Guest Post by Anne O'Brien + 2 Copy Giveaway of Queen Defiant: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine

In honor of the release of Queen Defiant: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine, I am pleased to bring you a guest post by author Anne O'Brien!  Queen Defiant will be out in bookstores tomorrow, so please help me wish Anne a fabulous publication day!

In addition to the lovely article on Eleanor of Aquitaine and her female ancestors, Anne has also graciously offered up 2 copies of Queen Defiant to my lucky readers (and the giveaway is international!), so be sure to sign up at the end of this post.

Take it away Anne....

  Know Your Ancestress ...

The power of women ... (even in the twelfth century)

Is this Eleanor of Aquitaine? I like to think so. I like this depiction of her, and can imagine Eleanor with her crown and lively face and her vibrant uncovered hair. She is not shy. Her raised hand suggests that she is not slow to draw attention to herself. Her gown and mantle are richly coloured. This is the very confident, spirited Eleanor who went crusading against the wishes of her husband Louis VII and demanded an annulment of their marriage.

Eleanor of Aquitaine was heiress to one of the richest domains in medieval Europe. As I was to discover when researching QUEEN DEFIANT, the men in Eleanor’s family were an interesting bunch, both famous and notorious. They gave strong government, went on Crusade, they waged war on their neighbours and made Aquitaine into the most sophisticated and civilized court in all of western Europe. But more importantly, they married strong minded women. This was Eleanor’s true inheritance. How Eleanor must have enjoyed the tales of her female ancestors ...

There was Azalais, back in the shadowy past long before Eleanor, when life was even more chancy than my heroine discovered it to be. A widowed Countess from the Toulouse branch of the family, she saved her country from invasion by landless riff-raff backed by troops of brigands, by selling herself and her land in marriage to the King of the Franks. We do not know if she enjoyed the experience, but she obviously thought it worth her while. A lady of initiative. Perhaps Eleanor saw in Azalais a lesson for her own marrying to safeguard her beloved Aquitaine.

Emma was wife to William the IV of Aquitaine in the tenth century, and was definitely made of sterner stuff than most women. She must have earned all Eleanor’s admiration. Driven to outrage, Emma embarked on a relentless campaign against her hunting, carousing, drunkenly lecherous husband, and she left him. But not before poisoning his paramours, undermining his good relations with the Church, and finally driving him to take refuge from her and the threat of eternal damnation for his sins in a monastery. Which left Emma to rule Aquitaine alone in the name of her young son, another William. Clearly a lady of remarkable self-confidence and determination. As was Eleanor.

Philippa of Toulouse was Eleanor’s paternal grandmother. Spirited, high minded and unbending, she lived by the principles of duty and obedience to God - until she discovered that her husband William the IX – the Troubadour - had abducted and was living openly with his lover under Philippa’s very nose, in Philippa’s own favourite palace in Poitiers. Philippa complained bitterly to the Pope, but to no avail, and Philippa retired to spend her final days with the nuns at the Abbey of Fontevrault. I do not think Eleanor would have done this. She would not have left the field, but would have waged war against her neglectful husband who dared humiliate her. Eleanor was more likely to make use of Emma’s lethal methods against the upstart whore who usurped her bed.

Yet I imagine Philippa had her moments of satisfaction. Bitter but powerless to seek revenge, she became a close friend to Duke William’s first abandoned wife Ermengarde, also living out her days in disgruntled seclusion in Fontevrault. I imagine they had some salacious tales to swap over a cup of wine, as women will, over Duke William’s morals, his poor judgement when dealing with the female sex, and not least his physical prowess. Sadly for her, Eleanor never knew her.

And Duke William’s infamous whore? This was Dangerosa - a name to conjure with! – who became Eleanor’s maternal grandmother and the most notorious woman in Aquitaine. Originally she was wife to the Viscount of Chatellerault, but presumably saw Duke William IX in full glory of mail and weaponry, and fell in love. So did William, and took measures to satisfy his lust. He abducted Dangerosa from her marital bedchamber - with no obvious protest on Dangerosa’s part - and carried her off to his palace at Poitiers where he established her in the newly constructed Maubergeonne Tower. They were besotted with each other, making no secret of their sinful union. Dangerosa raised her chin at the world’s condemnation of her abandoning husband and children, while Duke William had the lady’s portrait painted on the face of his shield. It was, he boasted, his desire to bear her likeness into battle, as she had borne the weight of his body so willingly and frequently in bed. Eleanor’s grandfather had a strong streak of coarse humour. As for Dangerosa, she never regretted her choice: she remained his mistress until his death. The date of her own death is uncertain but Eleanor would have known her. I wonder what they talked about.

Eleanor’s own mother Aenor did not fit the mould, by all accounts a timid, mouse-like creature who did as she was told without complaint. But there were extenuating circumstances, and I found it easy to have sympathy with her, because Aenor was Dangerosa’s daughter. If Dangerosa could not get Duke William legally into her bed, then her daughter Aenor would get William’s son by Philippa. Eleanor’s family tree is nothing if not complicated. Thus Aenor was wed to William the X, who would become Eleanor’s father; Dangerosa keeping it in the family, if you will. Poor Aenor! Abandoned by a mother who ran off with her lover, bedded by a husband who viewed his father’s mistress’s daughter with less than enthusiasm, Aenor even gave up on life before her time. She died when Eleanor was eight years old: my heroine’s memory of her would have been very incomplete.

And finally here is Eleanor herself, painted in later life in a fresco in the Chapel of St. Radegonde at Chinon where Henry Plantagenet imprisoned her for long months at a time.

Supremely regal, her hair free-flowing and wearing an impressive crown as she rides beside her daughter Joanna, Eleanor is being led away by Henry to imprisonment. I find this a very poignant and moving scene of Eleanor in her mature years. Her face is solemn and strained but she is still very much in control, still the feisty, shocking, intemperate, strong-willed and vital girl who first wed Louis VII. How could she not be, with such an amazing collection of females in her blood?

Painting a picture of Eleanor’s astonishing life and adventures in QUEEN DEFIANT has been for me the greatest of pleasures.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

 

SYNOPSIS

A riveting novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine's early adult years from the author of The Virgin Widow.

Orphaned at a young age, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, seeks a strong husband to keep her hold on the vast lands that have made her the most powerful heiress in Europe. But her arranged marriage to Louis VII, King of France, is made disastrous by Louis's weakness of will and fanatical devotion to the Church. Eleanor defies her husband by risking her life on an adventurous Crusade, and even challenges the Pope himself. And in young, brilliant, mercurial Henry d'Anjou, she finds her soul mate-the one man who is audacious enough to claim her for his own and make her Queen of England.

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY!

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting on Facebook.  You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on June 16th.

Thanks to Anne O'Brien for the intriguing guest post and for providing the giveaway copies.  

Good luck to all!