IN THE MALE-DOMINATED PERIOD of the twelfth century two women stand out like shining stars: the empress Maud of England and Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine. Each created breakthrough roles for themselves as women at a time when women were virtually invisible. Ambitious and eager for power in their own right, they played leading parts in the world of politics, challenging the patriarchal barriers of their time.
Maud was the granddaughter of Duke William of Normandy, who claimed England by right of conquest in the eleventh century, and daughter of Henry I, the Conqueror’s youngest son, who followed his own bloodstained path to the throne. A victim of the patriarchal dynastic order of the period, Maud was sent from home at the age of nine to wed the Holy Roman Emperor of Germany. He died when she was twenty-four, and the “empress,” as she was called, was ordered by her father to return to England. With no son to inherit the crown, and desperate to continue his line, King Henry named Maud his heir. Such an act was unheard-of during the early Middle Ages in England.
Proud, intelligent, and accustomed to having her own way, Maud possessed the fierce efficiency and iron will of her Norman forebears. Although legend has it that she loved her cousin Stephen of Blois, her father forced her to marry Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou. At her father’s death in 1135, the nobles in England, despite their sworn oath to honor Maud as their queen, allowed Stephen of Blois to usurp the throne.
Her cousin was now her enemy, and Maud retaliated. For nineteen bitter years she fought Stephen to regain her crown. Her eldest son, also named Henry, grew up in a hate-filled atmosphere dominated by distrust and his mother’s fierce desire for vengeance. At fourteen, young Henry of Anjou was already aiding his mother in her struggles against the usurper, and when he was seventeen, the empress relinquished her rights to England and the duchy of Normandy in favor of her son.
The early years of Eleanor of Aquitaine could not have been more different. She was the granddaughter of Duke William of Aquitaine, a hedonistic philandering noble whose ancestors had ruled Aquitaine for three hundred years. Known as the First Troubadour, his earthy songs of sensual passion became the forerunners of what later evolved into the complex lyrics of courtly love. Eleanor grew up influenced by her irreverent and free-spirited family in Aquitaine, a civilized pleasure-loving land devoted to luxury and enjoyment. Its independent-minded inhabitants were often capricious and quarrelsome, but compared to the heavily controlled north, they enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity. “In sex and religion . . . there was a greater degree of tolerance in Aquitaine,” according to Eleanor’s biographer, Marion Meade.
At fifteen Eleanor was beautiful, brilliant, and worldly. Her father’s unexpected death left her in control of the vast duchy of Aquitaine, and in order to protect her inheritance from greedy vassals, she married Louis, son of the king of France. By the following year the young couple had ascended the French throne. For fifteen years, the passionate Eleanor endured an unhappy marriage to a passionless husband, thwarted by the Church and helpless to prevent the incompetent Louis and his peers from wreaking havoc in her beloved Aquitaine. By 1151 she had produced two daughters but no male heir. Much to her relief, annulment proceedings began.
On a visit to Paris to pay homage to the king of France, Maud’s son, the eighteen-year-old Duke Henry of Normandy, met and fell in love with the French queen, who was eleven years his senior. Eleanor, hopelessly smitten with the young duke, married Henry in 1152. A year later he defeated King Stephen’s forces in England, and in 1154 ascended the throne. Henry II Plantagenet was now king of England, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou and Maine; his empire stretched from the Pyrenees to the borders of Scotland.
The new monarch had a daunting task ahead of him: the unification of England, lawless and ravaged by years of civil war, and the consolidation of his holdings on the Continent. An experienced ruler in her own right, Eleanor would be able to help him in Aquitaine, but in England he would need someone equally suitable. Thomas Becket, an able lawyer and cleric, was appointed chancellor of England. Together, he and Henry set about healing the wounds of conflict. They restored law and order, brought about needed reforms in fiscal policy, and set about creating a system of justice that would bring peace to the realm.
After ten years of marriage, Eleanor had produced three sons and two daughters. England’s succession was assured. Despite the difficulties of maintaining their far-flung possessions; the rivalries and conflicts engendered by their own strong personalities; and Henry’s promiscuous nature, the Plantagenets’ passion for each other, as well as their mutual goals, had not diminished and their fortunes prospered. Then, in 1162, Henry made Thomas Becket archbishop of Canterbury, never dreaming that he had unleashed a whirlwind.
It was the first major misstep of his reign—but not his last. Unbeknownst to both Henry and Eleanor, the years of harmony were coming to an end. Years of conflict, intrigue, adultery, betrayal, and murder were about to begin.