Read Eleanor of Aquitaine Online
Authors: Marion Meade
Eleanor of Aquitaine (29 page)
While Eleanor had always been popular in Aquitaine, her vassals had never taken kindly to her first marriage. Whatever threats Louis had posed to their independence were nothing, however, compared to the ominous prospects of being ruled by Henry Plantagenet. When Eleanor had presented her new husband to her barons at the time of the marriage, they had given him a cool reception, and over the summer she had been forced to acknowledge a disquieting truth: If rumor could be believed, many of her vassals were saying that Henry had no claim on their loyalty, other than as the husband of their duchess, of course. Understandable was the deep misgiving with which they contemplated the possibility of Henry’s ascension to the throne of England, since it presented to them the distasteful prospect of a ruler whose authority would be backed by massive resources. For a people intolerant of any authority but their own, Eleanor’s new marriage came as an unwelcome surprise, which they did not intend to accept with good grace. At this time, however, Eleanor, perhaps sensibly, perhaps stupidly, seems to have given little thought to this problem, feeling no doubt that her vassals’ hostility to Henry would dissolve in time, and in any case, they had no choice but to eventually accept him.
In late August. Louis Capet’s threat to Plantagenet security over, Henry unexpectedly returned to Poitiers. Eager to take advantage of this opportunity to introduce a wider range of her vassals to their new duke, as well as to acquaint Henry with her ancestral possessions, Eleanor quickly arranged an extensive tour that would take them to every corner of the duchy. That autumn was, in retrospect, a joyous period, probably the most idyllic she would ever spend with Henry, because, for one thing, she had him to herself for four unbroken months. If, as far as Henry was concerned, the progress represented more or less a tour of newly acquired property, it was for Eleanor both a holiday and a homecoming, the first extended period she had spent among her own people since the divorce. Followed by mule trains and cartloads of baggage, they leisurely pursued the trails southward through Poitou, into the Limousin, down past the salt marshes of Saintonge, as far south as the rugged country of Gascony, all the while meeting old friends, sipping the hearty Bordeaux wines, loosing their falcons against the deep blue autumn skies. And everywhere that Eleanor traveled, she was followed by song and loud laughter, by boisterous crowds of knights, ladies, poets, and hangers-on. Every night there were banquets in great halls blazing with candles and the best plate: musicians to sing war songs, crusading songs, love songs, and, most assuredly, the bawdy songs of William the Troubadour; gossip of the latest seductions, marriages, and political feuds. There was talk of Byzantium and the Holy Land, with audiences eager for Eleanor’s tales of her travels. Henry, affable and relaxed most of the time, seemed to find her duchy to his taste, particularly when he could indulge his love of hunting and falconry. At other times, sensing the hostility of Eleanor’s vassals, he just barely managed to curb his temper, and on one occasion, he was unable to do so.
Henry and Eleanor had pitched their tents outside Limoges; despite the royal welcome extended by the townspeople, at mealtime Eleanor’s cook complained that the town had failed to send the customary provisions to the ducal kitchen tent. When Henry demanded explanations for this oversight, the abbot of Saint Martial’s informed him that the town was only obliged to provide victuals when Henry lodged within the city walls. This was putting altogether too fine a point on feudal obligations to suit Henry, and indeed the Limousins could not have made their low opinion of the duke more obvious.
There at Limoges, Eleanor had first witnessed one of Henry’s temper tantrums. The Angevin reputation for “black bile,” even her own fire-breathing father’s outbursts, had not prepared her for the sight of Henry in the grip of rage. Losing every vestige of self-control, he rolled on the ground, shrieking, writhing, and kicking. With spittle leaking from his mouth, he bit blankets, gnawed on straw, smashed furniture, and lashed out with hand or sword at anyone foolish enough to remain in the vicinity.
In the midst of just such a fit, Eleanor had stood by while Henry ordered the newly built walls of Limoges to be razed and their bridge destroyed so that, in future, no abbot could use them as an excuse to withhold from their duke his just and reasonable dues. If she received a rude shock from both her husband’s behavior as well as his order to tear down the town walls, she did not interfere because, as distressing as the command may have been, the insult reflected on herself as well and could not be tolerated.
Nevertheless, the southerners adored their duchess and delighted in making much of her, but if the limelight fell continually on Eleanor and rarely on Henry, he made no complaint. Even though the days seemed to pass in almost aimless fashion, appearances were deceptive. Like a businessman whose uppermost thoughts are always occupied by self-interest, Henry’s seemingly lackadaisical behavior covered a shrewd analysis of his wife’s resources. Taking advantage of all and any opportunities to further his invasion plans, he was quick to reconnoiter the harbor towns, where he made arrangements to hire ships; in Gascony he was able to recruit additions to his infantry. All in all, it was a productive trip.
