In the sweeping pageant of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Weir convincingly debunks some of the more salacious fables about Eleanor's libertine ways. First Edition thus, with frontispiece and 24 pages of coloured plates; pictorial cloth, upper board and backstrip blocked and lettered in red and black, a fine copy in publisher's board slip-case.

Her example teaches us to celebrate the wisdom and ability of older people, and to aim for an active and fulfilling life for as long as we are able. In 1142, after being again accused of heresy and retiring to the Abbey of Cluny, Abelard died at the priory of St Marcel near Chalon, aged sixty-three. Alison Weir has written a vivid biography which is also an impressive piece of detective work, for she has scrutinised the evidence to produce a credible and balanced account of the life of an extraordinary woman. Caird's production will include two choirboys from Westminister Abbey who will sing songs written by John Cameron. All the same, in history, Henry II did indeed have a beautifully decorated tomb constructed for Rosamund at Godstow Nunnery, Oxford, where she died in 1176 or 7.For centuries, portrayals of Eleanor reflected the legends that grew up in her own time and in the century after her death. Heloise was the beautiful niece of Fulbert, a wealthy, cunning and miserly canon of Notre Dame in Paris.

The site of these ponds now lies mostly beneath the lake made by Capability Brown for the dukes of Marlborough, although some uneven ground along the lakeside around the spring conceals the foundations of the medieval buildings. A remarkable portrait of Eleanor as the subject of a thousand conversations, this book gives us the queen who haunted the listeners of troubadour songs, shone in the biographies of famous knights, and burned from the acid pens of her enemies. A: Alison Weir's Eleanor of Aquitaine, a bottle of Champagne that refilled itself and my little rehomed papillon, Rene. In 1981 I put forward an idea for a biography of the Princess of Wales but it was considered too short to be a commercial venture, and that people would lose interest in her!Two tombs with effigies - Henry II and Richard I - at either side of the high altar, on which stands a crucifix. As he is speaking, the lights dim and ALL PLAYERS EXCEPT ELEANOR AND LOUIS exit to left and right, in formal procession. He tells, in graphic detail, of the dreadful massacre at Vitry, for which he says he will never forgive himself. There was nothing as such in the writing of Elizabeth I, but I felt its success opened the door to my writing a biography of Eleanor, an idea I had been trying to sell to my publishers for about eight years! Above all, there is the heroine, viewed clear-sightedly in all her intoxicating and imperious irresistibility.

Very many people have a great love of history, and if the recounting of deeds past in a conscientious and accessible way brings them pleasure, then I account my task well done.

She was distrustful of her younger half-sister, Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn, and when a serious rebellion broke out against the Catholic Mary`s proposed marriage to Philip of Spain, the Queen suspected the Protestant Elizabeth of supporting the insurgents. Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine was one of the leading personalities of the Middle Ages, and also one of the most controversial.

The fragments of information we have do not give us a whole picture, so I have had to infer my conclusions from what is available. Eleanor of Aquitaine will be published as a beautifully bound limited edition by The Folio Society in 2015, with new colour illustrations. Her marriage to Henry II saw the establishment of a great Plantagenet empire, but their early passion gave way to a stormy and tempestuous relationship.DJ glossy and colorfully designed, an illustration with queen in light blue and top front and spine top, stained glass windown at bottom front, horse at top front, purple back. Behind LOUIS, in a line stretching to the left of the stage, kneel three KNIGHTS, similarly clad and positioned. The King, providentially was sleeping with his Queen, Eleanor of Provence, and fortunately, one of her ladies was sitting up late, `reading her psalter by the light of a candle`. Much of what we know about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and then Queen of England, we know from recorded rumor—gossip often qualified by the curious phrase “it was said,” or the love songs, ballads, and romances that gossip inspired. Katherine announced her last pregnancy to him here in 1518, and Henry was so overjoyed that he gave a great banquet to celebrate the child`s quickening – but sadly, the baby, a daughter, died soon after birth, leaving the King without a son to succeed him.