Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the most powerful figures of the medieval world: twice a queen, a crusader, a rebel and the architect of an empire. Through her marriages to Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, she helped create the vast Angevin Empire and reshape European politics. She led forces on the Second Crusade, rebelled against her husband and played a decisive role in the rise of her sons, including Richard the Lionheart and King John. Historian Dr Elena Janega, host of Gone Medieval, joins the podcast to explore Eleanor’s extraordinary life - from the vibrant court of Aquitaine and the failure of the Second Crusade, to her dramatic divorce, imprisonment, and enduring political influence. This episode reveals how Eleanor’s authority and intelligence held a volatile dynasty together until her death. Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore. Listen to Richard the Lionheart. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/richard-the-lionheart/id1042631089?i=1000714361834 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Pm3oWHAeOHfzLdufvqlDS?si=ZKlCSV_YRwGvS64dQCiWzg Listen to The Greatest Knight That Ever Lived: William the Marshal. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-greatest-knight-that-ever-lived-william-the-marshal/id1042631089?i=1000726107916 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5h09dhQsoEN3MEPUGmPyLL?si=ZV4Z4gMDRtKaRBiK2Pmmfg We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6 Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 0:32Speaker 01

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• 1:15Speaker 01

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• 1:29Dan Snow?

  If you want a job done properly, get a woman to do it. That seems to me the unanswerable lesson of that wild ride, that wild period in Western European history, which was the late 12th and early 13th century. The era of the Angevin Empire, the era of the Lionheart, the Soft Sword, the Road to Magna Carta, the era, we should call it, of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Kings loved her, men died for her. She redrew the map of medieval Europe. She was the only woman to be crowned both Queen of France and England. She marched on the Second Crusade to the Holy Land. She led a coup against her own husband. Even the Pope feared her.

• 2:15Dan Snow?

  Eleanor of Aquitaine was the beating heart. She was the matriarch of that most powerful and explosive families, the Plantagenets. Her wealth from Aquitaine bankrolled kings, her patronage shaped courtly culture, and her children, what can you say about her children, including Richard the Lionheart and King John, they ruled and they rebelled and they quarrelled and conquered and were defeated. She was twice a queen, she was mother of monarchs, she was the glue that held Europe's most unlikely empire together. Eleanor's story is the story of one of Europe's most dramatic periods. Now, take us through it. I am joined by the medieval queen of history, Hit, the historian, the host, the frankly

• 2:58Dan Snow?

  online phenomenon, that is the Gone Medieval podcast host, Dr. Eleanor Janiger. This is Dan Snow's History Hit, and this is the story of one of history's most powerful and dysfunctional dynasties, and the queen at the centre of it all. And to tell us about it, we have the queen. And just to let you know, some of the stuff we chat about in this episode maybe isn't suitable for listening with kids.

• 3:41Dan Snow?

  Eleanor Janiger, good to have you back on the podcast.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Dan, you can't stop me.

• 3:45Dan Snow?

  You and I have done a lot of work together, but when we talk about Eleanor Aquitaine, I feel that's when you hit your flow, because I think there's an affinity there. She's your kind of spirit animal.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  She is. Well, I mean, listen, I was literally named after the woman. I never had a choice in my destiny, anything that happened. And, you know, it's one of those things where I think, once you're told from an early age, this is someone who is important in your naming. Of course, I was going to become obsessed with her, of course. My mother was reading a book about her when she was pregnant with me.

• 4:14Dan Snow?

  Really?

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I was getting it through, baby.

• 4:17Dan Snow?

  Well, now we're going to get the benefit of that. Let's talk about her birth. From the beginning, was it clear she was someone's? There was a lot riding on it. She was an heiress.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Absolutely. You know, she is born into one of the most important landholding families in France. So Aquitaine at the time, it's essentially all of southwestern France.

• 4:35Dan Snow?

  Okay, so Aquitaine's a glorious place.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:37Dan Snow?

  We are talking, what, so around Bordeaux, south and west?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:41Dan Snow?

  And then almost like a nice little reach out to the Alps as well.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  That's right. Yeah. It's kind of, it goes a little bit further east than you would think. And it goes a little bit further north than you would think. You know, when we tend to talk about it, we say, oh, southwestern France. But Poitiers, the capital, is actually really kind of central. And so, yeah, I mean, culturally, it is southern. But now you wouldn't call Poitiers southern France, I don't think.

• 5:05Dan Snow?

  Okay. And the Kingdom of France is around Paris and just roughly northeast France now.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Exactly. And now this is an incredibly wealthy part of France. It's got incredibly important prestige. It is where Paris is. So she's born into this very particularized milieu. And it's also a little bit different from other places. Like up in northern France, they're a little bit more stodgy.

• 5:25Dan Snow?

  Sure.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  They're a little bit more by the book. So she's born into a place where you also educate women. So people are really interested in bringing up this court culture and fostering it. So when she was born, she does have older brothers. She isn't meant to be the heiress, but they die in that way that children do in the Middle Ages. And her dad is just kind of like, oh, yeah, okay, great. Well, I guess it's, you know, you'll be the heir. And there isn't even that much of discussion about it. It's just sort of like, yeah, of course, a woman can inherit.

• 5:54Dan Snow?

  And let's quickly talk about France. We think of it as a state today. It has a kind of coherence we're really familiar with. It was part of France, but was her dad, was he effectively independent? Was he running his own show?

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, what we have to understand is that, you know, kingdoms, it's a lot looser in the Middle Ages than it is now. Yes, there is a King of France. He essentially rules Paris. Which like, do not get me wrong, that is a really nice spot. It is the biggest city in Europe. There's a ton of money in that racket. But you also have particular vassal states underneath you, right? And so that means that Eleanor's father is a vassal to the French king. And what happens is basically when you get a new king, you've got to go, you have to kneel before them. Go like this. The king will take your hands in his and say, ah, yeah, you're my vassal. Great job. Well, what that means is that you have to kick some taxes up to the king. And if the king decides that he is going to go to war with someone, then you owe a certain number.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Of troops. The king doesn't oversee the courts in your land. He doesn't get to necessarily push you around that much. Individual nobles are incredibly powerful. And this is something that will come up in a lot of places, including England, right? Like, under Eleanor's garbage son, John, when he tries to, like, push the envelope too far here in England and you get Magna Carta. Everybody understands that nobles across Europe have rather a lot of power in their own localities.

• 7:17Dan Snow?

  So if you're living in Aquitaine, you've got a different language to French. You've got a different culture. You look up to their Duke of Aquitaine. The King of France is a sort of, not a huge character in your life.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  You know, you kind of feel sorry for him because you're like, damn, that must suck. It's like.

• 7:32Dan Snow?

  On Pepe, he's the king of everything.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they've got a couple of nice palaces up there. And yeah, they do get to kind of dangle the I'm the king over you, but that's essentially what they've got. You are down in Poitiers, you're hearing the best music that Europe has to offer, and you are living the life fundamentally.

