SOURCE: “Eleanora of Aquitaine, Queen of Henry II” in Lives of the Queens of England, Boston: Taggard & Thompson, 1864, pp. 166-203.

[In the following excerpt, Strickland follows Eleanor's life through 1171, including her role in the Second Crusade, her attitude toward the institution of marriage, and her reaction to her husband's affair with Rosamond.]

The life of the consort of Henry II. commences the biographies of a series of Provençal princesses, with whom the earlier monarchs of our royal house of Plantagenet allied themselves, for upwards of a century. Important effects, not only on the domestic history of the court of England, but on its commerce and statistics, may be traced to its union, by means of this queen, with the most polished and civilized people on the face of the earth, as the Provençals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries indisputably were. With the arts, the idealities, and the refinements of life, Eleanora brought acquisitions of more importance to the Anglo-Norman people, than even that “great Provence dower” on which Dante dwells with such earnestness.

But before the sweet provinces of the south were united to England, by the marriage of their heiress with the heir of the Conqueror, a varied tissue of incidents had chequered the life of the duchess of Aquitaine, and it is necessary to trace them, before we can describe her conduct as queen of England.

It would be in vain to search on a map for the dominions of Eleanora, under the title of dukedom of Aquitaine. In the eleventh century, the counties of Guienne and Gascony were erected into this dukedom, after the ancient kingdom of Provence, established by a diet of Charlemagne,¹ had been dismembered. Julius Cæsar calls the south of Gaul, Aquitaine, from the numerous rivers and fine ports belonging to it; and the poetical population of this district adopted the name for their dukedom, from the classics.

The language which prevailed all over the south of France was called Provençal, from the kingdom of Provence; and it formed a bond of national union among the numerous independent sovereigns under whose feudal sway this beautiful country was divided. Throughout the whole tract of country, from Navarre to the dominions of the dauphin of Auvergne, and from sea to sea, the Provençal language was spoken—a language which combined the best points of French and Italian, and presented peculiar facilities for poetical composition. It was called the langue d’oc, sometimes langue d’oc et no, the tongue of “yes” and “no,” because, instead of the “oui” and “non” of the rest of France, the affirmative and negative were “oc” and “no.” The ancestors of Eleanora were called par excellence the lords of “Oc” and “No.” William IX., her grandfather, was one of the earliest professors and most liberal patrons of the art. His poems were models of imitation for all the succeeding troubadours.²

The descendants of this minstrel hero were Eleanora, and her sister Petronilla. They were the daughters of his son, William count de Poitou, by one of the daughters of Raymond of Thoulouse.³ William of Poitou was a pious prince; which, together with his death in the Holy Land, caused his father's subjects to call him St. William. The mother of this prince was the great heiress Philippa of Thoulouse, duchess of Guienne and Gascony, and countess of Thoulouse in her own right. Before Philippa married, her husband was William, the seventh count of Poitou and Saintonge; afterwards he called himself William the fourth duke of Aquitaine. He invested his eldest son with the county of Poitou, who is termed William the tenth of Poitou. He did not live to inherit the united provinces of Poitou and Aquitaine, which comprised nearly the whole of the south of France. The rich inheritance of Thoulouse, part of the dower of the duchess Philippa, was pawned for a sum of money, to the count of St. Gilles, her cousin, which enabled her husband to undertake the expense of the crusade led by Robert of Normandy. The count St. Gilles took possession of Thoulouse, and withheld it, as a forfeited mortgage, from Eleanora, who finally inherited her grandmother's rights to this lovely province.

The father of Eleanora left Aquitaine in 1132, with his younger brother, Raymond of Poitou, who was chosen by the princes of the crusade that year to receive the hand of the heiress of Conrad prince of Antioch, and maintain that bulwark of the Holy Land against the assaults of pagans and infidels. William fell, aiding his brother in this arduous contest; but Raymond succeeded in establishing himself as prince of Antioch.

The grandfather of Eleonora had been gay and even licentious in his youth; and now, at the age of sixty-eight, he wished to devote some time, before his death, to meditation and penitence, for the sins of his early life. When his grand-daughter had attained her fourteenth year, he commenced his career of self-denial, by summoning the baronage of Aquitaine, and communicating his intention of abdicating in favour of his grand-daughter, to whom they all took the oath of allegiance.⁴ He then opened his great project of uniting Aquitaine with France, by giving Eleanora in marriage to the heir of Louis le Gros.⁵ The barons agreed to this proposal, on condition that the laws and customs of Aquitaine should be held inviolate; and that the consent of the young princess should be obtained. Eleanora had an interview with her suitor, and professed herself pleased with the arrangement.

Louis and Eleanora were immediately married with great pomp, at Bourdeaux; and, on the solemn resignation of duke William, the youthful pair were crowned duke and duchess of Aquitaine, August 1, 1137.

On the conclusion of this grand ceremony, duke William,⁶ grandsire of the bride, laid down his robes and insignia of sovereignty, and took up the hermit's cowl and staff. He departed on a pilgrimage to St. James's of Compostenella, in Spain, and died soon after, very penitent, in one of the cells of that rocky wilderness.⁷

At the time when duke William resigned the dominions of the south to his grand-daughter, he was the most powerful prince in Europe. His rich ports of Bourdeaux and Saintonge supplied him with commercial wealth; his maritime power was immense; his court was the focus of learning and luxury; and it must be owned, that at the accession of the fair Eleanora, this court had become not a little licentious.

Louis and his bride obtained immediate possession of Poitou, Gascony, Biscay, and a large territory extending beyond the Pyrenees. They repaired afterwards to Poictiers, where Louis was solemnly crowned duke of Guienne.⁸ Scarcely was this ceremony concluded, when Eleanora and her husband were summoned to the death-bed of Louis VI., that admirable king and lawgiver of France. His dying words were,

“Remember, royalty is a public trust, for the exercise of which a rigorous account will be exacted by Him who has the sole disposal of crowns and sceptres.”

So spoke the great legislator of France, to the youthful pair whose wedlock had united the north and south of France. On the conscientious mind of Louis VII. the words of his dying father were strongly impressed, but it was late in life before his thoughtless partner profited by them.

Eleanora was very beautiful; she had been reared in all the accomplishments of the south; she was a fine musician, and composed and sang the chansons and tensons of Provençal poetry. Her native troubadours expressly inform us that she could both read and write. The government of her dominions was in her own hands, and she frequently resided in her native capital of Bourdeaux. She was perfectly adored by her southern subjects, who always welcomed her with joy, and they bitterly mourned her absence, when she was obliged to return to her court at Paris; a court whose morals were severe; where the rigid rule of St. Bernard was observed by the king her husband, as if his palace had been a convent. Far different was the rule of Eleanora, in the cities of the south.

The political sovereignty of her native dominions, was not the only authority exercised by Eleanora in “gay Guienne.” She was, by hereditary right, chief reviewer and critic of the poets of Provence. At certain festivals held by her, after the custom of her ancestors,⁹ called Courts of Love, all new sirventes and chansons were sung or recited before her, by the troubadours. She then, assisted by a conclave of her ladies, sat in judgment, and pronounced sentence on their literary merits. She was herself a popular troubadour poet. Her chansons were remembered, long after death had raised a barrier against flattery, and she is reckoned among the authors of France.¹⁰

The amusements of the young queen of France seemed little suited to the austere habits of Louis VII.; yet she had the power of influencing him to commit the only act of wilful injustice which stains the annals of his reign.

