended up pregnant again. She gave birth to their second daughter in 1150, and two years later was finally able to shake herself free from the marriage.
If you do not write accurately about someone I know so much about, how am I to know if you are writing accurately about others I know less about? It is hard to trust someone's words when events are massively misconstrued and no context or detail is given.
So is this continuing in the vein of those chroniclers from hundreds of years ago, or just lack of interest in further research? Yes, the book is about the eight Henrys, but Eleanor of Aquitaine was no small player in history.
Either way, not interested in anything else this book has to say.
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