• 7:49Dan Snow?

  And if the King of France, like, I'm gonna send an army into Aquitaine to go and arrest this guy, the Duke of Aquitaine just laughs.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. No, it's like, cute.

• 7:55Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  That's real nice. You just wouldn't even have the ability to do that. You need to get the duke on side.

• 8:01Dan Snow?

  Okay, and that, I guess, brings us neatly to the point that the King of France is desperate to marry Eleanor.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, goddamn right.

• 8:06Dan Snow?

  Because that brings, that brings Aquitaine, in a real sense, into that royal family, not just in that vague sense, but like, let's bond two people. The Prince of France, the heir to the throne of France, and Eleanor together. And then from then on, those lands will actually be part of that kind of royal French kingdom.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Exactly. So, you know, when Eleanor's father dies, she becomes the hottest ticket in Europe. And basically, the king locks that down immediately. He's like, oh, that's great. You're gonna marry my son Louis. They're all named Louis. We're in the very deep Louis, Louis period of time, let's just say. And so it's basically within days. And there is a real danger here, because if you can kidnap Eleanor and marry her, then you get hold of all this land. So the, the French king is like, we're not playing that game. She's marrying my son. But one of the things that they do manage to negotiate here, which is quite interesting, is Eleanor is able to say, well, these are my lands until such time as I give birth to a son. And then my lands will pass to my son.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  And so as far as the King of France is concerned, she's like, oh, well, hmm, that's kind of fine.

• 9:08Dan Snow?

  Because it'll be my son as well.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So it'll be like, that's my grandson. That's great. It brings it under the auspices of the French Crown eventually. But it doesn't quite work out like that for Eleanor and Louis.

• 9:19Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  So in the first place, Eleanor kind of gets up to Paris and she's like, wow, you live like this? Like, this is crazy. Um, Louis, the Dauphin, is by all accounts quite a boring guy.

• 9:32Dan Snow?

  And what age are we at the moment?

• 9:34Speaker 02

  We're teenagers.

• 9:34Dan Snow?

  We're teenagers. Okay, so Louis is boring.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  He's boring.

• 9:37Dan Snow?

  He's a little bit wet.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he's like really religious, like he really, really buys into it, you know, that's his whole thing. And it takes a long time for Eleanor to get pregnant. As a result of this, that might just be that, you know, she's quite young and these things are difficult. It might be that Louis is too busy praying. We don't exactly.

• 9:56Dan Snow?

  There are a lot of days, if you're being strictly religious, there are a lot of days in which you're not supposed to do it.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So I would probably argue that it is just quite difficult to get pregnant if you are doing everything correctly. Right? You're not allowed to be shagging on a Saturday, for example.

• 10:09Dan Snow?

  No Saturdays?

• 10:10Speaker 02

  No Saturdays, no Sundays, no Wednesdays, no Fridays. Yeah, because, well, Wednesday's a confession day.

• 10:16Dan Snow?

  Is it?

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, you know, and even if you're not confessing, you can't be going and doing all that. Friday, again, confession day. Saturday, you're still gonna be too turned on when you're in mass on Sunday.

• 10:25Dan Snow?

  Ready, you're building up to mass.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you gotta, you know, basically it's like Mondays are nothing.

• 10:29Dan Snow?

  Mondays.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  So, you know, it's one of those, you know, not during Lent, not during Advent, blah, blah, blah. So.

• 10:34Dan Snow?

  No Advent either?

• 10:35Speaker 02

  No Advent. You're supposed to be thinking about the end of the world.

• 10:37Dan Snow?

  So it's difficult. So they don't have, they have any kids?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  They do eventually have two daughters.

• 10:43Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  You know, eventually we prove that Eleanor can get pregnant, but the sons simply aren't forthcoming. But by this point in time, the marriage is incredibly rocky anyway. Louis is kind of an idiot. He's constantly getting in fights with the church. You know, he wants to put key figures in positions of power, but he wants to choose bishops. The church is less keen on that.

• 11:05Dan Snow?

  Just classic medieval stuff.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Oh, God, you know, it's just the thing that is done at. The time. So Eleanor often has to intercede. She's got to go like do incredibly funny things with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who is working for the church at the time. Like she has to kind of go in and pretty cry in front of him being like, "My husband, he just doesn't listen to me and I'm just a girl." She basically has to iron all these things out, which is classic Queen stuff.

• 11:27Dan Snow?

  So she's highly educated and she's playing a part in the politics of France already, no question.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Obviously, yeah.

• 11:32Dan Snow?

  Yeah, right. So she's an important political figure.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 11:35Dan Snow?

  Okay. Then, like all relationships, they test it by going on some rugged foreign travel.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  That is right. That's right.

• 11:42Dan Snow?

  Tell me what happens.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Well, they decide that they are going to go on crusade.

• 11:46Dan Snow?

  Wow.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Rather the done thing at the time. This is the second crusade. So it turns out, stop me if you've heard this one before, but it's really difficult to maintain taking over a part of the Middle East when you're not from there.

• 11:58Dan Snow?

  Right.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Okay. I know that sounds wild.

• 12:00Dan Snow?

  The locals do not want you there.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny that they didn't love a whole bunch of Normans coming and taking over. It wasn't.

• 12:06Dan Snow?

  So first crusade is against all the odds, very successful. They captured Jerusalem. They established these crusader Christian kingdoms in what is now Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, that kind of area. And then it becomes the job of the Muslim neighbors to get rid of those guys.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so, you know, it turns out it's a lot easier to do that if you already live there.

• 12:24Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  And you don't have to have like, everyone get on a boat and come on over. But Eleanor and Louis, they rise to the occasion, right? They rise to the call. The papacy is really keen on sending people over. And, you know, Louis is religious, right? Louis is a really religious guy and he feels moved to take part of this.

• 12:40Dan Snow?

  And why does Eleanor go?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Well, you know, for Eleanor, this is also an opportunity to flex her own political muscles. Like partially, you kind of need to stay with your husband in order to get pregnant, quite famously. But also she leads her own army. So she leads her own contingent from Aquitaine. And so she's like, well, this is what I'm going to do. Yeah. Well, my husband's going over as the King of France. I'm going over as the Duchess of Aquitaine.

• 13:03Dan Snow?

  Really?

• 13:04Speaker 02

  And she.

• 13:04Dan Snow?

  So she's very keen to carve out her own separate role. That's amazing.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's really interesting at the time and it was remarkable. People were very impressed by this. When Louis and Eleanor end up at the court of Constantinople, everyone goes gaga for Eleanor. They're like a wuga in the first. Place they're like hot babe came over and they talk about her as being a new Amazonian queen. They love this in Constantinople. They're like, this is exactly what I love to see. Fantastic work, Eleanor. What an incredible babe. And they talk about how smart she is and how she really seems to be the one with a vision of what to do. And that is probably not such a surprise because she's got an uncle over in the Holy Land.

