All language subtitles for BBC - She Wolves - Matilda and Eleanor - British Documentary Part 1

[Applause]

1953

a coronation fit for a king

but it's a young queen who's about to be

crowned

and the crowd roars its approval

the fact that she's a woman attracts no

comment

and she will go on to reign over us for

six decades

but england's queens haven't always been

greeted with such adoration

throughout our history women and power

have made an uneasy combination

[Music]

800 years earlier another female heir to

the throne came to westminster for her

coronation

she wasn't met by cheering crowds

instead she was chased away from the

capital by an angry mob

her name was matilda the first woman to

make a claim to the english crown in her

own right

but eight hundred years ago power was

inescapably male

there was no question in the medieval

world men ruled and women didn't

a king was a warrior who literally

fought to win power then battled to keep

it

yet despite everything that stood in

their way a handful of extraordinary

women did attempt to rule medieval and

tudor england

this series is about the queens who

challenged male power and the fierce

reactions they provoked

when they pursued power like kings these

royal women were criticized and

condemned

most graphically of all they've been

vilified as she-wolves

these are the stories of the she-wolves

of england

and to explore them is to realize just

how far we've come

and how little has changed

[Music]

on the 24th of june 1141 a 39 year old

woman sat down here at westminster to a

sumptuous banquet

it was a feast to celebrate her planned

nation as queen of england

matilda it seemed was about to become

the first woman to rule england in her

own right

matilda was the daughter of henry the

first and granddaughter of william the

conqueror but you won't find her on the

roll call of english monarchs

this faint manuscript image is the only

contemporary picture of her that's into

almost 20 years of catastrophic civil

war

matilda herself has gone down in history

as a domineering and destructive woman

perceived by men as a she-wolf

simply because she dared to challenge

the assumption that only a man could

wear the english crown

[Music]

and her bid for the throne began with a

tragedy the death of the male heir her

brother william

it happened not in england but when he

and their father were returning from

their territory across the channel in

normandy

this sleepy village barfleur in normandy

was once the greatest port on the norman

coast

it was from here that matilda's

grandfather william duke of normandy set

off to conquer england in 1066

54 years later another norman fleet set

out from bar flirt across the channel

at its head was the king of england

henry the first in his great dragon

headed longship

and behind him in a newly fitted out

vessel called the white ship was his son

and air william with a large party of

young noblemen

it was november late in the year for

what could be a treacherous crossing

but the water in barfleur harbour was

still and glassy and they seemed no need

for concern

the king set sail first at twilight to

be followed by william and his company

of a bullied young aristocrats

but when the white ship slipped out into

the dark water everyone on board was

roaring drunk

no one noticed the rock at the harbour

mouth

but no one could mistake the sickening

jolt as the ship struck

it took only minutes to sink

and in the freezing november waters

there was no hope of rescue

the chronicler william of marmsbury

wrote

no ship that ever sailed brought england

such disaster

it was such a calamity that two days

passed before anyone dared to break the

news to king henry

when eventually a stuttering boy was

pushed forward to tell him that his son

was dead

the king collapsed in anguish

it was a personal tragedy but for a king

the personal was always political and

all henry's hopes for his country's

future had been swallowed by the sea

along with his drowned son

norman kings had worn the english crown

for just over 50 years

but already a dynasty had been founded

and a new saw stuns and heirs but now

there was no natural successor to

continue the line

no boys

just a daughter called matilda

there had never been a female heir to

the english throne

but then again there was nothing

explicitly to say that a woman couldn't

inherit the crown

the revolutionary effects of the

conquest which had swept away all

precedent and tradition meant that

norman england hadn't yet developed

fixed rules about how a new monarch

should be chosen

but in these times it wasn't enough to

have a right to the throne

to wear the crown you had to fight for

it too

that's exactly what happened with

matilda's father

henry the first had fought his older

brother for the rule of england and

normandy

and once he'd become king he had to keep

on fighting to impose his authority on

his nobles

could this possibly be a job for a woman

these are the two sides of a king's

great seal the physical representation

of the crown's authority that hung from

every royal decree

an iconic image of power

that demonstrates the king's most

fundamental roles

here on one side he sits with an orb and

scepter in his hands to give justice to

his people

on the other

he rides a war horse with his sword

unsheathed to defend his kingdom

[Music]