The sister of the queen, the young Petronilla, whose beauty equalled that of her sister, and whose levity far surpassed it, could find no single man, in all France, to bewitch with the spell of her fascinations, but chose to seduce Rodolf, count of Vermandois, from his wife. This prince, who was cousin and prime minister to Louis VII., had married a sister of the count of Champagne, whom he divorced for some frivolous pretext, and married the fair Petronilla, by the connivance of Eleanora. The count of Champagne laid his sister's wrongs before the pope, who commanded Vermandois to put away Petronilla, and to take back the injured sister of Champagne. Queen Eleanora, enraged at the dishonour of Petronilla, prevailed on her husband to punish the count of Champagne for his interference. Louis, who already had cause of offence against the count, invaded Champagne at the head of a large army, and began a devastating war, in the course of which a most dreadful occurrence happened, at the storming of Vitry: the cathedral, wherein thirteen hundred persons had taken refuge, was burnt, and the poor people perished miserably.

It was at this juncture that St. Bernard preached the crusade at Vezalai, in Burgundy. King Louis and queen Eleanora, with all their court, came to hear the eloquent saint; and such crowds attended the royal auditors, that St. Bernard was forced to preach in the market-place, for no cathedral, however large, could contain them. St. Bernard touched with so much eloquence on the murderous conflagration at Vitry, that the heart of the pious king Louis, full of penitence for the sad effects of his destructiveness on his own subjects, resolved to atone for it to the God of mercy, by carrying sword and fire, to destroy thousands of his fellow-creatures, who had neither offended him, nor even heard of him. His queen, whose influence had led to the misdeed at Vitry, likewise became penitent, and as sovereign of Aquitaine, vowed to accompany her lord to the Holy Land, and lead the forces of the South to the relief of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem.

The wise and excellent abbot, Suger, the chancellor of Louis VII., endeavoured to prevail on his royal master to relinquish his mad expedition to Syria, assuring him that it would bring ruin on his country; but the fanaticism of the king was proof against such persuasions. Moreover, the romantic idea, of becoming a female crusader, had got into the light head of Eleanora his queen; and, being at this time in the very flower of her youth and beauty, she swayed the king of France according to her will and pleasure. Suger gives us the description of the preparations Eleanora made for this campaign, which were absurd enough to raise the idea, that the good statesman was romancing, if contemporary historians had not confirmed his evidence. When queen Eleanora received the cross from St. Bernard, at Vezalai, she directly put on the dress of an Amazon; and her ladies, all actuated by the same frenzy, mounted on horseback, and forming a lightly armed squadron, surrounded the queen when she appeared in public, calling themselves queen Eleanora's body-guard. They practised Amazonian exercises, and performed a thousand follies in public, to animate their zeal as practical crusaders. By the suggestion of their young queen, this band of madwomen sent their useless distaffs, as presents, to all the knights and nobles who had the good sense to keep out of this insane expedition. This ingenious taunt had the effect of shaming many wise men out of their better resolutions; and to such a degree was this mania of the crusade carried, that, as St. Bernard himself owns, whole villages were deserted by their male inhabitants, and the land left to be tilled by women and children

Such fellow soldiers as queen Eleanora and her Amazons, would have been quite sufficient to disconcert the plans, and impede the projects, of Hannibal himself, and though king Louis conducted himself with great ability and courage in his difficult enterprise, no prudence could counteract the misfortune of being encumbered with an army of fantastic women. King Louis, following the course of the emperor Conrad, whose army, roused by the eloquence of St. Bernard, had just preceded them, sailed up the Bosphorus, and landed in Thrace.

The freaks of queen Eleanora and her female warriors, were the cause of all the misfortunes that befell king Louis and his army, especially in the defeat at Laodicea.¹¹ The king had sent forward the queen and her ladies, escorted by his choicest troops, under the guard of count Maurienne. He charged them to choose for their camp, the arid but commanding ground which gave them a view over the defiles of the valley of Laodicea. While this detachment was encamping, he, at the distance of five miles, brought up the rear and baggage, ever and anon turning to battle bravely with the skirmishing Arab cavalry who were harassing his march.

Queen Eleanora acted in direct opposition to his rational directions. She insisted on her detachment of the army halting, in a lovely romantic valley, full of verdant grass and gushing fountains. The king was encumbered by the immense baggage which, William of Tyre declares, the female warriors of queen Eleanora insisted on retaining in the camp, at all risks. Darkness began to fall as the king of France approached the entrance of the valley; and to his consternation, he found the heights above it unoccupied by the advanced body of his troops. Finding the queen was not encamped there, he was forced to enter the valley in search of her, and was soon after attacked from the heights by swarms of Arabs, who engaged him in the passes among the rocks, close to the fatal spot where the emperor Conrad and his heavy horse had been discomfited but a few weeks before. King Louis, sorely pressed in one part of this murderous engagement, only saved his life by climbing a tree, whence he defended himself with the most desperate valour.¹² At length, by efforts of personal heroism, he succeeded in placing himself between the detachment of his ladies and the Saracens. But it was not till the dawn of day that he discovered his advanced troops, encamped in the romantic valley chosen by his poetical queen. Seven thousand of the flower of French chivalry paid with their lives the penalty of their queen's inexperience in warlike tactics; all the provision was cut off; the baggage, containing the fine array of the lady-warriors, which had proved such an encumbrance to the king, was plundered by the Arabs and Saracens, and the whole army was reduced to great distress. Fortunately Antioch was near, whose prince was the uncle of the crusading queen of France. Prince Raymond opened his friendly gates to the distressed warriors of the cross, and by the beautiful streams of the Orontes the defeated French army rested and refreshed themselves, after their recent disasters.

Raymond of Poitou was brother to the queen's father, the saintly William of Poitou. There was, however, nothing of the saint in the disposition of Raymond, who was still young, and was the handsomest man of his time. The uncle and niece, who had never met before, were much charmed with each other. It seems strange that the man who first awakened the jealousy of king Louis, should stand in such very near relationship to his wife; yet it is certain, that as soon as queen Eleanora had recovered her beauty, somewhat sullied by the hardships she endured in the camp, she commenced such a series of coquetries with her handsome uncle, that king Louis, greatly scandalized and incensed, hurried her out of Antioch one night, and decamped to Jerusalem, with slight leave-taking of Raymond, or none at all.

It is true, many authorities say that Raymond's intrigues with his niece were wholly political, and that he was persuading his niece to employ her power, as duchess of Aquitaine, for the extension of his dominions, and his own private advantage.

Eleanora was enraged at her sudden removal from Antioch, and entered the Holy City in a most indignant mood. Jerusalem, the object of the ardent enthusiasm of every other crusader, raised no religious ardour in her breast; she was burning with resentment, at the unaccustomed harshness king Louis exercised towards her. In Jerusalem, king Baldwin received Eleanora, with the honours due both to her rank as queen of France, and her power as a sovereign ally of the crusading league; but nothing could please her. It is not certain whether her uneasiness proceeded from a consciousness of guilt, or indignation at being the object of unfounded suspicions; but it is indisputable that, after her forced departure from Antioch, all affection between Eleanora and her husband was at an end. While the emperor of Germany and the king of France laid an unsuccessful siege to Damascus, Eleanora was detained at Jerusalem, in something like personal restraint.