• 13:45Dan Snow?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  And so she's got an uncle over in Antioch and she's been in quite constant contact with him back and forth. So her idea is, well, I'm going to be bringing over the contingents of Aquitaine. And I'm going to be sort of upholding the legacy of my uncle. And we are going to get his lands back in this way over there. And that tends to put strain on the marriage. So Louis is pouting already because at Constantinople, no one cares about Louis. They're like, yeah, also some guy like a drip, right? Real wet blanket. And he gets kind of overly highfalutin ideas of what he's gonna do. Which is like surprise, a king thinks that he's capable of more than he is. Like, I can't imagine how that happened, right? But Eleanor is kind of like, let's go see my uncle Raymond.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  We're gonna take back Antioch and then we are going to assess the situation and see what can be accomplished. Louis is like, oh, where are we taking Jerusalem?

• 14:39Dan Snow?

  Right, interesting.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  That's what we're doing. And it's just not feasible with what they have got going. But because of how sources work at the time and the way people feel about certain things. The failure of the Second Crusade is kind of blamed on Eleanor because you know how women are.

• 14:57Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  I mean, and it's kind of bonkers at the end, you know? Sometimes we think that the way that people talk about Eleanor leading an army is specifically to denigrate her and specifically to say that the reason this failed is that a woman was leading. I like, whoa. There are all these rumors about like, oh, well, the procession of the soldiers is slowed down because Eleanor has too much luggage.

• 15:19Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  You know, like she brought, oh, you know, has women be shopping, women be overpacking? You know, things like this. And so they're like, oh, yeah. And that slowed the baggage train down. When in reality, Louis is kind of like going out in front when Eleanor is like, hold up, hold up, hold up. You need to, we're trying to climb over some mountains here with a bunch of people. And essentially the army gets routed, they're split into too many pieces and nobody knows what they're doing, right? Because. This is always going to be the trouble with crusade. If you genuinely believe in your heart that you've been called by God and you are blessed by the oversight of the Lord, the idea that you could lose a battle is a little bit more difficult, right?

• 15:55Dan Snow?

  Okay. And so the Crusades are disaster. We shouldn't be super surprised by that because there were about eight or nine Crusades and seven or eight of them were disasters.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 16:03Dan Snow?

  Okay, so we shouldn't be too hard on Eleanor here. But as ever, being part of a routed army straggling across a brutal landscape harried on all sides, it's gonna make or break a relationship and it definitely breaks that.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Oh, it breaks them and they hate each other. And basically at this point in time Eleanor is like, I am done. We're gonna get back to wherever it is we need to get to in Europe and we are getting divorced. So she begins to write to the papacy and says, wow, it's crazy because this guy's my cousin.

• 16:32Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  And which he is, he's like her second cousin. But you know, gosh, everyone who's royal or noble in Europe is a second cousin, third cousin, and this will go on for quite some time.

• 16:42Dan Snow?

  So it's easy get out clause.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And so the church doesn't love this because the church doesn't love divorce. But on the other hand, Eleanor is a force to be reckoned with. If she's sort of asked for this thing, then fine. There aren't any sons yet, so it's kind of easier to break them up at this point. And to a certain extent, the church was like, well, let's get Louis with someone more tractable. Let's get Louis together with someone that we feel we can have a little bit more control over. So the church says, yeah, fine, you're cousins, that's great. So they get back to Europe after quite some time. They are blown off course, they divorce. And the first thing that Eleanor has to do now is get hold of a new husband because there are multiple kidnapping attempts on her when she gets back.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Because people are like, I will take the largest landholder in France, thank you very much, I will forcibly marry her against her will. Yep, don't care about that. But Eleanor's got a plan, right? And Eleanor's plan involves a young king named Henry.

• 17:40Dan Snow?

  And this is a thunderbolt. This is one of the biggest blind sides in medieval history.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  It is absolutely wild because Henry is a teenager, right? And Eleanor is in her later twenties at this point in time.

• 17:53Dan Snow?

  So Henry's a teenager.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 17:55Dan Snow?

  He is also the hated King of England.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  That is right. Well, Eleanor doesn't want to be not a queen. Come on. And also, you know, Eleanor hates her ex. And so it's like, she kind of goes out of her way to find the person that would piss Louis off the most. And she knows Henry has the hots for her because they've met on several occasions before, you know, doing queenly, kingly things. And he was very clearly like a wuga at her. So, I mean, this is the equivalent of like the pinup you keep on your wall as a teenager saying, hey, you want to get married? It would be like if Sydney Sweeney asked a 16 year old boy to marry her now. Right? And so he is like, hell, yeah, let's get this done immediately. And they marry. And there isn't really anything that anyone can do about it. Ironically, Henry and Eleanor are

• 18:41Speaker 02

  more closely related than Eleanor and Louis were. But, you know, Eleanor wants to do this, so it's kind of fine.

• 18:48Dan Snow?

  So the woman who was Queen of France ditches her husband and marries the Queen of England. Astonishing. But even more astonishing, in doing so, she takes with her all of her own land to add it to those of her new English husband.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Exactly. There were no sons. There were no sons in her marriage to Louis. And so all of those lands revert to her. Now Louis is fuming. He is absolutely fuming. But there's also nothing you can do because it's very difficult for us to kind of understand now. But what Henry controls and what Eleanor controls is like most of France.

• 19:22Dan Snow?

  This is so important. This is the marriage, a love match, but also one of the biggest power hookups in history, right? Because England ends up with this vast empire. Eleanor and Henry end up with this vast empire. So talk me through the Plantagenet lands. Well, England and Wales, we've got.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, we've got England and Wales. So basically.

• 19:38Dan Snow?

  Most, well, I say like, it's lots of Wales is independent, but there's little encroachments.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Obviously, the Welsh are not happy about it. There is some like ongoing tit for tat. But for the most part, the English are subjugating them at the very least.

• 19:50Dan Snow?

  They are. And in fact, Henry would have argued he's overlord of Scotland as well. But critically for this point, Dukes of Normandy, thanks their forebear William the Conqueror.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  And Normandy is really large at the time. It goes out onto the Brittany Peninsula. You know, we've got. Calais, we certainly have

• 20:06Dan Snow?

  Up to Calais.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  And for all intents and purposes, they are still quite Norman, the English. They're speaking French at home. They're like, English, who is she? I don't know.

• 20:15Dan Snow?

  So this new power couple controlled, directly controlled a lot more of France, for example, than the King of France.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  Oh, God, yeah, absolutely.

• 20:22Dan Snow?

  Who's her ex-husband?

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Which is absolutely bizarre. And then they also have a little bite out of Eastern Ireland as well.

• 20:29Dan Snow?