even today power still looks sounds and

feels overwhelmingly male

back then there was no question in

contemporary's minds about the order of

god's creation

men ruled and their women obeyed

in fact the anglo-saxon word for queen

didn't mean a female king

it meant the wife of a king

and as a king's wife a queen could

advise her husband or even represent him

but her authority always depended on his

and it was this limited kind of

queenship as royal wife to a royal

husband for which matilda had been

prepared since birth

when she was a small child her father

sent her to a foreign land to be married

to a complete stranger

[Music]

at the age of eight she'd already begun

an extraordinary career

she'd left england to marry henry v the

king of germany and holy roman emperor

since then she'd been fated as his

empress the greatest court in europe

and as a result she had a powerful sense

of her own majesty

[Music]

matilda t3 her husband died suddenly

and after 16 years abroad matilda came

home to england

she was henry's only heir and he chose

this moment to ensure the future of his

dynasty

this is westminster hall

in matilda's day it was probably the

largest indoor space in europe

it still has a daunting grandeur

it was at a ceremony here that henry

promised matilda a startling new future

he was suggesting that for the first

time a woman could rule in her own right

as a female king

on the 1st of january 11 27 here in the

great hall at westminster the nobles of

henry's kingdom swore a solemn oath that

they would support matilda's right to

succeed to her father's throne

no one tried to argue that a woman

couldn't rule

[Music]

but the likelihood is that the nobles

were paying lip service to an idea that

they thought would never happen

and henry had an alternative plan

matilda was still young

if she could give him a grandson england

yet be ruled by a king of his bloodline

so once again he sent her away to be

married

she might have been promised a powerful

future but for the moment she was still

her father's pawn

since the conquest the kings of england

had ruled both england and normandy

but this new anglo-norman realm was

difficult to hold together

one way to defend it was to create

alliances through marriage

henry chose as matilda's bridegroom

jeffrey of anjou

whose lands to the south of normandy

could protect henry's borders

in june 1128 henry came here to his

norman capital rouen tonight his

prospective son-in-law

[Music]

henry was delighted with the match

but matilda wasn't so pleased

the good news

jeffrey was so handsome and athletic

that he was nicknamed jeffrey the fair

the bad he was only 15.

matilda clearly wasn't dazzled by

jeffrey's good looks he was 11 years

younger than her and her junior by far

in status and experience

she just lost a husband who'd been a

father figure as well as an emperor and

now she was offered an arrogant teenager

as his replacement

she tried to resist the match but in the

end she had no choice she did her

unpleasant duty and married him

[Music]

but matilda didn't give in easily

she never called herself countess of

arju

instead she always insisted on the

greater magnificence of her own title as

empress and daughter of the king of the

english

as such matilda knew what her father

expected of her that she should produce

a male heir

but just a year after the wedding the

unhappy couple were living apart

might have given up on her marriage but

her father hadn't

in 1131 he imposed a reconciliation on

the couple and to good effect

in the spring of 1133 matilda gave birth

to her first child a healthy boy called

henry after his proud grandfather

a year later she had a second son

so henry had his male heirs

but he was in his sixties and it would

be years before they grew up

and there was more

having a family of her own meant that

matilda's loyalties were now split

the arrival of his grandsons was a

dynastic triumph for henry

but matilda's new role as the mother of

two young sons left her caught in the

middle between her husband's ambition

and her father's refusal even at the age

of 67 to relinquish any part of his

hold-on power

and in 1135 as political disagreement

escalated into the flexing of military

muscle matilda stayed in our zoo with

jeffrey standing shoulder to shoulder

with her husband

[Music]

but just as matilda was fighting for

power for her husband she was suddenly

offered power in her own right

her father henry was taken ill on a

hunting trip in november 1135

knowing that his grandsons were not yet

old enough to succeed him as henry lay

dying he insisted that the nobles abide

by the agreement they'd made eight years

earlier to allow matilda to rule

and as soon as the news of her father's

death reached her matilda made her first

move in becoming queen

she rode north to seize control of

anjontong an important fortress that was

crucial to the rule of normandy

but then she went no further

she discovered she was pregnant

it's impossible to know what was going

through matilda's mind stuck out here at

argento

the chronicle william of malmsbury says

only that she failed to return to

england for certain reasons

which at a distance almost 900 years if

the nobles would simply rally to her

cause

what we do know is that while matilda

hesitated it was her cousin stephen who

seized the moment

[Music]

