Eleanor of Aquitaine

The only woman to ever sit the thrones of both France and England and Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right while still a child. Eleanor married Louis VII and effectively doubled the size of France by bringing her dower property under France’s umbrella.Eleanor accompanied Louis on the Second Crusade, leading her company of women who all wore cherry red boots. That Crusade was as doomed as their marriage, however, and after fifteen years, Louis was granted an annulment. Two months later, she married Henry II of England and gave birth to five sons and three daughters, most notably, Richard the Lionheart and his disastrous brother, John. Being the daughter of one of the foremost troubadours of their time, it should come as no surprise that Eleanor was herself, a great patron of the arts, sponsoring two of the great poetry movements of her time. The Courtly Love tradition was still an active part of European tradition well into the Tudor era and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britan