000			02240nam a22002057a 4500
003			PMNP
005			20250617090248.0
008			250617b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a978-1526743107
040			_aPMNP _beng _cKutubkhanah Diraja
082			_a942.03109252
100			_93575 _aBoyd, Douglas
245			_aPlantagenet Princesses: _bThe Daughters of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II _cDouglass Boyd
260			_aUSA _bPen and Sword History _c2020
300			_a242p _c6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
520			_aThe names of few medieval monarchs and their queens are better known than Eleanor of Aquitaine, uniquely queen of France and queen of England, and her second husband Henry II. Although academically labeled ‘medieval’, their era was the violent transition from the Dark Ages, when countries’ borders were defined with fire and sword. Henry grabbed the English throne thanks largely to Eleanor’s dowry because she owned one third of France. Their daughters also lived extraordinary lives. If princes fought for their succession to crowns, the princesses were traded – usually by their mothers – to strangers for political power without the bloodshed. Years before what would today be marriageable age, royal girls were dispatched to countries whose speech was unknown to them and there became the property of unknown men; their duty the bearing of sons to continue a dynasty and daughters who would be traded in their turn. Some became literal prisoners of their spouses; others outwitted would-be rapists and the Church to seize the reins of power when their husbands died. Eleanor’s daughters Marie and Alix were abandoned in Paris when she divorced Louis VII of France. By Henry II, she bore Matilda, Aliénor and Joanna. Between them, these extraordinary women and their daughters knew the extremes of power and pain. Joanna was imprisoned by William II of Sicily and worse treated by her brutal second husband in Toulouse. If Eleanor was libeled as a whore, Aliénor’s descendants include two saints, Louis of France and Fernando of Spain. And then there were the illegitimate daughters, whose lives read like novels
650		0	_9336 _aBiography
942			_2ddc _cBK _n0
999			_c3390 _d3390