stephen was a powerful man and an

effective soldier

he rode to winchester where his brother

was bishop and had himself crowned king

for matilda this was a shocking betrayal

stephen had been among the nobles who

had sworn allegiance to her when her

father was alive

matilda believed absolutely in her right

to the throne

but her big mistake was to assume that

others did too

male might it seemed still overcame

female right

according to a chronicle known as the

guest of stefani the deeds of stephen

there was no one else at hand who could

take the king's place and put an end to

the great dangers threatening the

kingdom

this is hardly an impartial account

it was written by a monk with close ties

to stephen's court and stephen is the

hero of the story

unfortunately no one was writing

matilda's story

[Music]

stephen's master stroke was his speedily

arranged coronation

once god had made him king

no man let alone a woman could undo it

stephen's kingship had taken effect in

the moment he was anointed with holy oil

but in that instant also lay the seeds

of civil war

two different forms of royal legitimacy

now stood in opposition to one another

matilda was the only legitimate child of

the previous king and the nobles had

sworn allegiance to her as his heir

but stephen had just been anointed and

crowned as henry's successor

victory for one now meant defeat for the

other

[Music]

stephen might have god on his side but

he needed people too

he couldn't rule without the support of

the powerful nobles

it was a balancing act

they would help the king keep order in

the kingdom and defend it from attack

if he offered leadership and security

and this is what stephen appeared to be

doing

so one by one they rallied to his cause

and his triumph seemed complete when he

won the support of robert of gloucester

one of the most powerful noblemen in the

country

hundreds of miles away in france

matilda's cause seemed lost

her third son had been born safely at

auxington but now she and her boys were

embattled there with little prospect of

reclaiming her inheritance

make his throne secure stephen needed to

control the anglo-norman realm on both

sides of the channel

but while he established his rule in

england it took him more than a year to

cross the channel to france

[Music]

by then normandy had collapsed into

anarchy

and so did steven's army as his soldiers

began to squabble among themselves

news reached matilda that stephen's

campaign in normandy was disintegrating

into chaos

most significantly of all the uneasy

alliance between stephen and robert of

gloucester began to fall apart and in

june 11 38 in a dramatic about turn

robert declared his support for matilda

at a stroke her position was transformed

matilda now had a route to england and

the throne

robert's lands in normandy gave her a

safe corridor to the coast

stephen was still the anointed king

but for the first time cracks were

beginning to appear in his regime

how far would matilda go to fight for

the crown that she believed was hers

it was becoming clear that matilda

herself would have to stand at the

center of the campaign to secure her

inheritance

her uniquely royal blood despite the

female body in which it was housed

represented the only hope of challenging

the sanctity of stephen's coronation

and so in 1139 matilda set foot on

english soil for the first time in eight

years

she came here to arundel castle

news quickly reached stephen of

matilda's arrival and he lost no time in

marching an army to arendelle's gates

for once matilda's sex worked to her

benefit not her disadvantage

she was the daughter of a king the widow

of an emperor and stephen's own cousin

attempting to wage war on a woman of

such exalted status would be a

profoundly risky business

so stephen was reluctantly persuaded to

allow matilda to leave arendelle

this played straight into matilda's

hands

she immediately went to bristol where

robert of gloucester waited in his

fortress

while matilda's forces were still

smaller than stevens

support for her was growing

men who had wavered in their loyalty to

stephen now had the royal figurehead

they needed

and while matilda's forces had no chance

of overwhelming steven's army head-on

they did find a way to wear him down

with faints and lightning strikes a kind

of guerrilla warfare that kept stephen

on the back foot

civil war raged in england

and it took an immense toll on the

country

the countryside was plundered

and reduced to blackened earth by

hostile troops

[Music]

it was a dreadful thing said the

chronicler william of malmsbury that

england once the noblest place of peace

the peculiar habitation of tranquility

had sunk to such wretchedness

[Music]

