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Contributed by:
Jean Croissant
After her first trouble marriage with Louis VII who officially divorced her for consanguinity reason, (Read also Louis VII and his wife Eleonore) she married barely 8 weeks after her divorce, Henry master of most of today's France. With Eleanor's support Henry became King of England too in 1154. Although Eleanor's first marriage had resulted in only two daughters, Eleanor bore the King Henry II five sons and three daughters. As the children grew up and Henry openly took mistresses, the couple grew apart.
Eleanor was 44 years old, when she gave birth to their youngest son, John Lackland. By then she had discovered the existence of Rosamund Clifford, the most famous of Henry's mistresses.
Later Henry arranged a fiancee for his homosexual son Richard Coeur de Lion. She was a daughter of Louis VII and his second wife. While she was educated at the English court, her fiancee ignored her and his father, Henry, seduced her.
in 1173, Richard Coeur de Lion and Jean Sans Terre decided to go against their father the King of England ; Eleanor backed them (also to revenge the king's mistresses) and was subsequently imprisoned by Henry until his death in 1189.
She stayed secluded in a convent for several long years until her son Richard Coeur de Lion became a king and delivered her from her punishment.
When he went on crusade, Eleanor became regent for Richard Coeur de Lion. Although Richard was a homosexual, he was supposed to provide England with heirs, so Eleanor escorted his bride-to-be to Sicily.
When Richard was killed in 1199, Eleanor returned to Aquitaine and retired in the abbey of Fontevraud. She remained busy and active and personally arranged the marriage of her Castilian granddaughter to the grandson of Louis VII.
She lived to be about 82 , an extraordinary age in the middle ages.
Her Tums is in the Abbey of Fontevrault.
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