Review - Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine: Founding an Empire, Matthew Lewis

I was delighted to receive a review copy of this new book by Matthew Lewis.

"Henry II became King of England in 1154 after twenty years of civil war. He was the first Plantagenet king, the founder of England’s most successful and longest-ruling dynasty. But Henry did not come to the throne alone. He had married Eleanor of Aquitaine, a feisty, formidable and powerful woman ten years his senior. Eleanor had spent fifteen years married to Louis VII of France before he divorced her, only to be angered when she married his young rival. Together, they were a medieval power couple who soon added the ultimate rank of king and queen consort to their list of titles. With them, the Angevin Empire was born. Over the decades, a wedge was driven between the king, fiercely protective of his empire, and Eleanor, who felt restrained in her husband’s shadow. Henry imprisoned his wife, fought his elder sons and pinned his hopes on his youngest, whose betrayal was the last straw. This book charts the early lives of Henry and Eleanor before they became a European power couple and examines the impact of their union on contemporaries and European politics. It explores the birth of the Angevin Empire that spread from Northumberland to the Mediterranean, and the causes of the disintegration of that vast territory, as well as the troublesome relationships between Henry and his sons, who dragged their father to the battlefield to defend his lands from their ambitious intriguing."

I suppose I've read more than a few books about Eleanor over the years, but outside the world of fiction, I don't think I've read one that gives equal 'billing' to both Eleanor and her second husband, Henry II.

Two things struck me immediately: the author is adept at analysing  primary sources, and he writes in a very conversational style, presenting the carefully researched history in a very readable way. Not once did I have to stop, go back, and re-read a passage. Even the complicated relationship between Henry and Thomas Becket flows beautifully (with some excellent suggestions regarding what might have been going through Becket's mind).

The author is clearly an admirer of Eleanor and is at pains to point out several times that she was the victim of the misogynistic attitudes of the age. 

This is not to say that he is unsympathetic towards Henry. On balance, the impression is that he greatly admires both the separate and joint achievements of this couple. He also throws doubt (or should that be light?) on some of the accepted 'truths' about their marriage, which I found refreshing and thought-provoking.

One aspect which comes across strongly is the complex system of fealty in what we think of today as France but was back then a collection of duchies and counties with rulers who owed allegiance often to more than one lord for their various landholdings. In this, Henry was no different and the struggle to hold those lands (at the author says in his summing up, it was not a deliberate decision to build an empire, more a lucky amassing of lands through various inheritances).

I thought I was fairly familiar with the lives of these two, but I have to say that, especially when debunking accepted ideas about them, the author convinced me with his logical, source-based conclusions and often challenged my pre-conceptions.

This book is a thorough examination of the lives and fluctuating fortunes of Eleanor and Henry, and shows what happened when their children grew to adulthood, offering reasons for what went so wrong. It's an engaging read, packed with detail, and I highly recommend it. 

Available now from Amberley Books

and Amazon