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The Great 12th Century Soap Opera!

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Sunday, 16th January 2011

  Hi folks,
  
  I am still reading Alison Weir's "The Captive Queen, " a few pages at a time. I must say the entire period looks to me like a Soap Opera. We have the whole business of the marriage of this young fellow who is just 17 years old, marrying a 29 year old beautiful woman, the recent queen of France to boot. Their marriage is like an elopement. They have this great passionate love affair, with soap operatic overtones. She gives birth to many young boys; the oldest is called Henry. There are also Richard, Geoffrey, John, the apple of his father's eye.
  
  Young Henry is created a King. There is the whole business of Beckett.
  
  The Young King revolts against his father and goes to the King of France, his father's arch enemy. Queen Eleanor is some how involved in the rebellion and is imprisoned in a castle in Salisbury. Mean while Aquitaine has been given to Richard, the apple of his mother;'s eye.
  
  King Henry uses every devious means to extract Aquitaine from Richard to give it to John. Where will it all end knows God! At least in this 'Soap Opera' we know that the script has already been written by history; but what a script it is!
  
  There are also some ba**ard sons in the picture, like King Henry's son Geoffrey. When the king is about to die, he says to him, "You are my true son; the others are the ones who are the ba**ards!"
  
  Perhaps that is why I have, in my retirement, turned so much to history. Can there be better soap operas than the real ones from history?
  
  Perhaps that is why I was so interested in the life and times of King Henry VIII, and the whole business of King Richard III. Where else will we get such lively theater than from the history of England and some times Scotland, like the business of Mary, Queen of the Scots, or William Wallace?
  
  Tas

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Gran (U14388334) on Monday, 17th January 2011

  Hi Tas,
  
  I enjoyed 'The Captive Queen" over the Christmas break, and now I have followed it up with "Eleanor Of Aquataine' a more factual account of the same time period also by Alison Weir, I can imagine her finishing "E of A" and thinking what a good novel it would make. Strangly enough most of it is true!!
  
  Gran
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Tuesday, 18th January 2011

  
  Hi Gran,
  
  I was thinking about this book and there are many things I do not understand.
  
  Richard I was an English King, yet most his time he spends in Aquitaine. Then he goes on his crusade. Do you know why and how he married Berengaria, and who she was? Did she ever visit the country of which she was queen, England?
  
  Did the English people have any relationship with him considering he only spent 6 month in England.
  
  How did John become King after him, why not Geoffrey?
  
  How did Richard become a prisoner of some one in Austria; Did he not leave the holy land with an army? If it was not history, the whole story seems so implausible, I would have asked the writer of the script to rewrite large portions of it.
  
  This is a period I would really like to understand.
  
  Tas

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• Message 4

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  Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Tuesday, 18th January 2011

  
  Hi Gran,
  
  You will of course have noticed that I am carrying all this further: From Henry II to Richard I and even to John. For me this is all one continuum.
  
  Tas

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• Message 5

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  Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Tuesday, 18th January 2011

  How did John become King after him, why not Geoffrey? 
  
  As I read the book a little further, at least this question was answered. Geoffrey died in a tournament in Paris.
  
  Perhaps he may have been a better King than John, He seems to have been more able, though devious. But then we would not have gotten the
  
  Magna Carta  
  
  You may not have lost all your territories in France either.
  
  Tas

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• Message 6

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by Andrew Spencer (U1875271) on Tuesday, 18th January 2011

  Dear Tas
  
  you can't think of Richard as an "English" king. He was an "Angevin" king of England. Being king of England was very important to England but he was also duke of Normandy, duke of Aquitaine and count of Anjou. These, too, were important to him and it was these French lands that were under threat for most of his reign. When one thinks of Richard on a wider scale than just England his absence from England makes sense. England wasn't under threat from French invasion and so he didn't need to spend time there. When England was threatened, while he was imprisoned, he went there and sorted out the problems.
  