The great abilities of Sultan Noureddin rendered this siege unavailing, and Louis was glad to withdraw, with the wreck of his army, from Asia. After many perils at Constantinople, and detention at Sicily, the king and queen of France arrived safely in their own dominions, 1148. There are letters¹³ still extant from Suger, abbot of St. Denis, the minister and confidant of king Louis, by which it appears that the king had made complaints, of the criminal attachment of his queen to a young Saracen emir, of great beauty, named Sal-Addin. For this misconduct the king of France expressed his intention of obtaining a divorce immediately, but was dissuaded from this resolution by the suggestions of his sagacious minister, who pointed out to him the troubles which would accrue to France, by the relinquishment of the “great Provençe dower,” and that his daughter, the princess Marie, would be deprived, in all probability, of her mother's rich inheritance, if the queen were at liberty to marry again.

This remonstrance so far prevailed on Louis, that from the unfortunate crusade, Eleanora resided at Paris, with all her usual state and dignity, as long as Suger lived, about four years. She was, however, closely watched, and not permitted to visit her southern dominions—a prohibition which greatly disquieted her. She made many complaints, of the gloom of the northern Gallic capital, and the monkish manners of her devout husband. She was particularly indignant at the plain and unostentatious clothing of king Louis, who had likewise displeased her by sacrificing, at the suggestion of the clergy, all his long curls, besides shaving off his beard and moustachios. The giddy queen made a constant mockery of her husband's appearance, and vowed that his smooth face made him look more like a cloistered priest than a valiant king.

Thus two years passed away in mutual discontent, till, in the year 1150, Geoffrey¹⁴ Plantagenet, count of Anjou, appeared at the court of Louis VII. Geoffrey did homage for Normandy, and presented to Louis his son, young Henry Plantagenet, surnamed Fitz-Empress. This youth was about seventeen, and was then first seen by queen Eleanora. But the scandalous chroniclers of the day declare, the queen was much taken by the fine person and literary attainments of Geoffrey, who was considered the most accomplished knight of his time. Geoffrey was a married man; but queen Eleanora as little regarded the marriage engagements of the persons on whom she bestowed her attention, as she did her own conjugal ties.

About eighteen months after the departure of the Angevin princes, the queen of France gave birth to another princess, named Alice. Soon after this event, Henry Plantagenet once more visited Paris, to do homage for Normandy and Anjou, a pleuritic fever having suddenly carried off his father. Queen Eleanora now transferred her former partiality for the father, to the son, who had become a noble, martial-looking prince, full of energy, learned, valiant, and enterprising, and ready to undertake any conquest, whether of the heart of the gay queen of the south, or of the kingdom from which he had been unjustly disinherited.

Eleanora acted with her usual disgusting levity, in the advances she made to this youth. Her beauty was still unimpaired, though her character was in low esteem with the world. Motives of interest induced Henry to feign a return to the passion of queen Eleanora; his mother's cause was hopeless in England, and Eleanora assured him that if she could effect a divorce from Louis, her ships and treasures should be at his command, for the subjugation of king Stephen.

The intimacy between Henry and Eleanora soon awakened the displeasure of the king of France, and the prince departed for Anjou. Queen Eleanora immediately made an application for a divorce, under the plea that king Louis was her fourth cousin. It does not appear that he opposed this separation, though it certainly originated from the queen. Notwithstanding the advice of Suger, Louis seems to have accorded heartily with the proposition, and the divorce was finally pronounced, by a council of the church, at Baugenci,¹⁵ March 18, 1152; where the marriage was not dissolved on account of the queen's adultery, as is commonly asserted, but declared invalid because of consanguinity. Eleanora and Louis, with most of their relations, met at Baugenci, and were present when the divorce was pronounced.¹⁶

When the divorce was first agitated, Louis VII. tried the experiment of seizing several of the strongholds in Guienne, but found the power of the south was too strong for him. It is useless for modern historians either to blame or praise Louis VII. for his scrupulous honesty, in restoring to Eleanora her patrimonial dominions; he restored nothing that he was able to keep, excepting her person. Gifford, who never wrote a line without the guide of contemporary chronicles, has made it fully apparent that the queen of the south was a stronger potentate than the king of the north. If the lady of Oc and No, and the lord of Oui and Non, had tried for the mastery, by force of arms, the civilized, the warlike, and maritime Provençal would certainly have raised the banner of St. George and the golden leopards far above the oriflamme of France, and rejoiced at having such fair cause of quarrel with their suzerain, as the rescue of their princess. Moreover, Louis could not detain Eleanora, without defying the decree of the pope.

On her way southward to her own country,¹⁷ Eleanora stayed some time at Blois. The count of this province was Thibaut, elder brother to king Stephen, one of the handsomest and bravest men of his time. Much captivated with the splendour of “the great Provence dower,” Thibaut offered his hand to his fair guest. He met with a refusal, which by no means turned him from his purpose, as he resolved to detain the lady, a prisoner in his fortress, till she complied with his proposal. Eleanora suspected his design, and departed by night, without the ceremony of leave-taking. She embarked on the Loire, and went down the stream to Tours, which was then belonging to the dominions of Anjou.

Here her good luck, or dexterous management, brought her off clear from another mal-adventure. Young Geoffrey Plantagenet, the next brother to the man she intended to marry, had likewise a great inclination to be sovereign of the south. He placed himself in ambush, at a part of the Loire called the Port of Piles, with the intention of seizing the duchess and her train, and carrying her off, and marrying her. “But,” says the chronicler, “Eleanora was pre-warned by her good angel, and she suddenly turned down a branch of the stream southwards, towards her own country.”

Thither Henry Plantagenet, the elder brother of Geoffrey, repaired, to claim the hand which had been promised him months before the divorce.

The celerity with which the marriage of Eleanora followed her divorce, astonished all Europe; for she gave her hand to Henry Plantagenet, duke of Normandy and count of Anjou, only six weeks after the divorce was pronounced. Eleanora is supposed to have been in her thirty-second year, and the bridegroom in his twentieth—a disparity somewhat ominous, in regard to their future matrimonial felicity.

The duchess of Aquitaine and the duke of Normandy were married at Bourdeaux,¹⁸ on May-day, with all the pomp that the luxurious taste of Eleanora, aided by Provençal wealth, could effect. If Henry and Eleanora could have been married a few months earlier, it would have been better for the reputation of the bride, since all chroniclers are very positive in fixing the birth of her eldest son, William,¹⁹ on the 17th of August, 1152, little more than four months after their union, on the first of May. The birth of this boy accounts for the haste with which Eleanora was divorced. Had king Louis detained his unfaithful wife, a dispute might have arisen, respecting the succession to the crown of France.

This child was born in Normandy, whither Henry conveyed Eleanora directly after their marriage, leaving the garrisons of Aquitaine commanded by Norman officers faithful to his interest; a step which was the commencement of his unpopularity, in his wife's dominions.