but out of that wretchedness would come

the moment of matilda's greatest triumph

in february 1141

in vicious fighting at lincoln

troops loyal to matilda defeated

stephen's army and took the king

prisoner

it had been five years since her

father's death but now the throne was

within her reach for the first time

now matilda knew she needed the church

and the people to recognize her as queen

she couldn't undo steven's coronation

but she could try to supersede it with

one of her own

and she found an unlikely ally in the

man who had orchestrated stephen's

coronation

his own brother bishop henry of

winchester

matilda cleverly promised bishop henry

first place among her advisers

and in return he rallied the church to

her cause

in april 1141 bishop henry convened a

special counsel of the church at

winchester

among those who attended was the

chronicler william of malmsbury

this is a translation of williams

chronicle

and it's an extraordinary thing more

than 800 years later to read an

eyewitness account it turned out that

the bishop was a master of political

spin

he explained to the council that when

king henry died he had left his crown to

his daughter

but he said

because it seemed tedious to wait for

the lady who made delays in coming to

england since her residence was in

normandy thought was taken for the peace

of the country and my brother allowed to

reign

this was a piece of breathtaking

revisionism but the bishop didn't stop

there

stephen he declared hadn't brought peace

and justice to england and he was now a

prisoner

so the english church spoke in the voice

of bishop henry

we choose as lady of england and

normandy the daughter of a king who was

a peacemaker a glorious king a wealthy

king a good king without peer in our

time

and we promise her faith and support

this was a victory that matilda had

fought for six long years to achieve

so here at winchester matilda was

recognized as england's lady

domina in latin

what that meant was that she would have

dominion

power or lordship of the kind that her

father had enjoyed

and once she was anointed and crowned

she would become a new kind of queen one

who would rule in her own right

matilda began to prepare for her

coronation

she was on the brink of becoming

england's first female king

but as she began to act like england's

new ruler it became clear that she still

had a battle to fight

as the chronicles written at the time

reveal

when the great men of the kingdom began

to be confronted with the reality of

female rule they didn't like what they

saw

she was lifted up into an insufferable

arrogance and she alienated the hearts

of almost everyone

she had brought the greater part of the

kingdom under her sway and on this

account she was mightily puffed up and

exalted in spirit

she had once put on an extremely

arrogant demeanor instead of the modest

gate and bearing proper to the gentle

sex began to walk and speak and do all

things more stiffly and more haughtily

than she had been won't to such a point

that soon in the capital of the land

subject to her she actually made herself

queen of all england and gloried in

being so called

this has become the defining account of

matilda's difficulties at this crucial

moment

she was just too arrogant to make a

successive ruling

but there's more going on here than a

previously undetected character flaw

matilda was trying to become queen of

england

not in the conventional sense of a

king's wife but in the unprecedented

form of a female king

and kings didn't deport themselves with

a modest gait and bearing they had to be

commanding and authoritative

but when matilda tried to do that she

was seen as unnaturally domineering

the great men of the realm couldn't

believe that a mere woman wouldn't take

their advice without question

and as the rumblings of discontent grew

louder and louder

medieval spin doctors went to work

true to form the hostile chronicler of

the guester stefani the deeds of stephen

reported that she had demanded money

from the citizens of london and when

they resisted

she with a grim look her forehead

wrinkled into a frown every trace of a

woman's gentleness removed from her face

blazed into unbearable fury

steven was still a prisoner but troops

loyal to his cause began to ravage the

lands south of the thames just across

the river from the city of london

pressed on with her coronation plans

she was so close to her moment of

triumph but at the last moment

everything began to unravel

as matilda prepared to enjoy her feast

at westminster belles began to toll

the gates of the city swung open

and out swarmed thousands of armed

londoners to drive her away from the

capital

[Music]