  Well, that's

• 20:29Speaker 02

  You know, boo, but fundamentally, they've kind of taken over Dublin and the areas around there. So this is tons of land. You know, so you are the King of England, absolutely. Every single king, when they are putting down what their titles are on any document, it'll always say Rex Anglorum, the King of the English. And the second thing it always says is Dux Normanorum. And the Duke of the Normans. And then now Henry can slap Dux Aquitanorum as well on there. And this is a huge amount of land. It's such a large amount of land that, as you've already mentioned, we now tend to refer to this as the Angevin Empire. Because these are wildly disparate groups of people who speak different languages, have different cultures,

• 21:11Speaker 02

  really see the world in differing ways that are all controlled by one family.

• 21:15Dan Snow?

  Yeah. And longtime listeners and viewers of this podcast will know that I am very nostalgic for the Angevin Empire.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 21:23Dan Snow?

  I would love to live in a country that's stretched from the wilds of the north all the way down to Larrasheeltown, to the Pyrenees. We could just travel around. Anyway, I won't get stuck.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Listen, you know, the beer is great up north, the wine is great down south.

• 21:37Dan Snow?

  I've got everything.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  The crack is altogether mighty, so it is. I think that we will all find. So, you know, you've got some of the best cultures in Europe hanging out and doing their thing.

• 21:45Dan Snow?

  And this couple are now ruling over the Angevin Empire. And also, now that maybe a tough hit for their ex-husband, Eleanor has lots and lots of kids.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  So many kids.

• 21:55Dan Snow?

  Lots of lusty sons.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness. So it, you know that Louis is absolutely fuming because basically the kids start coming thick and fast. She immediately, immediately has several sons. So we get three sons, basically, right off the bat. So she's got two daughters with Louis.

• 22:12Dan Snow?

  So she's got these two daughters.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  And now, unfortunately, because The way that divorce works in the Middle Ages, they stay with their father. You know, they are French princesses, to be fair. So obviously, they are going to be brought up at the French court, most Frenchly. They do stay in good contact with their mother. They have a lot of letters written back and forth. And we do know that that is a relationship which is sustained. But they are never going to live with their mother at court again.

• 22:36Dan Snow?

  Okay. And these sons, by the way, this is what the rest of this podcast is going to be about.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, God, oh, Lord.

• 22:41Dan Snow?

  His sons.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  We have so many sons. So first of all, we got the young Henry, because obviously, you know.

• 22:47Dan Snow?

  So the oldest one dies young.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have William, always, always in our hearts. But then we get, then we get the young Henry, who we call him the young Henry very specifically. Because when you control this much land, Henry, the king, is very keen to make sure that his son, Henry, is understood as the heir apparent to the kingdom. And also, you've got to understand that Henry II is crowned king as a result of the ending of a period that we refer to as the anarchy.

• 23:16Dan Snow?

  Civil war.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So for him, the most important thing is that everybody understands what the line of succession is. So Henry, the young king, is crowned quite young, while his father is still ruling the kingdom technically, just so that everybody knows where this is going.

• 23:30Dan Snow?

  He's like a pretend king. He's got a court and he's got, but he doesn't actually rule anything.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 23:34Dan Snow?

  Glamorous guy.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:36Dan Snow?

  Hot, good at jousting tournaments.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  He is very much, I liken him to kind of like a rugby boy now.

• 23:42Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Where like his thing is jousting. He's doing the circuit around Europe. Everybody loves him. Everyone loves it when the young king shows up. He's a real glamorous sort.

• 23:51Dan Snow?

  Rides with a pretty strong crew, best buddies with William the marshal.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  That is right. So he spends rather a lot of time with the French princes and these sorts of things. And so he's actually not bad at playing the political game with other people at his level. But, you know, his father is actually rather a good king. So he doesn't have a whole lot to do around the shop. Yeah, exactly.

• 24:14Dan Snow?

  Then we got Richard, surviving son number two.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 24:19Dan Snow?

  Nickname, the Lionheart.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Ah, Cordelion, one of our worst kings, but we don't need to come into that, all that, yeah, yeah.

• 24:26Dan Snow?

  Kicks ass.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And so he is very much a mama's boy. He is Eleanor's favorite by all accounts, and he is very specifically raised as though he's going to take over Aquitaine.

• 24:37Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  So he is with his mother constantly. He is often down in Poitiers.

• 24:42Dan Snow?

  She likes staying down there, does she?

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, she does. So she's back and forth, you know, and then who can blame her?

• 24:47Dan Snow?

  Who can blame her?

• 24:48Speaker 02

  Who can blame her? So he is very much raised to understand that he is going to take over Aquitaine when the time comes. So he is very much raised in this particularized position.

• 24:59Dan Snow?

  And that involves just fighting all the time, because those nobles down there are wild.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Oh, they are fractious. And obviously, now that the French king is not married to Eleanor, there is rather a lot of attempting to bite into the land. So there's a lot of back and forth, who owns what castles.

• 25:16Dan Snow?

  Yeah, nobles switching sides. So while Henry is being glamorous, Richard's actually doing the job. He's ruler, okay. We also shouldn't remember, they have daughters, all of whom make very advantageous marriages. People talk about Queen Victoria, grandmother of Europe. I mean, Eleanor is absolutely doing that in this.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  100%. And by all accounts, all of her daughters are really on top of it.

• 25:34Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  These are incredibly bright women who go on to be incredible rulers of their own domains.

• 25:40Dan Snow?

  Holy Roman Empire.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Oh, God, yeah. You know, they're marrying into Spain. They're marrying into the Holy Roman Empire. They are doing really great things, and they're all quite clever.

• 25:49Dan Snow?

  So forget Victoria, this is the real grandmother of Europe.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

• 25:53Dan Snow?

  We get son Geoffrey here, who again is parcelled out a little bit of this big empire as well.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So Geoffrey is also being trained to understand that he is going to be more involved in like Normandy, for example. We have to understand that, yeah, primogeniture exists, this idea that like, you know, you inherit your father's lands, right? But also there's limitations to that. The Angevin Empire as a concept is incredibly new. You're not just going to hand it all to Henry. You're not just going to say, oh, here, go ahead and take it. They're like, mm, to be fair, this is rather a lot of land to keep together.

• 26:22Dan Snow?

  It's too unwieldy.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, this way, it's hoped that maybe your sons won't be at each other's throats. Here's your land, here's your land.

• 26:29Dan Snow?

  Good luck with that.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  And fundamentally, you know, like Normandy, that's not bad, right? That's, yeah, we love to see it, so, yeah.

• 26:35Dan Snow?

  And that includes, as you say, Brittany and stuff, then.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 26:39Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History. Don't go anywhere, there's more to come.

• 26:49Dan Snow?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery. A detail, but suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialised. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us. Mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 27:31Dan Snow?

  This episode is brought to you by Decagon. If you've ever been trapped in phone tree hell, pushing zero 50 times while a voice robot pretends not to hear you, you know true psychological warfare. It's brutal, folks. Thankfully, that kind of horror is now confined to the history books. Customer service has evolved. Decagon helps companies create personalised, concierge-style customer experiences with AI agents across chat, email, voice and SMS. They're available 24/7, feel natural to talk to, and can resolve customer requests on their own, so businesses can keep up with requests without losing their personal touch. Plus, because workflows can be updated using natural language, teams can make changes themselves.