Louis VII. was much displeased at the marriage of his divorced queen with Henry of Anjou. He viewed with uneasiness, the union of the fair provinces of the south with Anjou and Normandy; and, in order to invalidate it, he actually forbade Henry to marry without his permission, claiming that authority as his feudal lord. His measures, we think, ought to acquit king Louis of the charge of too much righteousness in his political dealings, for which he is blamed by the superficial Voltaire. However, the hostility of Louis, who entered into a league with king Stephen, roused young Henry from the pleasures in which he was spending the first year of his nuptials; and, breaking from his wedded Circe, he obtained, from her fondness, a fleet, for the enforcement of his claims to his rightful inheritance. Eleanora was sovereign of a wealthy maritime country, whose ships were equally used for war and commerce. Leaving his wife and son in Normandy, Henry embarked from Harfleur with thirty-six ships, May, 1153. Without the aid of this Provençal fleet, England would never have reckoned the name of Plantagenet among her royal dynasties.

These circumstances are alluded to, with some dry humour, in the following lines, by Robert of Gloucester:

“In eleven hundred years of grace and forty-one,
Died Geoffrey of Plantagenet, the earl of Anjou.
Henry his son and heir, earl was made thorough
All Anjou, and duke of Normand—much it was his mind
To come and win England, for he was next of kind (kin),
And to help his moder, who was oft in feeble chance.
But he was much acquaint with the queen of France,
Some deal too much, as me weened;
so that in some thing
The queen loved him, as me trowed, more than her lord the king;
So that it was forth put that the king and she
So sibbe were, that they must no longer together be.
The kindred was proved so near, that king Louis there
And Eleanor his queen by the pope departed were.
Some were glad enow, as might be truly seen,
For Henry the empress' son forthwith espoused the queen.
The queen riches enow had under her hand,
Which helped Henry then to war on England.
In the eleventh hundred year and fifty-two
After God on earth came, this spousing was ado;
The next year after that, Henry his power nom (took),
And with six-and-thirty ships to England com.”

There is reason to believe that, at this period, Henry seduced the heart, and won the affections, of the beautiful Rosamond Clifford, under the promise of marriage, as the birth of her eldest son corresponds with Henry's visit to England at this time; for he left England the year before Stephen's death, 1153.²⁰ Henry was busy, laying siege to the castle of one of his rebels in Normandy, when the news of Stephen's death reached him. Six weeks elapsed before he sailed to take possession of his kingdom. His queen and infant son accompanied him. They waited a month at Barfleur, for a favourable wind,²¹ and after all they had a dangerous passage, but landed safely at Osterham, Dec. 8. The king and queen waited at the port for some days, while the fleet, dispersed by the wind, collected. They then went to Winchester,²² where they received the homage of the southern barons.

Theobald archbishop of Canterbury, and some of the chief nobles, came to hasten their appearance in London, “where Henry was,” say the Saxon chroniclers, “received with great honour and worship, and blessed to king the Sunday before Midwinter-day.”

Eleanor and Henry were crowned in Westminster Abbey, December 19, 1154, “after England,” to use the words of Henry of Huntingdon, “had been without a king for six weeks.” Henry's security, during this interval, was owing to the powerful fleet of his queen, which commanded the seas between Normandy and England, and kept all rebels in awe.

The coronation of the king of England, and the luxurious lady of the south, was without parallel for magnificence. Here were seen in profusion mantles of silk and brocade, of a new fashion and splendid texture, brought by queen Eleanora²³ from Constantinople. In the illuminated portraits of this queen, she wears a wimple, or close coif, with a circlet of gems put over it; her kirtle, or close gown, has tight sleeves, and fastens with full gathers, just below the throat, confined with a rich collar of gems. Over this is worn the elegant pelisson, or outer robe, bordered with fur; with very full loose sleeves, lined with ermine, showing gracefully the tight kirtle sleeves beneath. The elegant taste of Eleanora, or, perhaps, her visit to the Greek capital, revived the beautiful costume of the wife of the Conqueror. In some portraits, the queen is seen with her hair braided, and closely wound round the head with jewelled bands. Over all was thrown a square of fine lawn or gauze, which supplied the place of a veil, and was worn precisely like the faziola, still the national costume of the lower orders of Venice. Sometimes this coverchief, or kerchief was drawn over the features, down below the chin; it thus supplied the place of veil and bonnet, when abroad; sometimes it descended but to the brow; just as the wearer was disposed to show or conceal her face. Frequently the coverchief was confined, by the bandeau, or circlet, being placed on the head, over it. Girls before marriage wore their hair in ringlets or tresses on their shoulders. The church was very earnest in preaching against the public display of ladies' hair after marriage.

The long hair of the men likewise drew down the constant fulminations of the church; but after Henry I. had cut off his curls, and forbidden long hair at court, his courtiers adopted periwigs; indeed, if we may judge by the queer effigy on his coins, the handsome Stephen himself wore a wig. Be this as it may, the thunder of the pulpit was instantly levelled at wigs, which were forbidden by a sumptuary law of king Henry.

Henry II. made his appearance, at his coronation, with short hair, mustachios, and shaven chin; he wore a doublet, and short Angevin cloak, which immediately gained for him from his subjects, Norman and English, the sobriquet of Court-mantle. His dalmatica was of the richest brocade, bordered with gold embroidery. At this coronation, ecclesiastics were first seen in England dressed in sumptuous robes of silk and velvet, worked with gold. This was in imitation of the luxury of the Greek church: the splendour of the dresses seen by the queen at Constantinople, occasioned the introduction of this corruption in the western church.

Such was the costume of the court of Eleanora of Aquitaine, queen of England, in the year of her coronation, 1154.

The Christmas festivities were celebrated that year with great pomp, at Westminster Palace; but directly the coronation was over, the king conducted his queen to the palace of Bermondsey, where, after remaining some weeks in retirement, she gave birth to her second son, the last day of February, 1155.

Bermondsey, the first place of Eleanora's residence in England, was, as delineated in its ancient plans, a pastoral village, nearly opposite to London, of a character decidedly Flemish. Rich in well-cultivated gardens, and wealthy velvet meads, it possessed, likewise, an ancient Saxon palace, and a priory then newly built.

Assuredly the metropolis must have presented itself to the view of its foreign queen, from the palace of Bermondsey, with much more picturesque grandeur than it does at present, when its unwieldy size and smoky atmosphere prevent an entire coup d’œil. But at one glance from the opposite bank of the river, the eyes of the fair Provençal could then behold London, her royal city, situated on rising ground from the Thames. It was at that time girdled with an embattled wall, which was studded with gateways, both by water²⁴ and land. The new Tower of London kept guard on the eastern extremity of the city, and the lofty spire of the ancient cathedral presided over the western side, just behind the antique gateway of Ludgate. This gate led to the pleasant road of the river's Strand, ornamented with the Old Temple, its fair gardens and wharf, and interspersed with a few inns,²⁵ or metropolitan dwellings of the nobility, the cultivated grounds of which sloped down to their water-stairs and boat-houses, the Thames being then the highway of London

The Strand road terminated in the majestic palace and abbey of Westminster; the Old Palace, with its yard and gardens, once belonging to St. Edward; and the New Palace, its noble hall and water-stairs, which owed their origin to the Norman dynasty.

Such was the metropolis when Henry II. succeeded to the English crown.

If the example and conduct of the first Provençal queen was neither edifying nor pleasing to her subjects, yet, in a commercial point of view, the connexion of the merchants of England with her Aquitanian dominions was highly advantageous. The wine trade with Bourdeaux became considerable.²⁶ In a few months after the accession of Eleanora, as queen-consort of England, large fortunes were made by the London traders, who imported the wines of Gascony from the port of Bourdeaux;²⁷ and above all (by the example of the maritime cities of Guienne) the shipping of England was governed by the ancient code of laws, called the code of Oleron.