all matilda's hopes of being crowned

queen were trampled into the dirt along

with the feast she had left behind

but things were about to get still worse

news reached matilda that bishop henry

had swapped sides once again and

declared his support of his brother

stephen

matilda pursued the bishop to winchester

but was caught in an ambush

she was smuggled to safety but her

greatest supporter robert of gloucester

was captured in battle

without him she knew she could never

hope to win

so she bought his freedom but the price

was high she had to release her most

valuable prisoner by far her rival

stephen

still she fought on and in september

1142 matilda was besieged by stephen's

forces in the burned and blackened city

of oxford

for three months she held out but just

before christmas she decided to risk

everything in one last effort to escape

matilda's escape from oxford is the most

famous the most daring and certainly the

bravest moment of her life

in the cold and dark with a bodyguard of

just three trusted soldiers she left

oxford castle by a small side gate

wrapped in white cloaks as camouflage

against the snow they walked silently

across the frozen river

an army surrounded the castle but no one

saw them pass

they trudged seven miles through the

drifting snow before they found horses

to carry them to safety

it was a courageous escape by anyone's

standards

and even the guest of stefani remarked

on matilda's extraordinary tenacity

never have i read of another woman so

luckily rescued from so many mortal foes

and from the threat of dangers so great

matilda was now free

but nothing had changed

england remained in military deadlock

it was time to develop a new game plan

as the destructive stalemate continued

matilda could be

but she was the mother of a son henry

and he was an entirely different

prospect

matilda recognized that the battle she

now faced was to win the crown for her

son not to wear it herself

[Music]

if the she-wolf couldn't wear the crown

then her cub would

while matilda had been fighting in

england her son henry had grown up in

france

as a strong and energetic warrior he had

all the promise of a future king

and matilda decided that the time had

come for him to fight for his

grandfather's kingdom

stephen's position had depended on his

ability to offer security and leadership

but the anarchy of the long years of

civil war had undone all that

according to the anglo-saxon chronicle

england's people felt abandoned by god

saying that while they suffered christ

and his saints slept

and so in the face of dwindling support

stephen was forced to agree a compromise

he would remain as king

but at a ceremony here in winchester

stephen recognized henry as his

successor

matilda had won

but the cost of her victory was her own

political eclipse

she wasn't even mentioned by name in the

treaty that brought an end to the

conflict that had dominated her life

it wasn't long though before her

self-denial was rewarded

stephen died in october 1154

and two months later almost exactly 19

years since matilda's father had died

her son was crowned king henry ii

with her son safely on the throne

matilda returned to normandy and settled

just outside its capital rouen where she

acted as henry's counsellor and

sometimes his royal deputy

matilda had shown how hard it was for a

woman to rule in her own right

in the end she sacrificed her own claim

to the throne to ensure her dynasty

continued

she had lost the battle but she had won

the war

her father would have been proud of her

and her son certainly was

henry never forgot the importance of his

mother and always called himself henry

fitz empress son of the empress

a poem from the time recalls that

nothing in the world was dearer to him

than she

matilda died in normandy at the age of

65

on the 10th of september 1167.

[Music]

political pragmatism that made her son

king

these latin verses were later inscribed

on her tomb

or two magna viro mayor said maxima

partu

hick yaquette henrique philia sponsor

parens

great by birth greater by marriage but

greatest in her offspring

here lies the daughter wife and mother

of henry

her son's triumph was the vindication of

everything she'd done

but the price to be paid for that

victory was her disappearance between

the lines of her own epitaph

this was the price that matilda paid for

being a queen who dared to believe she

might act like a king

and still the question remained

would a woman seeking this much power

always face such outrage

[Music]

her daughter-in-law would attempt to

find out

with just as much determination as

matilda herself

but as the centuries have gone by

eleanor of aquitaine's fame has endured

less as a she-wolf than as a queen of

the romantic world of chivalry

and courtly love

[Music]

in fact we know very little for certain

about eleanor's looks or her emotional

life

the only contemporary image of her that

survives is this effigy from her tomb at

fontevro abbey and it's hard to get a

sense of the extraordinary woman behind

this mask-like face

one clue to her intellect is perhaps the

book she's holding not a typical prop

for a medieval woman

but then eleanor wasn't typical in

anything she did she spent 80 years at

the center of european politics not as a

passive consort but as a dynamic force

in her own right

above all she was a woman who believed

in her own agency her ability to

determine her own fate

[Music]

elena's childhood was spent in

one of the great cities of her father's

duchy of aquitaine

in her day it had a reputation as a

place of poetry romance and wit

it was a flamboyant and sophisticated

court for a girl to grow up in

[Music]