• 28:14Dan Snow?

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• 28:43Speaker 01

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• 29:26Speaker 01

  Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  In a world where swords were sharp.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  And hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Me, Matt Lewis.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  And me, Dr. Eleanor Yanaga. Dive headfirst into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme. Subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:12Dan Snow?

  Now, we come with enormous reluctance, we come to this young gentleman, John. John Prince John.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, lackland.

• 30:24Dan Snow?

  Lackland, soft sword. Well, we'll get to soft sword, but he lacks land because he doesn't get anything in this big.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  No, he's too young. He's sort of come along a little bit too late. I mean, this is son number four that they've got, and he's kid number eight. It's just like a whole handful of kids. So as a result, they don't really know what to do with him. Now, he's Henry's favorite. So, so which, you know, that's where the problem, this is where the problem lies. So he kind of goes around with his father all the time and we've got the derogatory lackland for him. But also, one of the things that we know is that this causes a lot of tension with people because basically Henry will show up with little John in tow and he'll say, oh, oh, nice land you got here. Be a shame if someone's son inherited it. And so he's kind of constantly biting off smaller pieces of other people's lands to

• 31:14Speaker 02

  roll over to John and turn into something.

• 31:17Dan Snow?

  And now, if there was any justice in this world, which there is not, that is the end we would ever have heard of young Prince John, eighth kid, one of the old royal also-rans. Sadly, you'll be hearing a lot more about John as this conversation goes on because there is no justice in this world. The empire is unwieldy, right? These sons, they rebel against that.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, they absolutely do. And so by the time that John is born, Eleanor's done. Eleanor's done with having all these kids. This is kid number 10, let us keep in mind. And the marriage between Henry and Eleanor is now strained. They have got on for quite some time, but you know, Eleanor and Henry are no longer getting on in the way that they once did. And Eleanor's like, yeah, this is real cute. You'll find me in Pauier, goodbye. Now, whether or not this is entirely amicable, we can only speculate at. We know that by this time, Henry is taking up with several hot young things. So he has a very prominent girlfriend, Rosamund Clifford, who is a celebrated beauty. She kind of takes

• 32:22Speaker 02

  over as Henry's date to occasions in England. Eleanor doesn't seem to cut up about it. Eleanor's like, yeah, wow, that's wild. Anyway, you will find me in France, goodbye. I do not really need to be sitting around in a soggy salad bowl all day. I could be off having a lovely time at my own court with my son. And yeah, have a girlfriend, that's wild. Bye. Great. It wouldn't be the first time that English kings had very prominent mistresses. So that's fine. Then we have these revolts of the sons. Now, we do tend Think that maybe Eleanor is involved with this. It could be that she doesn't like her husband very much. And who would blame her, you know, with that? I kind of tend to think that she's like, yeah, sure, roll the dice. Like, who cares, right?

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Henry, the young king, resents his father because he feels as though he has not been given enough to do. Right? Richard's got stuff to do down in Aquitaine. Henry does have the tournament circuit, but he's like, it does seem to me that I should be doing some work if I'm going to end up being the king. We do have also Geoffrey, who was sort of like, yeah, sure, why not? Rebel against our father. That sounds fun. So they all get together and they begin an open rebellion against their father, which goes so so.

• 33:40Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Let's just say that. So it causes a lot of strife, obviously. No one is quite sure whose side to be on. But Henry is fundamentally, he is a pretty good king.

• 33:51Dan Snow?

  Yeah, but the life in the old dog.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So he manages to sort of trounce his sons. Also, as a part of this, Eleanor ends up getting kidnapped. I swear this woman has been kidnapped more than anyone in her life. Now, what happens next is that Eleanor gets brought back to England as a prisoner in some style. Let's just say that. She is still fundamentally the Queen of England. You can't like throw her in a jail. And so she gets taken to one of her very, very favorite castles, which is just outside of Salisbury, Old Sarum. And they're basically like, you are under house arrest. Right? Eleanor, not a huge fan of this. Obviously, she would rather be in Poitiers. Obviously, she would rather be doing her thing.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  And she loses the ability to regulate her own lands. But as part of this, Henry forgives the sons.

• 34:42Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  And so this could be something that Eleanor negotiates, I would argue. You know, I don't think that she wanted to be taken captive at all whatsoever. But seeing how the cards have been laid out, I do think that she says, look, you've got me banged to rights. Yes, I was encouraging our sons to rebel against you, but you've got me. And so a great thing that you could do just for the stability of everything is you could just let the boys go. You've got me, blame it on me. And everybody loves to blame a woman, right? So. Basically Eleanor goes to jail and the boys kind of get on with their life. They will do some light rebelling.

• 35:21Dan Snow?

  They will rebel again.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Against their father continuously. And you know, their mom is locked up and you gotta understand if you're Richard, he doesn't like this. He loves his mom.

• 35:29Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  He wants his mom back and he really, really hates this. But for Henry, basically what Henry gets is more money. His dad is like, don't you love the tournaments? And he's like, oh yeah, I do love tournaments. And his dad is like, well, what if I like doubled?

• 35:45Dan Snow?

  Yes.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Your tournament budget.

• 35:46Dan Snow?

  All the glamour.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Henry's like, ooh, more money. You say like, well, I'll be off with the boys, fine. Poor Jeffrey is kind of like the one who doesn't get a whole lot out of this. But what will end up happening is now a series of deaths.

• 36:01Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  In the way that there is, and it's all dysentery all the way down, which is, no one ever talks about dysentery because it's really unpleasant. But on campaign against their father, first Henry dies.

• 36:12Dan Snow?

  Henry the young king dies.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  R I P to a real one. This is a really interesting sliding doors moment.

• 36:17Dan Snow?

  Yeah, it is.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  I really wonder what it would have been like if he'd managed to take over. But dysentery will get you.

• 36:24Dan Snow?

  Wash your hands, boys.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Do it.

• 36:27Dan Snow?

  And Henry the fifth, he washed his hands, none of us would be in this mess.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 36:30Dan Snow?

  Anyway.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  So Henry first gets taken out. That leaves Jeffrey. Jeffrey's still rebelling against his father because Jeffrey is like, well, I don't see any reason to stop this. He gets dysentery. This is a really sad one because his father is on campaign against him in the French lands at this point in time. And he writes to his dad and says, dad, I'm on my deathbed and I'm really sorry about all this. And I just want us to get right before I die. Henry thinks it's like a trap and doesn't go to see his son. And so Jeffrey dies. And I find that like really quite heart wrenching because we do have the correspondence where he's like, I just want to see my dad one more time.

• 37:06Dan Snow?

  And this is the weird thing. This is not like a family of people who are rebelling against each other, but actually have no, those are real humanity, like when they get back together after these bouts of rebellion, they seem really happy, don't they? Like it's a genuine family.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:19Dan Snow?