  We must see Henry II and Richard I as trouble-shooters, they hurried around their domains dealing with urgent problems. As the French grew stronger under Philip II this trouble-shooting became an ever more urgent part of running the Angevin empire. But we should not think that because he wasn't in England very much he didn't care about it governance. He appointed Hubert Walter as justiciar, probably the ablest administrator in the English middle ages who ran England with great efficiency and was in constant contact with Richard across the channel.
  
  Berengaria was the daughter of the king of Navarre (a tiny kingdom in the Pyrenees) and the marriage was suggested by Eleanor as a means of protecting the southern border of Aquitaine from incursions by the count of Toulouse, a longtime enemy of the dukes of Aquitaine.
  
  Richard was captured because he left his army to get back to western Europe as quickly as possible by going overland rather than by sea all the way along the Mediterranean. He was captured enroute by the duke of Austria, whom he had insulted at the siege of Acre.
  
  All the best
  
  Andrew

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• Message 7

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by Gran (U14388334) on Tuesday, 18th January 2011

  Hi Tas and Andrew
  
  I can hardly add anything to the above, but I find this whole period fascinating, I have always wondered about the part William Marshall played in proceedings, and it is interesting that Eleanor came out of prison only to run the country when Henry II died. Oh and how Henry was stripped of everything on his deathbed, its like a soap opera.
  
  All the best
  Gran
  

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• Message 8

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Tuesday, 18th January 2011

  
  Hi Andrew, Hi Gran,
  
  Thank you Andrew for answering all my questions.
  
  Gran, it is indeed like a first class Soap Opera.
  
  Whatever happened to Alys, Princess of France, Richard's betrothed and Henry II's mistress. Did she survive Henry and what happened to all her ba*tar* children from Henry?
  
  What of the saga of Robin Hood and of Richard's ministrel, Blondel discovering Richard in his prison. Is there any truth to those stories/ legends?
  
  How much was Richard I really King of England and how much was Berengaria Queen of England? Did they ever have a real Union as husband and wife?
  
  Tas

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• Message 9

  , in reply to message 8.

  Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Sunday, 23rd January 2011

  
  Around the middle of the 13th century, various legends developed that, after Richard's capture, his minstrel Blondel travelled Europe from castle to castle, loudly singing a song known only to the two of them (they had composed it together). Eventually, he came to the place where Richard was being held, and Richard heard the song and answered with the appropriate refrain, thus revealing where the king was incarcerated. The story was the basis of André Ernest Modeste Grétry's opera 'Richard Coeur-de-Lion' and seems to be the inspiration for the opening to Richard Thorpe's film version of Ivanhoe. It seems unconnected to the real Jean 'Blondel' de Nesle, an aristocratic trouvère. It also does not correspond to the historical reality, since the king's jailers did not hide the fact; on the contrary, they publicized it. 
  
  So much for the legend of Blondel and Richard. I think the legend of Roibin Hood will also see short shrift in the hands of historians. Historians just hate legends.
  
  The reputation of Richard ... has fluctuated wildly. The Victorians were divided. Many of them admired him as a crusader and man of God, erecting an heroic statue to him outside the Houses of Parliament; Stubbs, on the other hand, thought him ‘a bad son, a bad husband, a selfish ruler, and a vicious man’. Though born in Oxford, he spoke no English. During his ten years' reign, he was in England for no more than six months, and was totally absent for the last five years 
  
  I have finished the book "The Captive Queen" by Alison Weir. It is a well written historical novel.
  
  It made me think all the life work of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine eventually came to naught. What happened to that great Empire stretching from Scotland to Aquitaine and comprising of Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou and much much more.
  
  Tas

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• Message 10

  , in reply to message 9.

  Posted by Gran (U14388334) on Sunday, 23rd January 2011

  Hi Tas,
  
  You will find that Alison Weir's "Eleanor of Aquataine" will answer at least some of your questions. Glad you enjoyed "The Captive Queen" What a shame that John lost all those lands so quickly when he took over.
  
  Gran

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