this exquisite church with its elaborate

carvings and richly painted walls gives

us a rare glimpse into the sumptuousness

of elena's early life but at the age of

13 she was abruptly taken away from all

this

the beginning of eleanor's life was

entirely conventional for an

aristocratic areas

just like matilda but eleanor made a

particularly powerful match

her new husband was heir to the french

throne

and within days of the wedding the old

king died

now at the age of only 13

elena was queen of france

wife of king louis vii

louis who was unworldly and young for

his years was puppishly devoted to his

beautiful wife

elena was much less impressed according

to later

she said he was more monk than king

elena's role as consort was to give

louis an heir

and it may be evidence of her distaste

for the job but it was eight years

before she gave birth for the first time

the baby was strong healthy and perfect

in every way

except for the fact that she was a girl

[Music]

but eleanor was still only 21

and from their court in paris there was

another project consuming the royal

couple

louis and eleanor had decided to go on

crusade

here at sandini in june 1147 eleanor

knelt received the pope's blessing

during the crusade's elaborate send-off

and she almost fainted on a

suffocatingly hot day

but she didn't show any such

vulnerability in the face of the very

real dangers of the crusade itself

[Music]

elena and louis were joining the great

battle between the christian west and

muslim east to win control of jerusalem

and the holy land

this adventure was the first sign that

eleanor was not going to be a

conventional wife or queen

[Music]

a crusade was not to be taken lightly a

treacherous journey across thousands of

miles to face dangers of landscape

climate disease

war

ironically though the greatest threat to

france's queen

wasn't her position near the front line

but a personal scandal

eleanor and louis made their way across

europe

in the spring of 1148 they sought refuge

in antioch

now in modern-day turkey which was ruled

by eleanor's uncle

raymond of poitiers

[Music]

according to one chronicler raymond was

the handsomest of the princes of earth

and elena delighted in his company

soon the intimacy between them began to

spark scandalous gossip that raced

across europe

this was a dangerous moment for elena

she was suspected of having an

incestuous affair with her uncle

bad enough you might think

for a queen however adultery was also

treason

when louis decided to leave antioch

elena astonishingly refused to go with

him

and when he tried to insist she showed

just how far she was prepared to go to

escape him

elena decided to use church law to claim

that her marriage was invalid

in theory the church banned marriages

where a couple shared an ancestor within

the previous seven generations as

eleanor and louis did

but this was a law that the powerful

could always get permission to ignore

according to the particular john of

salisbury when the king made haste to

tear her away she mentioned their

kinship saying it was not lawful for

them to remain together as man and wife

since they were related by the fourth

and fifth degree

the reality was that church law was used

by powerful men to get rid of wives who

were no longer politically convenient

and it seemed that eleanor didn't see

why she shouldn't use it too

but elena found that the king's power

was greater than hers

louis wasn't prepared to let his queen

go and she was forced to leave antioch

with him

[Music]

in 1149 a failed crusade trailed home

and for the next two years eleanor

didn't waste her energy by struggling

further

she remained dutifully in paris

and in 1150 she gave birth to another

daughter

but then she encountered the man who

would change the whole course of her

life

this man was matilda's son henry future

king of england and in 1151 peace talks

brought him to paris

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eleanor and henry must have met when he

came to the french court in the summer

of 1151 though the chroniclers are

tantalisingly silent on the subject he

was nine years younger than eleanor a

fiery and charismatic young man

boundless energy as a soldier and a

leader

and just seven months later the

difficulties in elena's marriage erupted

into the open once again

this time it was louis who had given up

the fight to keep his wife by his side

in march 1152 a committee of french

bishops annulled their marriage and

elena left paris immediately for

poitiers

just eight weeks and two days after her

divorce she married henry in doing so

she changed the balance of power in

europe

elena had inherited the vast duchy of

aquitaine from her father

and by adding this that stretched from

the pyrenees to the scottish borders

eleanor had already shown that she would

determine her own future

but now in her second royal marriage

she found she wasn't the strongest

female influence in her husband's life

that role went to her new mother-in-law

matilda

we don't know anything about the

relationship between these two

formidable women

but what we do know is that while

eleanor did her duty as henry's queen

producing eight children in 15 years it

was matilda who was the elder statesman

in his government

that was to change in 1167 when matilda

died less than a year after the birth of

her last royal grandchild

now at the age of 43 eleanor's political

career was about to begin in earnest

the task of governing henry's huge and

unwieldy empire was a challenging one

which kept him constantly on the move

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aquitaine at its most southern edge was