  And yet they're going after each other.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I tell you what, like money messes people. Up. That's all I can say about it.

• 37:24Dan Snow?

  More money, more problems, lads.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so at this point in time, that means that now the crown has passed to Richard, which nobody saw coming.

• 37:31Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  At least of all him, he's not particularly interested in all of this.

• 37:35Dan Snow?

  He wants to be crusading.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Oh God, yeah. And this is basically, he's like, well, I guess that I am the heir apparent. And Henry almost immediately dies after this.

• 37:45Dan Snow?

  Yes, we should say then Henry the second dies.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:47Dan Snow?

  Whilst campaigning against Richard.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:49Dan Snow?

  By the way, and Henry dies a broken man.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 37:52Dan Snow?

  Everyone abandoned. It's so sad.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  It is really sad and it is a really ignominious end to what I would argue is one of the best kings in England ever. So I mean, has his problems interpersonal, but he does a great job of actually ruling England, which his sons.

• 38:08Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  Not so much.

• 38:09Dan Snow?

  His forebears and his sons not so much.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:11Dan Snow?

  So he dies abandoned by his court as his son besieging him almost. Are they briefly reconciled right at the end?

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's very, right at the end, basically, when Richard sees where the wind is blowing, he realizes his dad is going to die. There's kind of like a tearful, like, I love you Papa. And he dies.

• 38:28Dan Snow?

  So Richard is now unexpectedly king of the whole shooting match, the whole Angevin empire. The first thing he does is.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Let his mom out of jail. Because he loves her so much. And it's hilarious. The story is that the first thing he does is say, let my mom go. And he sends people up messengers. They're charging through the night on horses, on boats to get to Sarum. And they get there and I was like, hey, let myself out.

• 38:50Dan Snow?

  Oh, really?

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, because she a hundred percent was like, we all know where this is going. Henry's dead. You know, Henry's dead. What? You think that Richard isn't going to let me out? So she is able to walk free. Now what Richard decides to do is go on crusade. He's always wanted to go on crusade. He, you know, has grown up at his mother's knee, sort of hearing about this. And he is a real guys guy. He likes being on campaign.

• 39:17Dan Snow?

  So I've heard.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Hmm. You know, a by king. This is like, well, listen.

• 39:21Dan Snow?

  They're the rumors.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  These are the rumors, right? So we know that he has some illegitimate children, so can't be disinterested in the ladies. But you know, he's not disinterested in the guys either. And you know, I've simply loved to see it. I love to see like, you know, he's just got some very close friends.

• 39:37Dan Snow?

  Yeah, sure.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Who he's always on campaign with and you know, baby, help yourself. Treat yourself. This is absolutely fine with me. We like it, you know? So he decides that the thing that he's going to do is he's going to levy a big tax on England, which is called the Saladin tithe. Because we are obviously off to fight Saladin over in the Middle East.

• 39:55Dan Snow?

  The great Muslim warlord who's threatening all of the Christian castles left in the Holy Land.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Which also weirdly like the Christians love. It's the strangest thing. It's like they've got this real love hate relationship with Saladin. They're like, oh, well, we really should be controlling the Holy Land, but they're like, oh, isn't it great?

• 40:09Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  Ooh, very, very romantic figure, Saladin. So Richard is like, well, that's what this world needs is a guy to go over and sort this out. And I think that he has like this real chivalric idea about grandiose men fighting each other on. And then he's like, well, the biggest land over in England should.

• 40:28Dan Snow?

  I'm the champion of Christendom. He's the champion of Islam.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  So we're gonna, we're gonna sort it all out once and for all. So basically he levies this huge tithe on England and it's like, sayonara, suckers. I'll never see you again. I mean, this man came to England like four times altogether. And mostly it was because his dad said so, and then to like get a bunch of money. And he did not speak English. He did not particularly care about it. You know, he was really raised to understand himself as part of the French milieu.

• 40:55Dan Snow?

  And that's why there's a gigantic statue of him outside the House of Parliament in London. It's a confusing one.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Well, it is a confusing one, but you know, partially, I think what was going on here is one of the reasons he could go on crusade is because he knew that he could just sort of like leave his mom in charge.

• 41:09Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  So he leaves a council of regents, which is like a lot of the worthies of England in charge, like varying bishops, bigger landowners. His mom is overseeing it and he's like, well, Lord knows she knows how to rule the kingdom. So that's fine. So I can just.

• 41:24Dan Snow?

  Just quickly, is this unusual in medieval history? Or are there other examples of powerful women born at the right time in the right place? For sure. Being regents exercising actual political power in their own right.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. So you know, for.

• 41:36Dan Snow?

  So it's not super unusual?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  It's not super unusual. We tend to think of it as unusual, but it happens. So for example, now granted that we did have the. Anarchy about it, but fundamentally, Richard's grandmother, Matilda, was arguably a queen of England. She had been Holy Roman Empress. There is this understanding that you can leave women in charge.

• 41:53Dan Snow?

  And William the Conqueror left his wife to run the show.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:56Dan Snow?

  Well, Henry the First's wife used to do lots of stuff.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  This is why you marry other royals and nobles is because they are trained to understand how kingdoms are run. And people need to go on, maybe not necessarily crusade, but men are often away.

• 42:09Dan Snow?

  They're very busy.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, you know.

• 42:11Dan Snow?

  Hunting with the boys up country.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Like, they're doing a lot of things. And so they move around a lot and someone has to do the work around here. So is it weird to ask your mom to do it? Yeah. But he basically ends up going over to the Middle East. Again, spoiler alert, third crusade.

• 42:29Dan Snow?

  Look, whole other series of podcasts to be done here, third crusade.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Not so much. Doesn't go particularly well. He ends up getting married sort of as he's on his way over because his mom is like, listen, I understand that you're not particularly interested in being the king of England, but you are. And we're going to need some kids out of you. So here's your wife. And he's like, wow, that's crazy. Anyway, bye. Like, I'm off to the Holy Land. On his way back, on his way back.

• 42:55Dan Snow?

  He wins a few battles. He establishes, he boosts his reputation.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:59Dan Snow?

  He doesn't succeed in what, he didn't retake Jerusalem, he didn't.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  No, and there are some rumors. Okay, there's some rumors in the Holy Land, right? So now Jerusalem is never retaken, but everyone is like, it is so obvious that we are going to take, retake Jerusalem. We should elect a new king of Jerusalem. And Richard's like, yeah, we should do that. And they're like, oh, honey, we weren't talking about you. So there was some pouting on Richard's part about the fact that there is a new king of Jerusalem that is not him. Then the king of Jerusalem is mysteriously killed by an assassin. And I mean, an OG assassin, I mean, a hashashin, who is schooled by the old man in the mountain and had like, comes down and kills him. And Richard's like, that's crazy. Wow. Anyway, I gotta go.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  And everyone is like, Richard killed this guy, right?

