Mother of a Dynasty: Eleanor of Aquitaine
It was just a matter of time before the clever and ambitious couple began to find themselves in opposition, in part due to Henry's philandering. They had been estranged for some time. Eleanor had returned to Poitiers with her favorite son, Richard, and established the Courts of Love. A great patron of the arts, Eleanor ruled her province as well as she could, but was hampered by the "advisors" her husband had foised on her. They were determined to run Aquitaine the way Henry decreed, and an explosion was inevitable. In 1173, she led her three oldest sons in a rebellion against Henry, a surprising act of aggression from a woman. Henry was so angry that he locked Eleanor up in Salisbury for 16 years, while he struggled to control his fractious sons. Then, their oldest living son Henry "the Young King", died in 1183 and the succession was thrown open: Eleanor wanted the throne for Richard, who was next in line, while Henry wanted John, their youngest son.
In the remaining six years of his life, Henry II fended off repeated combinations of Richard, Geoffrey (the forgotten middle son), Phillip Augustus of France and John. Sometimes they fought each other, sometimes they joined forces against Henry, but in his last years Henry's French lands were turned into battlefields. Upon Henry's death in 1189, Richard I claimed the throne and took control. He freed his mother from Salisbury, and left her as regent of England while he took up the cross of the Third Crusade.
Most of Richard’s reign was spent abroad. He had little use for England other than as a treasury from which he could finance his wars. Eleanor, by now Regent of England, was instrumental in supplying her golden son with whatever he needed. After the Third Crusade ended without taking Jerusalem, the Holy Roman Emperor captured Richard as he made his way overland to France. Using the king as a hostage, the Emperor extorted a huge ransom from the English, and it was Eleanor who raised it.
She was tireless, even though she was already in her sixties, a venerable age for that time. She traversed the Pyranees to procure a bride for Richard, Berengaria of Navarre, and brought the princess to her son in Sicily. During the period of 1190 - 1194, she ably defended Richard's kingdom from those who wished him ill. Richard had ordered Geoffrey's posthumous son Arthur
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