Raymond of Poitiers
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Eleanor the Crusader
Anjou, annulments, Antioch, Aquitaine, books, Byzantine Empire, consanguinity, Constantinople, Damascus, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eugenius III, France, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Henry II, Jerusalem, John, Louis VII, Matt Lewis, Normandy, Plantagenets, Power of a Woman, Raymond of Poitiers, Richard I, Robert S.P. Fripp, Second Crusade, TurksMy next book – due for release in October, all being well – is about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. They were one of Europe’s most fabulous power couples, ruling lands that spread from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. Eleanor was nine years Henry’s senior. When they married in 1152, he was a…
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MISTRESS OF THE MAZE—Rosamund Clifford, Lover of King Henry II
Annabel de Balliol, Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, books, Civil War, Edward IV, Everswell, Fair Rosamund Clifford, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Godstow, Henry II, Ida de Tosney, Jane Shore, John, Louis VIII, mazes, Mistress of the Maze, Old Sarum Well, Raymond of Poitiers, Rosamund’s Well, William Longspee, WoodstockJane Shore is one of the most famous royal mistresses and certainly the prime one of the 15th century. Arguably, however, the most famous royal mistress in medieval English history is the enigmatic Rosamund de Clifford, known as ‘Fair Rosamund’ or ‘Rose of the World.’ Like Jane, Rosamund seemed to have received a generally benign…
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What do Matilda and Margaret, Eleanor and Elizabeth, plus two Henrys, add up to…?
“Beauforts”, Antioch, Catherine de Roet, Crusades, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Elizabeth of York, Fair Rosamund Clifford, Gerald of Wales, Henry I, Henry II, Henry VII, John of Gaunt, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Lancastrians, Matilda, Raymond of Poitiers, Richard III, Robert of Gloucester, Shakespeare, Stephen, The Lion in Winter, Viscount Welles, YorkistsTo my mind, it adds up to two very similar situations that are two centuries apart. Let us begin in the 12th century. On his deathbed, Henry I of England named as his successor his only surviving child, his daughter, the Empress Matilda. He obliged the nobility to agree. They reneged, of course. A woman…
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