reginanobilis:Spouses who became rivals (3/?)Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of EnglandLess than t

reginanobilis:Spouses who became rivals (3/?)Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of EnglandLess than three months after her annulment from Louis VII of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II, the future king of England, in 1152, a union which at a stroke shifted the balance of power in Europe, uniting their vast holdings into what amounted to an empire. Despite the formidable power and personality possessed by each spouse, the couple maintained their union successfully for two decades, producing eight children and ruling collaboratively on both sides of the Channel. However, in 1173, Henry’s iron grip on power and interference in their domains drove Eleanor and her three oldest sons to revolt. In a move that shocked contemporaries, Eleanor encouraged her teenage sons to go to the court of her ex-husband, Louis, their father’s arch-rival, there to plan their rebellion. Eleanor herself tried to escape, on horseback, dressed as a man, but was captured by Henry’s men. Despite the formidable odds against him, Henry managed to crush his sons’ rebellion and bring them to heel. Eleanor, on the other hand, would be imprisoned in England for sixteen years, released only briefly when Henry required her influence to force peace between their feuding offspring. After her betrayal, Henry made efforts to annul his marriage or place Eleanor in a nunnery, but she stubbornly resisted and indeed succeeded in outliving her husband. She was freed by her son, Richard, upon Henry’s death, and would spend her widowhood as guardian of what she and Henry had once built and what she had once threatened to destroy. See previous posts in series 1, 2 -- source link

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