In compliment to his consort Eleanora, Henry II. adopted for his plate-mark the cross of Aquitaine, with the addition of his initial letter. An instance of this curious fact is still to be seen, in the grace-cup of Thomas à Becket.²⁸

The English chose to regard Henry II. solely as the descendant of their ancient Saxon line. “Thou art son,”²⁹ said they, “to the most glorious empress Matilda, whose mother was Matilda Atheling, daughter to Margaret, saint and queen, whose father was Edward, son to king Edmund Ironside, who was great-grandson to king Alfred.”

Such were the expressions of the English, when Henry convened a great meeting of the nobility and chief people, at Wallingford, in March 1155; where, by the advice of his mother, the empress Matilda, (who had learned wisdom from adversity,) he swore to confirm to the English the laws of Alfred and Edward the Confessor, as set forth in the great charter of Henry I. At this grand convocation queen Eleanora appeared, with her eldest son, then in his fourth year, and the infant Henry. The baronage of England kissed the hands of the infants, and vowed to recognise them as the heirs of the English monarchy. A few weeks after this recognition, the queen lost her eldest son, who was buried at Reading, at the feet of his great-grandfather, Henry I.

The principal residences of the court were Winchester Palace, Westminster Palace, and the country palace of Woodstock. The amusements most favoured by queen Eleanora were of a dramatic kind. Besides the Mysteries and Miracles played by the parish clerks and students of divinity, the classic taste of the accomplished Eleanora patronized representations nearly allied to the regular drama; since we find that Peter of Blois,³⁰ in his epistles, congratulates his brother William on his tragedy of Flaura and Marcus, played before the queen. This William was an abbot, but was master of the revels or amusements at court; he composed all the Mysteries and Miracles performed before the queen, at Westminster and Winchester.

It is to Peter of Blois we owe a graphic description of king Henry's person and manners; likewise the picture of his court setting out in progress.

“When king Henry sets out of a morning, you see multitudes of people running up and down as if they were distracted, horses rushing against horses, carriages overturning carriages, players, gamesters, cooks, confectioners, morrice-dancers, barbers, courtesans, and parasites, making so much noise, and, in a word, such an intolerable tumultuous jumble of horse and foot, that you imagine the great abyss hath opened, and that hell hath poured forth all its inhabitants.”

We think this disorderly crew must have belonged to the queen's court, for the sketch given us by the same most amusing author, of king Henry himself, would lead us to suppose that he countenanced no such riotous doings. The chaplain Peter³¹ thus minutely describes king Henry, the husband of Eleanora of Aquitaine, in his letter to the archbishop of Panormitan.

“In praising David the king, it is read that he was ruddy, but you must understand that my lord the king is sub-rufus, or pale-red; his harness (armour) hath somewhat changed his colour. Of middle stature he is, so that among little men seemeth he not much, nor among long men seemeth he over little. His head is round, as in token of great wit, and of special high caunsel the treasury.”

Our readers would scarcely expect phrenological observations in an epistle of the twelfth century, but we faithfully write what we find therein.

“His head is of such quantity, that to the neck, and to all the body, it accordeth by even proportion. His een pykeled (fine), and clear as to colour, while he is of pleased will, but through disturbance of heart, like sparkling fire or lightning with hastiness. His head of curly hair, when clipped square in the forehead, sheweth a lyonous visage, the nostrils even and comely, according to all the other features. High vaulted feet, legs able to riding, broad bust, and long champion arms, which telleth him to be strong, light, and hardy. In a toe of his foot the nail groweth into the flesh, and in harm to the foot over waxeth. His hands through their greatness sheweth negligence, for he utterly leaveth the keeping of them; never, but when he beareth hawks, weareth he gloves. Each day at mass and council, and other open needs of the realm, throughout the whole morning he standeth a foot, and yet when he eateth he never sitteth down. In one day he will, if need be, ride two or three journeys, and thus hath he oft circumvented the plots of his enemies. A huge lover of woods is he, so that when he ceaseth of war he haunteth places of hawking and hunting. He useth boots without folding caps, and homely and short clothes weareth he. His flesh would have charged him with fatness, but with travel and fasting he adaunteth, (keeps it down,) and in riding and going travaileth he mightily his youth. Not as other kings lieth he in his palace, but travelling about by his provinces espieth he the doings of all men. He doometh those that he judges when they do wrong, and punisheth them by stronger judgment than other men. No man more wise in counsel, ne more dreadful in prosperity, ne stedfaster in adversity. When once he loveth, scarcely will he ever hate; when once he hateth, scarcely ever receiveth he into grace. Oft holdeth he in hand swords, bows, and hunting gear, excepting he be at council or at book. When he may rest from worldly business, privily he occupieth himself about learning and reading, and among his clerks asketh he questions. For though your king³² be well y-lettered, (learned,) our king by far is more y-lettered. I, forsooth, in science of letters, know the cunning of them both, ye wotting well that my lord the king of Sicily a whole year was my disciple, and though by you he had the beginning of teaching, yet by me he had the benefit of more full science.³³ And as soon as I went out of Sicily, your king cast away his books, and gave himself up to palatine³⁴ idleness. But, forsooth, our lord the king of England has each day a school for right well lettered men; hence his conversation, that he hath with them, is busy discussing of question. None is more honest than our king in speaking; ne in alms largess. Therefore, as holy writ saith, we may say of him, ‘his name is a precious ointment, and the alms of him all the church shall take.’ ”

Such is the picture of the first of our great Plantagenet monarchs, drawn in minute pencilling, by the man who had known him from his childhood.

It is not a very easy task to reduce to anything like perspicuity the various traditions which float through the chronicles, regarding queen Eleanora's unfortunate rival, the celebrated Rosamond Clifford. No one who studies history ought to despise tradition, for we shall find that tradition is generally founded on fact, even when defective, or regardless of chronology. The learned and accurate Carte has not thought it beneath him, to examine carefully the testimony that exists regarding Rosamond; and we find, from him, that we must confine her connexion with Henry to the two years succeeding his marriage. He has proved that the birth of her youngest son, and her profession as a nun at Godstow, took place within that space of time, and he has proved it from the irrefragable witness of existing charters, of endowments of lands given by the Clifford family to benefit the convent of Godstow, of provision made by Henry II. for her son William Long Espee and his brother, and of benefactions he bestowed on the nunnery of Godstow, because Rosamond had become a votaress therein. It appears that the acquaintance between Rosamond and Henry commenced in early youth, about the time of his knighthood by his uncle the king of Scotland; that it was renewed at the time of his successful invasion of England, when he entered privately into marriage contract³⁵ with the unsuspecting girl; and before he left England, to return to his wife, his noble boy William, surnamed Long Espee, was born. His own words afterwards confirmed this report: “Thou art my legitimate son,” said he to one of the sons of Rosamond, who met him at the head of an armed force, at a time when the rebellion of the princes had distressed him; “and,” continued he, “the rest are bastards.”³⁶ Perhaps these words afford the truest explanation of the mysterious dissensions which perpetually distracted the royal family.

How king Henry excused his perjury, both to Rosamond and the queen, is not explained by chronicle; he seems to have endeavoured, by futile expedients, to keep them both in ignorance of his perfidy.