• 43:47Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  And like, and it is believed by the French and the Holy Roman Imperial representatives. It is in the Holy Land that Richard hired an assassin. We cannot say for sure who killed who. I'm gonna be real with you, but on the ground, individuals blamed Richard for this. And Richard was like, well, I gotta go. You know, and then also the timings are suspicious, right? So Richard then takes off. Richard on the way home is then kidnapped by one of the Dukes of the Holy Roman Empire. Now, there was some bad blood between them when Richard went over because, for example.

• 44:27Dan Snow?

  They squabbled.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, when Richard showed up, homie had control of a castle and was like flying his own flag. And Richard was like, you're not a king, you shouldn't fly your. And then they were like, oh, don't take my flag down.

• 44:40Dan Snow?

  It is actually pathetic.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is like a slap fight between rich boys and it's pathetic. He then kidnaps Richard and is like, you're responsible for several things. And Richard is like, how dare you? How dare you? But everyone kind of hates Richard. Eventually, the Pope doesn't think that you should go around kidnapping the King of England. Pope does excommunicate his kidnapper. But then Richard is given over to the Holy Roman Emperor. And the Holy Roman Emperor is like, Eleanor, come get your trash, son.

• 45:08Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  And they levy an absolutely insane ransom. And Eleanor has got to go around all of the lands to get this money together, which she does. It's crazy. It's like 10,000 pounds.

• 45:20Dan Snow?

  Which is a lot.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  It's like saying like a hundred billion dollars, right? It's crazy stuff. So Eleanor manages to do it. She has to go around beg, borrow and steal, levy all kinds of taxes. She gets the money together and she gets Richard out. And I think that this is really one of the most interesting parts of their relationship. Because A, we see what Eleanor is willing to do for her children. We also see what Eleanor is capable of, even in these circumstances when Richard is at his lowest possible ebb.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  People are still willing to bet on this family. Yeah. They're still willing to say, okay, yeah, like, go get your son, even when people don't like him. And, you know, the Holy Roman Empire is very happy to have quite a lot of money as a result of this. And very tellingly, when he lets Richard out, he writes letters to his underlings, saying, "The devil is loose. Look to yourself for safety." And so this is an indication of what Richard is capable of. He is very much seen as someone who is a worthy adversary and someone who might come and mess with you. And he celebrates getting out by immediately messing with all the other. Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. Thank you for listening to us here. There's more coming.

• 46:45Speaker 01

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• 47:28Speaker 01

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• 47:35Speaker 03

  In a world where swords were sharp.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  And hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Me, Matt Lewis.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  And me, Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, dive headfirst into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  So for plagues, Crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

• 48:13Dan Snow?

  And the king of France has been nibbling away at their lands. And Richard goes on the tear, reconquers, basically has to reconquer his mum and dad's big empire.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  And does it.

• 48:22Dan Snow?

  He does it. His mum helping, they manage to do it. And then Richard besieging some useless little backwater.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Tiny little castle. And he gets got by a 14-year-old with a crossbow.

• 48:34Dan Snow?

  Boom, right in the shoulder.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  And ooh. To Richard's credit, Richard was like, fair play, I've been shot by a 14-year-old and I'm dying because basically he dies of sex.

• 48:43Dan Snow?

  Hideously slow death.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  It's really slow. It's horrible. And one of the things that Richard says is leave that little 14-year-old alone, like, fair play. Do they leave the little 14-year-old alone? They do not. They kill him horribly. But actually, I think it really says something about Richard. I like that anecdote.

• 48:57Dan Snow?

  That was good.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  And I think it's like a little Chapo moment where he kind of says, don't do that, but anyway, he's dead, one way or another.

• 49:04Dan Snow?

  Now we face a terrible decision. So the grandees get together. Talk to me about Eleanor's role here. We should say, by the way, at this point, that Geoffrey is brother to his dad. So in fact, all the brothers are now dead.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  We've got no brothers.

• 49:16Dan Snow?

  There's no brothers left.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  We're out of brothers, except.

• 49:18Dan Snow?

  Except John.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  This guy.

• 49:21Dan Snow?

  We're in the dregs of the Plantagenet family now. But Geoffrey has had a son called Arthur, hasn't he?

• 49:27Speaker 02

  He has. So in theory.

• 49:29Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  In theory, really, Arthur should be the king if what we're doing is straight succession, primogeniture, oldest son, and then their kids get it. But the ground is super shaky here. Eleanor, again, incredibly canny, understands what has happened before. This is part of what the problem was with the succession underneath the anarchy, right? Is it's like, well, who's going to rule what? Having a tiny child as the king when everything has been in flux, Richard has just had to go and reconquer a bunch of the territory in France, doesn't look great.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  So instead, they decide to roll the dice and put John, who is an adult, on the throne. Like, this is what's going for him.

• 50:19Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  He's an adult.

• 50:20Dan Snow?

  He has, his mum and dad's blood in his veins, he's an adult, and he can breathe.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:24Dan Snow?

  That's really.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  It.

• 50:26Dan Snow?

  It.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  And I think that this is an important point, though, because people tend to think that there is one way that people become kings in the Middle Ages. And it's just kind of, yeah, straight prima genitor. You follow this line down. That's just not how things work. Decisions are being made all the time in terms of who can rule, when and why. And if you accept that and just go with it, it explains a lot more later on.

• 50:51Dan Snow?

  And is Eleanor now older stateswoman? She's critical in this, right?

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Oh, God, yes. Because Eleanor is also kind of thinking, well, I don't know how much more life I've got in me. She's constantly trying to retire. She is constantly trying to go away to the convent that she wishes to retire to and kind of like being pulled back in. So she's really frustrated by this. And I think one of the things that goes on here is that Eleanor doesn't necessarily trust Arthur's mother to be the queen regent. And Eleanor says, well, you know, I can have a little bit more influence over John. John is an adult. Let's just roll the dice and see what we can do here. Maybe I can go back into retirement a little bit more. She doesn't want to be in London doing all these things. She's old, you know? She's been a mother of 10, for God's sake.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  She just wants to have like a well-earned retirement, doing what it is she wants to do. So for her, John looks a little bit more stable. Again, this is a sliding doors moment. Who knows?

• 51:48Dan Snow?

  And then as with every succession, it's an opportunity for people to rebel, to steal some land and to cause some trouble. She ends up holding a castle against forces loyal to her grandson. Arthur has got some rebel nobles to back him, because there's always some of them around.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Of course, of course.

• 52:06Dan Snow?

  There's a siege going on and she's in charge of this siege. And she's how old? I mean, this is crazy.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  And this is the thing is that this woman should be pretending to be a nun right now. And so she's having to do all this. She's having to hold castles. She's having to write letters trying to garner support from other people. Her useless son, John, is being useless. It really is coming down to her to negotiate. And thank God it was, because, you know, John, completely useless, can't keep a single thing together. But this just goes to show how fractious things are and why she stayed involved as long as she did. Because you just simply cannot trust John with anything.

• 52:44Dan Snow?