By December the ducal
chevauchée
disbanded; Eleanor returned to Poitiers, while Henry went on to Normandy, where he visited his mother in Rouen and, perhaps more important, availed himself of the services of a moneylender. A man who “detested delay above all things,” he set sail in a severe winter gale with a fleet of 36 ships, 140 knights, and 3,000 men-at-arms. On January 6, 1153, he landed at Bristol, but desire not always being destiny, his future was by no means a certainty.
chevauchée
disbanded; Eleanor returned to Poitiers, while Henry went on to Normandy, where he visited his mother in Rouen and, perhaps more important, availed himself of the services of a moneylender. A man who “detested delay above all things,” he set sail in a severe winter gale with a fleet of 36 ships, 140 knights, and 3,000 men-at-arms. On January 6, 1153, he landed at Bristol, but desire not always being destiny, his future was by no means a certainty.
Never the type of woman to depend upon the presence of a man to keep her occupied, Eleanor saw no point in playing the abandoned wife. Another woman, even now, might have retired to her quarters and resigned herself to sitting out the war, killing time as best she could until her spouse’s return. Such meek behavior, however, required a less ambitious temperament than Eleanor possessed, and moreover, it did not, evidently, jibe with what Henry seemed to expect of her. He was not a man who scorned female intelligence, his mother having been the equal of any man and indeed, some said cuttingly, masculine enough in her thinking as to suggest that she might be the superior of most men. Growing up in the company of a mother such as Matilda, Henry emerged with a healthy admiration for high-spirited, assertive women, a factor that no doubt played an important part in his attraction to Eleanor. While by no means liberated from the masculine prejudices against women that were rife in his age, he nonetheless recognized administrative competence when he encountered it. If it occurred within his own family, so much the better, since he tended to distrust outsiders. If the capable person happened to be female, he was not so foolish as to reject her for that minor disability. Therefore, when he departed for England, he left Normandy in the care of his mother, while delegating Eleanor to rule over Anjou as well as her own estates. From a practical standpoint, it suited his purposes admirably to use Eleanor, now and in years to come, as a sort of stand-in for himself. Superficially it would appear, and may initially have seemed to Eleanor herself, that he was offering a position of corulership, an equal partnership in his government, but his magnanamity would turn out to be highly deceptive. Henry did not think of her as an equal nor could he bear to see power slip from his own hands, but it would be a number of years before Eleanor could acknowledge this fact. If she misjudged her husband, he was equally blind in reading her desires, for, like Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, she was one of those “women desiren to have soverainetee.”
It has been suggested that she now took up residence in Angers, the ancestral capital of the Angevin counts, although probably at least part of her time was spent in Poitiers. As her deputy in Aquitaine she appointed her uncle Ralph de Faye, who was her mother’s brother and whom she trusted. If after her years of struggle to return to Aquitaine, she felt reluctant to pull up stakes once more, she made no objections. This was not the first time that she had been obliged to place a husband’s priorities above her own, nor would it be the last. Her confidence high, she surveyed her present as well as her future and found it full of promise. Not the least of her satisfactions was the discovery, shortly before Henry’s departure, that she was expecting his child. Exultant and no doubt enormously relieved, she had been able to bid him farewell with a full and optimistic heart.
The castle of Angers, still standing today, was completely rebuilt in the thirteenth century, but a hundred years earlier it still must have been a comfortable, imposing residence. The city of Angers itself, no provincial hinterland, had its full share of schools, churches, and convents; philosophy and poetry were not unknown there, and the Loire valley produced an exquisite vin rose. In short, it offered possibilities for Eleanor who, instead of relaxing and slipping into a contented, idle pregnancy, embarked on a more strenuous program than she had undertaken in years, both as an administrator and as a woman intent upon enjoying herself. During 1153 she was free to live a life of her own design, and regardless of Henry’s less than enthusiastic attitude toward troubadours, she had collected a number of them during her autumn travels. To Angers, then, she transported her household of Poitevins, her assorted vassals and relatives, including, no doubt, her sister, Petronilla, and her two illegitimate brothers, William and Joscelin, and the enthralled music makers who asked nothing better than to sing her praises. Released from all restrictions at last, she was able to push from her mind any lingering memories of Louis’s puritanical court, even to some extent able to dismiss her young husband, who also had no use for the trilling of troubadours, and create for herself the milieu she loved best.