As Rosamond was retained by him as a prisoner, though not an unwilling one, it was easy to conceal from her the facts, that he had wedded a queen, and brought her to England; but his chief difficulty was to conceal Rosamond's existence from Eleanora, and yet to indulge himself with frequent visits to the real object of his love.

Brompton says, “That one day queen Eleanora saw the king walking in the pleasance of Woodstock, with the end of a ball of floss silk attached to his spur; coming near him unperceived, she took up the ball, and the king walking on, the silk unwound, and thus the queen traced him to a thicket in the labyrinth or maze of the park, where he disappeared. She kept the matter secret, often revolving in her own mind in what company he could meet with balls of silk. Soon after the king left Woodstock for a distant journey; then queen Eleanora, bearing this discovery in mind, searched the thicket in the park, and discovered a low door cunningly concealed; this door she had forced, and found it was the entrance to a winding subterranean path, which led out at a distance to a sylvan lodge in the most retired part of the adjacent forest.” Here the queen found, in a bower, a young lady of incomparable beauty, busily engaged in embroidery.

Queen Eleanora then easily guessed how balls of silk attached themselves to king Henry's spurs. Whatever was the result of the interview between Eleanora and Rosamond, it is certain that the queen did not destroy her rival either by sword or poison, though in her rage it is possible that she might threaten both. That Rosamond was not killed, may be ascertained by the charters before named, which plainly show that she lived twenty years, in great penitence, after her retirement from the king. It is extremely probable that her interview with Eleanora led to her first knowledge that Henry was a married man, and consequently to her profession at Godstow, which took place the second year of Henry's reign. The grand error in the statements regarding Rosamond is the assertion, that she was a young girl seduced and concealed by the king, when he was in advanced life. Now the charters collated by Carte, prove that the acquaintance of Rosamond and Henry commenced in early youth; that they were nearly of the same age, and that their connexion terminated soon after queen Eleanora came to England.

Twenty years afterwards, when Rosamond's death really occurred in her convent, it happened to coincide with Eleanora's imprisonment and disgrace. This coincidence revived the memory of the romantic incidents connected with Henry's love for Rosamond Clifford. The high rank of the real object of the queen's jealousy, at that time, and the circumstances of horror regarding Henry's profligacy, as the seducer of his son's wife, occasioned a mystery at court which no one dared to define. The common people, in their endeavours to guess this state secret, combined the death of the poor penitent at Godstow with Eleanora's imprisonment, and thus the report was raised that Eleanora had killed Rosamond. To these causes we trace the disarrangement of the chronology in the story of Rosamond, which has cast doubts on the truth of her adventures. In Brompton's narrative we find the labyrinth³⁷ at Woodstock, and the clue of silk, famous in the romance and ballad. His chronology of the incidents is decidedly wrong, but the actual events are confirmed by the most ancient authorities.

Queen Eleanora brought her husband a princess in the year 1156; this was the eldest daughter, the princess Matilda.

The next year the queen spent in England. Her celebrated son, Richard Cœur de Lion, was born September 1157, at a palace considered one of the finest in the kingdom, called the Beau Monte, in Oxford. Thus, that renowned University claims the honour of being the birth-place of this great warrior. This palace was afterwards turned into the White Friar's church, and then to a workhouse. The chamber in which Richard was born still remains, a roofless ruin, with some vestiges of a fireplace;³⁸ but such as it is, this fragment is deeply interesting to the English, as the birth-place of a hero of whom they are proud.

Eleanora of Aquitaine, in some passages of her life, appears as one of the most prominent characters of her age: she was very actively employed, either as sovereign of her own dominions, or regent of Normandy, during the period from 1157 to 1172.

Eleanora was crowned a second time at Worcester, with the king, in 1159. When the royal pair came to the oblation, they both took off their crowns, and, laying them on the altar, vowed never to wear them more.

A son was born to Henry and Eleanora, September 23d, after the Worcester coronation: this prince bore the name of the king's father, Geoffrey Plantagenet.

The same year the king betrothed this boy to Constance, the heiress of Conan, duke of Bretagne. The infant Constance was about eighteen months older than the little prince Geoffrey. Henry had made most unjust seizure of Bretagne, by way of conquest; he, however, soothed the independent Bretons, by marrying their infant duchess to his son. His ambitious thirst for extension of empire was not sated by the acquisition of this dukedom; he immediately laid siege to Thoulouse, and, in the name of queen Eleanora, claimed that sovereignty of earl Raymond, who was in possession, and the ally of the king of France. A year was occupied with skirmishing and negotiation, during which time Eleanora acted as queen-regent in England.

Henry sent for his queen to Normandy, in 1160; she went in great state, taking with her prince Henry and her eldest daughter, to meet their father. The occasion of her presence being required, was the marriage of Marguerite, the daughter of her former husband Louis VII. by his second wife, with her young son Henry. Chancellor Becket went, with a magnificent retinue, to Paris, and brought the little bride, aged three years, to the queen at Rouen. Both bride and bridegroom were given, after their marriage, to Becket³⁹ for education; and this extraordinary person inspired, in their young bosoms, an attachment to him, that ended but with their lives.

Queen Eleanora kept her Christmas at Mans, with the king, in great state and splendour, the year of this betrothment.

After a sharp dispute, between Henry II. and Louis VII., relative to the portion of the princess Marguerite, the king of France compromised the matter, by giving the city of Gisors, as a portion, with another infant princess of France, named Alice, in 1162.⁴⁰ This child was in her third year when wedded to prince Richard, who was then seven years old. The little princess was unfortunately consigned to the king of England for education. Two marriages were thus contracted between the daughters of Louis VII., and the sons of his divorced queen; connexions which must seem most extraordinary, when we consider that the father of the brides, and the mother of the bridegrooms, had been married, and were the parents of children, who were sisters to both.

Louis VII. gave his eldest daughter, by queen Eleanora, in marriage to Henry the Large, count of Champagne. It was in this year that king Henry's troubles began with Thomas à Becket, who had, hitherto, been his favourite, his friend, and prime minister.

The contest between the king and Becket, which fills so many folio pages of modern history, must be briefly glanced at here. It was the same quarrel which had agitated England, between Henry I. and Anselm. But England no longer possessed a virtuous daughter of her royal race for a queen, who, keenly feeling the cry of the poor deprived of their lawful provision, mediated between these haughty spirits. The gay, luxurious daughter of the South was occupied with her own pleasures, and heeded not the miseries which the king's sequestrations of benefices brought on the destitute part of the population. Becket appealed to the empress Matilda, the king's mother, who haughtily repulsed his suit. Becket was the son of a London citizen, who had followed Edgar Atheling, on his crusading expedition, and was made prisoner in Syria; he obtained his liberty through the affection of a Syrian lady, an emir's daughter, who followed her lover after his departure, and succeeded in finding him in London, although she knew but two European words, “London” and “Gilbert,” the place of abode, and Christian name, of her lover. The pagan maiden was baptized, by the favourite Norman name of Matilda, and from this romantic union sprang Thomas à Becket, who was remarkable for his learning and brilliant talents, and his fine stature and beauty. The love which Gilbert Becket bore to the race and blood of Alfred, which had sent him crusading with prince Edgar, rendered him the firm partisan of his niece, the empress Matilda.

Young Becket had taken the only road to distinction open to an Anglo-Saxon; yet he was of the church, but not in it; for he was neither priest, nor monk, being rather a church-lawyer than a clergyman. Henry II had distinguished this Anglo-Saxon with peculiar favour, to the indignation of his wife and mother, who warned him against feeling friendship for an Anglo-Saxon serf, with the loathing that the daughters of rajahs might feel for a pariah.

