Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/182

Eleanor  his father about 1 Aug. 1137 (, p. 585).

On Easter aay 1146 Louis and Eleanor, moved by the eloquence of St. Bernard, took the cross and started on the crusade, after receiving the pope's blessing at St. Denys, on 8 June 1147 (, pp. 126-7; Ono, 1205-10). The story that Eleanor raised a troop of armed ladies and rode at their head as an Amazonian queen (, pp. 298-9;, p. 59; for the origin of this myth, see , De Manuele Comneno. p. 80, ed. Bekker, Bonn, 1835) seems to be as purely fabulous as the tales which relate her amours in the Holy Land with Saladin, who was at this time a mere boy of thirteen. It is, however, certain that during this expedition her character was compromised by an intrigue of some kind or other with her uncle, Raymond I, prince of Antioch. This may possibly be no more than the scandal attaching itself to a close intimacy with her kinsman, who was eager to divert the efforts of the crusading host to his own aggrandisement; nor does Suger's letter to the king, in which he commends him for concealing his anger against his wife till after their return to France, enumerate any definite charge. In the latter half of 1149 Eleanor joined her husband in Calabria, whence they returned to their own kingdom by way of Rome(, xiv. c. 27; Epp. Sugerii, pp. 518-19).

For more than two years Eleanor continued to live with her husband, and in this period bore him a daughter, Alice, afterwards married to Theobald, count of Blois (Vita Ludov. vii. 126). In 1151 or 1152 they established order in Aquitaine, on the return from which expedition the question of divorce was raised, perhaps for the second time (Chron. of Tours, pp. 1015-16). A church council held at Beaugency under the presidency of Samson, archbishop of Rheims, dissolved the marriage on the plea of consanguinity (21 March 1152), and some contemporary historians declare this action to have been taken with the approval of St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius (Vita Ludov. p. 127;, p. 101). Although long before the twelfth century came to a close it was currently reported that Louis repudiated his wife for adultery, it seems impossible to admit that such a charge was ever proved against her. The proceedings may perhaps have been due to Louis' disappointment in not having a son to succeed him. If we may trust an early chronicle of the next century, there was no lack of princes ready to espouse the divorced queen. At Blois a nasty night voyage saved her from falling into the hands of Count Theobald; at Tours, whither she fled from Blois, she narrowly escaped being seized by Geoffrey, the brother of her future husband (Chron. of Tours, 1616; cf. i. 171, and, De Nug. Cur, p. 226). There is nothing improbable in these tales, but they probably belong to the same class as Brompton*s legend of her intrigue with Henry II's father, Geoffrey, which Walter Map accepts, although Geoffrey seems to have died m 1152 (, pp. 1044-5; Hist. Gaufredi, p. 292; . p. 283). All, however, that is certain is that she made her way to Poitiers, whence she sent an embassy to Henry, who had just succeeded his father as Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. Dazzled by the prospect of so brilliant an alliance, he accepted ner overtures and married her about Whitsuntide (. ii. 149;, p. 500).

Louis, who had hoped that his daughters would inherit the principality of their mother, now made war upon the young duke. A fever soon brought this contest to a close, and next year (1153) Henry was able to invade England. In 1154 he became king of England, and was crowned with his wife (17 Dec.) by Archbishop Theobald (. ii. 147-8, 159-60; ).

Eleanor's second son, Henry, was born at London in March 1155, Matilda at London in 1156, Richard at Oxford in September 1157. Towards the end of 1158 she crossed over to Cherbourg, after Geoffrey's birth in September, to spend Christmas there with her husband. Eleanor was born at Falaise in 1161, Joan at Angers in October 1165, John in 1166 (, sub ann.)

In 1159 Henry attacked Toulouse under shelter of his wife's claims; and sixteen years later these claims were to some extent admitted, when Raymond V did homage to the king and his two elder sons at Limoges in February 1173 (,i. 217, ii. 47;, p. 1051). During the long years of the Becket controversy Eleanor does not appear prominently; but a letter from John of Salisbury warns the archbishop that he must not look to the queen for help (1165). Five years later she seems to have been privy to the whole course of events relating to the coronation of the young Henry, and indeed to have had the business of detaining the young wife at Caen while her eldest son was being crowned in England laid upon her (Epp. Joh. Sarieb, ap., xvi. 242,431 .)

The peculiar position in which Eleanor stood with regard to Aquitaine may have influenced Henry II when in 1168, after the revolt of the Counts of March and 