The glimpses we catch of Eleanor during this interlude come from poetry rather than from chronicles or charters, and they reveal a woman young, vibrant, and eager to be adored. Her pregnancy notwithstanding, there was no dearth of men ready to fall in love with her and, an equally important consideration, to receive the rewards she distributed with a generosity reminiscent of her grandfather. By right of inheritance and by her own intelligence, she was amply equipped for the role of literary critic and patroness and, quick to recognize artistic talent, she extended her patronage to Bernard of Ventadour, a gifted poet who had been banished from his last place of employment for making improper advances to the lady of the castle. The son of an archer and a kitchen servant, Bernard may have emerged from humble beginnings, but he had been taught the art of poetry by his master, Eble II of Ventadour. Just as Henry Plantagenet, the man of action, appealed to one side of Eleanor’s nature, Bernard appealed to another: her love of romance; her fantasy of being worshiped: her belief that despite the teachings of the Church, women were not inferior to men, not their equals, but their superiors. The sensitivity of a man like Bernard, whom Henry would have dismissed as effeminate, was a magical quality that drew her just as strongly as Henry’s quest for political power; she would never be satisfied with a man who combined anything less than both of these traits.
For Bernard’s part, he could no more resist Eleanor than a bee the blossom. In 1153, times were hard in Europe; there had been famine in some places, and people were occupied by more serious matters than hiring poets. The duchess of Aquitaine, however, “was young and of great worth, and she had understanding in matters of value and honor, and cared for a song of praise.” In the next century it would be claimed that Bernard became Eleanor’s lover, but at the time there was no insinuation of overfamiliarity. On the contrary, Bernard’s lyrical passion was entirely suitable in a troubadour addressing a beautiful young duchess. It was the sort of admiration—chivalrous, wildly romantic, essentially meaningless—that Eleanor had always enjoyed, something to which she had been accustomed at the court of William the Troubadour. In Bernard’s panegyrics, we see Eleanor through the gallant eyes of the poet but perhaps as other contemporaries saw her as well: “gracious, lovely, the embodiment of charm,” “lovely eyes and noble countenance,” “one meet to crown the state of any king.” When Bernard thinks of her, he feels “a wind from paradise,” when he looks at her, his heart is so full of joy that everything in nature seems changed, and “I see in the winter only white, red and yellow flowers.”
I am not one to scorn
The boon God granted me;
She said in accents clear ..
Before I did depart,
“Your songs they please me well.”
I would each Christian soul
Could know my rapture then,
For all I write and sing
Is meant for her delight.
In England, however, no troubadours composed songs, no ladies played games of love with their preux chevaliers. “The kingdom,” said a chronicler, “was suddenly agitated by the mutterings of rumors, like a quivering bed of reeds swept by the blasts of the wind.” England waited to see if Matilda’s nineteen-year-old son, whom some called “intrepid” and others called “rash,” would bring King Stephen to heel, or vice versa. Actually, from the moment of Henry’s landing at Bristol, everything, the weather included, seemed to conspire in his favor. Undeniably, his own shrewdness was a factor, for instead of attacking Stephen at Wallingford, which had been under siege for a year, he made a surprise attack on Malmesbury Castle, a strategy that had the effect of obliging the king to come to him. When the rival armies finally faced each other across the Avon River, “the floodgates of heaven were opened and heavy rain drove in the faces of Stephen’s men, with violent gusts of wind and severe cold, so that God himself appeared to fight for the duke.” Henry, the storm at his back, calmly accepted the king’s surrender of Malmesbury. After this bloodless victory, he ceased to be regarded as a brash young adventurer, and some of England’s most powerful nobles began coming to his support with money and troops. Thus, by the beginning of summer, Henry felt secure enough to go to the aid of his besieged followers at the castle of Wallingford. Once again, circumstances—some said divine will—prevailed to clear the way for his success. When King Stephen was thrown from his horse three times prior to the battle, his advisers interpreted these incidents as ill omens. “It was,” the chronicles tell us, “terrible and very dreadful to see so many thousands of armed men eager to join battle with drawn swords, determined, to the general prejudice of the kingdom, to kill their own relatives and kin.” Standing on opposite banks of the Thames at a narrow place in the river, Henry and Stephen spoke together out of earshot of their armies. Shortly afterward, each man returned to his troops, announcing that the battle had been called off but offering no explanation.
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