The see of Canterbury having remained vacant a year and a half, Henry urged his favourite to accept it, in hopes that he would connive at his plans, of diverting the revenues of the church, to enrich those of the crown; for this was simply the whole cause of the perpetual contest, between the Anglo-Norman kings, and the archbishops of Canterbury, since the conquest; but as the church supported the destitute poor, it is not difficult to decide which had the moral right. Archdeacon Becket protested that, if he were once a bishop, he must uphold the rights of the church; but the king still insisted on investing him with the archbishopric. The night before his consecration, at supper, he told the king that this archbishopric would place an eternal barrier between their friendship. Henry would not believe it. Becket was consecrated priest one day, and was invested as archbishop of Canterbury the next. To the annoyance of the king, he instantly resigned his chancellorship, and became a firm champion for the rights of his see.

For seven years, the contest between Becket and Henry continued, during which time we have several events to note; and to conclude the history of the empress Matilda.

She was left regent of Normandy by her son, which country she governed with great wisdom, and kept in a peaceful state; but she never returned to England.

In the year 1165, king Louis VII. gave the princess Alice, his youngest daughter, by queen Eleanora, in marriage to the count of Blois, but, at the same time, endowed him with the office of high-seneschal of France, which was the feudal right to Henry II., as count of Anjou. Henry violently resented this disposal of his office; and the empress his mother, who foresaw the rising storm, and who had been thoroughly satiated with the horrors of war in her youth, wrote to pope Alexander, begging him to meet her, to mediate between the angry kings.

The pope obeyed the summons of the royal matron, and the kings met Matilda, and the pontiff at Gisors. The differences between Becket and Henry II. had then risen to a fearful height. It appears that Matilda was charged, by the pope, with a commission of peace-making, between Becket and his royal master. Emboldened by the mandate of the pope, Becket once more referred to the empress Matilda, as the mediator between the church and her son, and no more met with repulse.

We have seen the disgust, with which Matilda recoiled from any communication with Becket, as the son of a Saxon villein; nevertheless, this great man, by means of his eloquent epistles, was beginning to exercise the same dominion over the mind of the haughty empress, that he did over every living creature with whom he communicated. Henry II., alarmed at his progress, sent to his mother a priest named John of Oxford, who was charged to inform her of many particulars derogatory to Becket's moral character—events probably that happened during his gay and magnificent career, as chancellor and archdeacon.

The death of the duke of Bretagne had called Henry II. to take possession of that duchy, in the name of the infant duchess Constance, and her betrothed lord, his son Geoffrey, when the news arrived of the death of the empress Matilda, which occurred September 10, 1167. The mother of Henry II. was deeply regretted in Normandy, where she was called “the lady of the English.” She governed Normandy with discretion and moderation, applying her revenues wholly to the benefit of the common weal, and many public works.⁴¹ Her partiality for bridge-building is the only point of resemblance between her actions and those of her mother. While regent of Normandy, she applied her private revenues to building the magnificent stone bridge, of thirteen arches, over the Seine, called Le Grand Pont. The construction of this bridge was one of the wonders of the age, being built with curved piers, to humour the rapid current of the river. The empress built and endowed three monasteries; among these was the magnificent structure of St. Ouen. She resided chiefly at the palace of Rouen, with occasional visits to the abbey of Bec.

Matilda was interred, with royal honours, in the abbey of Bec, before the altar of the Virgin. Her son left his critical affairs in Bretagne to attend her funeral. He raised a stately marble tomb to her memory; upon it was the following epitaph, whose climax tends rather to advance the glory of the surviving son, than the defunct mother:—

“Great born, great married, greater brought to bed,
Here Henry's daughter, wife, and mother's laid.”(42)

Here her body remained till the year 1282, when the abbey church of Bec being rebuilt, the workmen discovered it, wrapped up in an oxhide. The coffin was taken up, and, with great solemnity, re-interred in the middle of the chancel, before the high altar. The ancient tomb was removed to the same place, and, with the attention the church of Rome ever showed to the memory of a foundress, erected over the new grave. This structure falling to decay, in the seventeenth century, its place was supplied by a fine monument of brass, with a pompous inscription.

The character of this celebrated ancestress of our royal line was as much revered by the Normans, as disliked by the English. Besides Henry II., she was the mother of two sons, Geoffrey and William, who both preceded her to the grave.

Queen Eleanora was resident, during these events, at the palace of Woodstock, where prince John was born, in the year 1166.

Henry completed the noble hall of the palace of Rouen,⁴³ begun by Henry I., and nearly finished by the empress Matilda. He sent for queen Eleanora, from England, to bring her daughter, the princess Matilda, that she might be married to her affianced lord, Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony. The nuptial feast was celebrated in the newly-finished hall of Rouen Palace, first opened for this stately banquet, 1167.

Queen Eleanora was left regent of Normandy by her royal lord; but the people, discontented at the loss of the empress Matilda, rebelled against her authority; which insurrection obliged Henry to come to the aid of his wife.

Guienne and Poitou became in a state of revolt soon after.⁴⁴ The people, who earnestly desired Eleanora, their native princess, to govern them, would not be pacified till Henry brought his queen, and left her at Bourdeaux, with her son Richard. Henry, the heir of England, was entitled the duke of Guienne; but for Eleanora's favourite son, Richard, was intended the county of Poitou, subject to vassalage to his brother and father. This arrangement quieted the discontents of Aquitaine. The princess Marguerite, the young wife of prince Henry, was left in Guienne, with her mother-in-law, while Henry II. and his heir proceeded to England, then convulsed with the disputes between church and state, carried on by Becket. Queen Eleanora and prince Richard remained at Bourdeaux, to the satisfaction of the people of the South, who were delighted with the presence of their reigning family, although the Norman deputies of king Henry still continued to exercise all the real power of the government.

The heart of Henry's son and heir still yearned to his old tutor, Becket—an affection which the king beheld with jealousy. In order to wean his son from this attachment, in which the young princess Marguerite fully shared, Henry II. resolved, in imitation of the Capetian royal family, to have his son crowned king at Westminster Abbey, and to associate him in the government.

“Be glad, my son,”⁴⁵ said Henry II. to his son, at this coronation, when he set the first dish on the table, at the coronation banquet; “there is no prince in Europe has such a sewer⁴⁶ at his table!”

“No great condescension for the son of an earl to wait on the son of a king,” replied the young prince, aside to the earl of Leicester.

The princess Marguerite was not crowned at the same time with her husband;⁴⁷ she remained in Aquitaine, with her mother-in-law, queen Eleanora. Her father, the king of France, was enraged at this slight offered to his daughter, and flew to arms to avenge the affront. Yet it was no fault of king Henry, who had made every preparation for the coronation of the princess, even to ordering her royal robes to be in readiness. But when Marguerite found that Becket, the guardian of her youth, was not to crown her, she perversely refused to share the coronation of her husband.

