A comprehensive account of the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The wife of King Louis VII of France and then of King Henry II of England and mother to Richard Coeur de Lion and King John, she became a key political figure of the 12th century. Eleanor's long life inspired a number of legends. At 25 she set out for the Holy Land as a Crusader and at 78 she crossed the Pyreness to Spain to fetch the granddaughter whose marriage would be, she hoped, a pledge of peace between England and France. Marion Meade portrays Eleanor of Aquitaine as a woman of great intelligence and titanic energy who lived...