Book description
A special bundle of one fiction and one non-fiction title from
bestselling historian Alison Weir, both exploring the life of Eleanor
of Aquitaine.
The Captive Queen:
It is the year 1152 and a beautiful woman of thirty, attended by
only a small armed escort, is riding southwards through what is now
France, leaving behind her crown, her two young daughters and a
shattered marriage to Louis of France, who had been more like a monk
than a king, and certainly not much of a lover. This woman is Eleanor,
Duchess of Aquitaine, and her sole purpose now is to return to her
vast duchy and marry the man she loves, Henry Plantagenet, a man
destined for greatness as King of England. Theirs is a union founded
on lust which will create a great empire stretching from the wilds of
Scotland to the Pyrenees. It will also create the devil's brood of
Plantagenets - including Richard Cour de Lion and King John - and the
most notoriously vicious marriage in history.
Eleanor of Aquitaine:
Wife of Louis VII of France and subsequently of Henry II of England
and mother of Richard the Lionheart, Eleanor played a prominent part
in the politics of the 12th century. In her biography, Alison Weir
brings all the colour and ever-present dangers of Eleanor's world to
life, filling the text with absorbing background detail and revelatory
contemporary anecdotes. The result is a fresh and thoughtful
perspective on the energetic 82 years of life of a determined and
ambitious woman living with the sexism, excesses and violence of a
society in which the word of a single man could condemn thousands to
be put to death.
Alison Weir is one of Britain's foremost popular historians and
novelists. Her books include Britain's Royal Families, The Six
Wives of Henry VIII, Children of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine,
Henry VIII: King and Court and Mary, Queen of Scots.
www. alisonweir. org. uk