The character of Henry II., during the long strife that subsisted between him and his former friend, had changed from the calm heroism portrayed by Peter of Blois; he had given way to fits of violence, agonizing to himself, and dangerous to his health. It was said, that when any tidings came, of the contradiction of his will by Becket, he would tear his hair, and roll on the ground with rage, grasping handsful of rushes, in the paroxysms of his passion.⁴⁸

It was soon after one of these frenzies of rage, that, in 1170, he fell ill,⁴⁹ at Domfront, in Maine: he then made his will, believing his end approaching. To his son Henry, he left England, Normandy, Maine, and Anjou; to Richard he left the Aquitanian dominions; Geoffrey had Bretagne, in right of his wife, while John was left dependent on his brothers. From this order of affairs John obtained the nickname of Lackland, first given him by Henry himself, in jest, after his recovery.

During a fit of penitence, when he thought himself near death, Henry sought reconciliation with Becket; but when fresh contradictions arose, between the archbishop and the king, in one of those violent accessions of fury described above, Henry unfortunately demanded, in his rage, before the knights who attended in his bedchamber,⁵⁰ “Whether no man loved him enough to revenge the affronts he perpetually received from an insolent priest?”

On this hint, Fitz-Urse, Tracey, Britton, and Morville, slaughtered Becket, before the altar in his cathedral, the last day of the year 1171.

Notes

1. Atlas Géographique.

2. Sismondi's Literature of the South

3. Rer. Script. de Franc.; likewise Suger.

4. Suger. Ordericus Vitalis.

5. Called Le Jeune, to distinguish him from his father Louis VI., who caused his son to be crowned in his lifetime.

6. Montaigne, who speaks from his own local traditions of the south, asserts that duke William lived in his hermitage, at Montserrat, ten or twelve years, wearing as a penance for his youthful sins, his armour under his hermit's weeds. It is said by others, that he died as a hermit, in a grotto at Florence, after having macerated his body by tremendous penances, and established the severe Order of the Guillemines.

7. To this great prince, the ancestor, through Eleanora of Aquitaine, of our royal line, may be traced armorial bearings, and a war-cry, whose origin has not a little perplexed the readers of English history. The patron saint of England, St. George, was adopted from the Aquitaine dukes, as we find, from the MS. of the French herald, Gilles de Bonnier, that the duke of Aquitaine's mot, or war-cry, was, “St. George for the puissant duke.” His crest was a leopard: and his descendants in England bore leopards on their shields till after the time of Edward I. Edward III. is called “valiant pard” in his epitaphs; and the emperor of Germany sent Henry III, a present of three leopards, expressly saying they were in compliment and allusion to his armorial bearings.

8. Suger. cited bv Gifford.

9. Sismondi.

10. Nostradamus's History of Frovence, and Du Chesne

11. William of Tyre, Odo, and Suger.

12. William of Tyre.

13. In the collection of Du Chesne, which has furnished much of the information in this narrative.

14. Vie de Gaufred, Duc de Normand.

15. Sir Harris Nicolas' Chronology of History.

16. Bouquet des Histoires.

17. Script. Rer. Franc.

18. See Gervase. Brompton.

19. Toone's Chronological History gives this date: it is supported by Sandford and Speed from chronicles, and the assertion of Robert of Gloucester in the following words:—Henry was acquaint with the queen of France some deal too much, as me weened.”

20. His proceedings in England have been detailed in the preceding biography.

21. Brompton.

22. Sir Harris Nicolas' Chronology of History.

23. It is said she introduced the growth of silk in her southern dominions, a benefit attributed to Henry the Great; but in the murderous civil wars of France this art might have been lost.

24. Dowgate and Billingsgate.

25. Inn was not, in early times, a word used for a house of public entertainment. Its original signification was a temporary abode in London, used by abbot, bishop, or peer.

26. Anderson's History of Commerce.

27. “The land,” says one of the malcontent Saxon chroniclers, “became full of drink and drunkards.” Claret was 4d. per gallon at this time. Gascon wine in general sold at 20s. per tun.

28. This cup formerly belonged to the Arundel Collection, and was given by Bernard Edward, the late duke of Norfolk, to H. Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle, who thus became the possessor of this highly-prized relic of Eleanora's era. The cross of Aquitaine somewhat resembles the Maltese cross; the cup is of ivory mounted with silver, which is studded on the summit and base with pearls and precious stones. The inscription round the cup is, Vinum tuum bibe cum gaudio,—“Drink thy wine with joy;” but round the lid, deeply engraved, is the restraining injunction, Sobrii estote, with the initials T. B. interlaced with a mitre, the peculiarly low form of which stamps the antiquity of the whole.

29. Ailred Chrome’e.

30. Or Petrus Blesensis, who was born 1120, at the city of Blois, of a noble family. This person was the very first who ever used the word transubstantiation. He was preceptor to William II. of Sicily, 1157; was invited to England by Henry II. and made his chaplain, and archdeacon of Bath, likewise private secretary to the king. He spent some years at the court of England, and died about the end of the twelfth century. He wrote about one hundred and thirty letters, in the most lively and individualizing style. These he collected and perpetuated, by making many copies, at the express desire of his royal master, Henry II.

31. As edited by Hearne.

32. The king of Sicily, William the Good, afterwards Henry the Second's son-in-law.

33. By this passage it appears that Peter Blois had been the tutor to Henry II. and to the king of Sicily.

34. The idleness and luxuries of the palace.

35. Carte. Brompton. Boswell's Antiquities.

36. Lingard.

37. As to the labyrinth or maze at Woodstock, it most likely existed before the time of Rosamond, and remained after her death, since all pleasances or gardens in the middle age were contrived with this adjunct. Traces of them exist to this day, in the names of places near defunct royal palaces; witness Mazehill at Greenwich, (near the site of the maze or labyrinth of Greenwich Palace,) and the Maze in Southwark, once part of the garden of the princess Mary Tudor's palace. We have evidence that Edward III. (between whom and the death of Rosamond little more than a century intervened) familiarly called a structure pertaining to Woodstock Palace, Rosamond's Chamber, the locality of which he minutely describes in a letter preserved in the Fœdera, vol. iv. p. 629. In this document he directs William de Montacute to order various repairs at his manor of Woodstock, and that the house beyond the gate in the new wall be built again, and that same chamber, called Rosamond's Chamber, to be restored as before, and crystal plates, and marble, and lead to be provided for it. Here is indisputable proof that there was a structure called Rosamond's Chamber, distinct from Woodstock Palace, yet belonging to its domein, being a building situated beyond the park wall. Edward III. passed the first years of his marriage principally at Woodstock, therefore he well knew the localities of the place; which will agree with the old chroniclers, if we suppose Rosamond's residence was approached by a tunnel under the park wall.

38. Boswell's Antiquities.

39. The secular education and support of the little princess, was consigned to Robert de Newburgh, one of Henry the Second's barons, who engaged to guard her person, and bring up the princess Marguerite in a manner befitting her royal birth.

40. Louis had two daughters of that name,—one by Eleanora, and this child by his second queen. Alice of Champagne.

41. Ducarel's Normandy.

42. “Ortu magna, viro major, sed maxima partu, Hic jacet Henrici filia, sponsa, parens.”

43. Thierry.

44. Tyrrell.

45. Hoveden.

46. This being one of the functions of the grand seneschal of France, which Henry had to perform, as his feudal service, at the coronation of a king of France, as count of Anjou, led to his performing the same office at his son's banquet.

47. Peter of Blois.

48. Hoveden.

49. Brompton. Gervase. Hoveden.

50. Fitz-Stephen calls the four who murdered the archbishop, the barons or servants of the king's bedchamber.