  Including the safety of his nephew, Arthur. So eventually this rebellion peters out. John gets custody of his nephew, this kid, Arthur. And, you know, people talk about Richard III, but people should be talking about John among his many crimes. What happens to little Arthur?

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Well, nothing good is the answer. Something.

• 53:01Dan Snow?

  Something.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Something. Death. Some things happen. And, you know, it is, again, one of these things where it's like, oh, wow, that's crazy. That kid's dead now. You know, side eye. Now, exactly what happened? It's difficult to say, but also, like, let us be so real here. Now, to be fair, children die all the time.

• 53:18Dan Snow?

  Sure.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Children die all the time in the Middle Ages. Adults die all the time in the Middle Ages.

• 53:23Dan Snow?

  Royal princes in the custody of their uncles die.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  A lot. It's crazy how much royal princes die in the custody of their uncles. It's funny how that happens.

• 53:32Dan Snow?

  So Arthur dead, possibly starved to death. We don't know.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not good. At the very least, what I tend to say is at the very least, I would call it murder through neglect.

• 53:41Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  That's what I would say.

• 53:42Dan Snow?

  Okay, so John comes to the throne through murder through neglect. But Eleanor has managed, in these dying years, she has managed to pass on that, unwell the empire to another son. So it's she and her husband have run it. It's gone through Richard. She's now managed to get it to the hands of John. And at that point, sadly for the empire and everybody else, she checks out.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, she does. She manages eventually to get back to her convent. She's been managing things for so long, like, you know, basically still overseeing every single one of her grandchildren, getting advantageous marriages. She gets kidnapped for a million more times, like, in the process of doing it. And then she's like, I am done. It's nun time. And then she almost immediately croaks, which makes me really sad. Because I really wish that she had had the retirement she wanted at Fronterbro. Like, I really wish that she'd had a great couple of years where she could just relax and feel as though her work here was done. But her sons were so garbage.

• 54:40Dan Snow?

  She dies in 1204, just after a few months in retirement.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:43Dan Snow?

  And interestingly, the empire falls apart within a few years.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 54:48Dan Snow?

  Of her death. Is that unrelated?

• 54:50Speaker 02

  No, 100%. It takes a force of will like hers, I would say, to keep that much land together. It's an absolute ton of land, and it isn't traditionally associated. There isn't anything like a network of people who are overseeing these lands underneath the auspices of the King of England, right? Which is what we see over in the Holy Roman Empire. So you have like an emperor who rules everything, but the King of Bohemia is doing his thing, the Duke of Bavaria is doing his thing, you know, and everybody knows who they kick up to. This is something that takes a force of will and an incredibly active, clever family to keep together. And, you know, you can say anything you want about Henry II and Eleanor of Alcatel, but these are two incredibly intelligent people with a real force of will,

• 55:34Speaker 02

  and they were able to keep this going. But even then, they weren't able to keep it going without infighting, without some scrapping back and forth. So it's just a lot of land to keep together, and especially it's a lot of land to keep together if you're not very bright.

• 55:51Dan Snow?

  Yeah, and this is an important point, is that you don't just call an army together. Everyone just goes, yes, I'm right here. Individual barons need individual motivation. You know, you can gather a massive army if everyone kind of likes you, all of your underlings, but John will call and they just won't turn up. They go, oh, I'm so sorry, we had a few bridges blown out.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're like, oh, wow, ooh, gosh, yeah.

• 56:10Dan Snow?

  Such bad luck.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I didn't get your letter for seven months, which is also a viable thing that you can say.

• 56:16Dan Snow?

  Exactly.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  In the Middle Ages, you know, when Eleanor comes calling, people just say, oh, Eleanor, great. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, you don't want to piss her off. When it's John, you actually do want to piss him off. You don't like that guy. Nobody likes that guy, so.

• 56:28Dan Snow?

  And so John will be defeated in military campaigns, well, frankly, every military campaign in the rest of his short life.

• 56:35Speaker 02

  This man cannot buy a win.

• 56:37Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  It's ridiculous.

• 56:38Dan Snow?

  And France conquers Normandy, the ancestral heartlands of this family.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Which is really, that one hurts.

• 56:45Dan Snow?

  That hurts.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  That really hurts. You know, they think of themselves as being Norman. And so for them, that is kind of like an existential problem. And it's something that we will see Kings of England over and over again attempting to get this back.

• 56:59Dan Snow?

  And when John dies, just over a decade after his mum, his empire, so large, is now a little slice of the East Midlands of England.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  It's so sad.

• 57:11Dan Snow?

  He dies of dysentery, of course.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Yes, it's a familial hobby. They love to die of dysentery, these guys.

• 57:16Dan Snow?

  And that is the end of this, this big trans channel. As you say, lots and lots of their descendants will try and reconquer it and there'll be an ebb and flood. But this Orange of an Empire is a brief moment. And really, it is Eleanor's empire in some ways, isn't it? She makes that empire possible. She holds it together.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely. You know, she is the glue that is able to bring this huge portion of France under the control of the crown. And it's her political nous that really allows her to do that. She understands not just how French people work, but how people in Aquitaine work. She has really close connections with her northern family in France, you know, her mother's family and the people who were kind of local around there. So she understands how to play people off against each other. She is very involved in English politics. She understands what makes the very nobles there tick. And, you know, she can talk to Normans as well.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  So she's this real player who can move between worlds. And one of the issues with having a lot of sons, you know, good, healthy sons, is they were all kind of brought up to understand that they only had to do one thing. And, you know, John was brought up to understand that he was going to have to do, question mark? Like, who knows? You know, so, I mean, to an extent, it isn't surprising that he was such a bad king because he was not really brought up to be one. He never had the education to do that. So it's a story that would differ if these men had managed to live. And I do think that they were doing the right thing. I do think that, understanding you have this many sons and someone's going to have

• 58:51Speaker 02

  to have land, it was smart to kind of try to parcel things off. But who would know that you were only left with the runt of the litter?

• 58:59Dan Snow?

  Left with the worst one.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 59:01Dan Snow?

  Well, Eleanor, as I was expecting, that was a royal tour de force about your namesake. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. I will never, ever tire of talking about this woman.

• 59:13Dan Snow?

  Thanks so much for listening, folks. Eilidh Arneaga, what a phenomenon. So lucky to have her in the History at Family. Don't forget to hit follow for more episodes of the podcast every week. And if you want more deep dives into this wild period of history, I've got a couple of excellent recommendations, if I do say so myself. In the show notes, we've linked to our episode on Richard Lionheart, but also William the Marshall, which is possibly my favourite podcast I've ever done. I never thought I'd say that about the medieval period, but there we go. I'm an 18th century traitor. He's the greatest knight who ever lived. That's a fact, if you believe the biography commissioned by his sons. But, you know, I do, so there we go. He is the key person to get your head around it. If you want to understand the Plantagenet period, you've got to check out that episode. Thank you very much for doing so. See you next time.

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• 1:00:38Dan Snow?

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