culturally and politically alien to

henry but it was eleanor's homeland

and in 1168 eleanor went to govern the

duchy in her husband's name

for henry this was a matter of political

strategy

but for eleanor an opportunity and a

welcome homecoming

hidden inside what are now the law

courts elena city of puerto is all that

remains of her vast palace

we don't know very much about the

details of eleanor's rule but it's clear

that she exercised independent power

here holding great courts where she

gathered aquatains lords around her

but she wasn't accused of unnatural

pride as matilda had been in england

instead her role as aquitaine's dutchess

was accepted

a woman in charge was much less

challenging it turned out if she were

ruling as the lieutenant of an absolute

husband

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however the stories that surround this

period of ellen's life are tales of

romance and chivalry

aquitaine was the home of the

troubadours who sang of knights

declaring their passionate devotion to

unobtainable ladies and attempting

heroic deeds of valor to win their

hearts

one twelfth century text entitled de

amore puts honor at the center of these

stories

ruling over a court of love that

pronounced judgment on questions such as

whether true love could exist in

marriage

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dear has persisted so powerfully

how much easier to think of eleanor as

the queen of romance concerned with

emotions not politics

but what elena did next i think

demonstrated in the most dramatic way

just how important power was to her

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this magnificent castle at chinong on

the banks of the loire was one of the

most important centers of henry's rule

it was also the setting for what was to

be eleanor's most assertive bid for

power

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elena never had a claim to be a monarch

in her own right

but her children did

and as a mother she was prepared to

fight tooth and claw for her son's

rights

it was a fight that would dominate the

rest of her life

male heirs were a medieval king's

greatest asset

the insurance that his dynasty would

prevail

but grown-up sons weren't always

prepared to wait patiently while their

father still reigned

when elena's three eldest boys reached

their teens they were champing at the

bit for a share in ruling their father's

empire

and although henry promised them a role

to play he couldn't bring himself to

delegate real power

in 1173 their oldest son had had enough

of his father's empty promises

under cover of night he rode away from

chinon to defect to henry's great enemy

and eleanor's ex-husband

the king of france

elena's husband was devastated at their

son's betrayal but henry was about to

get a much bigger shock

when he sent for his wife and his

younger sons he discovered that eleanor

and the boys had also left for paris

it was clear that eleanor two was in

open revolt against her husband and king

why did eleanor turn on her husband

the story that's often told is that she

was violently angry about henry's affair

with a beautiful young woman named

rosamund clifford known as fair rosamond

the rose of the world

there's no way of knowing now what elena

thought or felt so we'll never be sure

exactly what was going through her mind

when she rebelled against her husband

and once again in elena's life emotion

gets used to fill a gap left by an

absence of evidence

all kings have mistresses and elena was

worldly wise enough to know that

but she had a formidable political brain

and it's much more likely that she like

her sons was angry that the power henry

had given her an aquitaine wasn't

everything he promised

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eleanor was treading an intensely

dangerous path

but she had nickable when she left one

king to marry another

now her second royal husband was

standing in the way of her ambition

and she would leave him too

sons rebelling against their father were

a cause of outrage and sorrow but the

12th century had seen it all before

a wife rebelling against her husband was

a new and profoundly alarming phenomenon

one chronicler scoured his archive to

find more than 30 examples of sons

taking up arms against their father but

not a single precedent of a queen in

revolt against her husband

in a public letter the archbishop of

ruan told eleanor that she threatened

the very fabric of society

man is the head of woman he said we know

that unless you return to your husband

you will be the cause of a general ruin

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but elena as always refused to be cowed

she set about mustering support from the

disaffected lords of aquitaine who were

always ready to resist henry's rule

finally she rode north to join her sons

but she never arrived

she was captured on the road by her

husband's forces

according to one chronicle they found

her disguised as the man

with elena captured the boys were no

match for their father

by the autumn of 1174 they had no choice

but to throw themselves on his mercy

henry was generous in victory and

offered his sons peace with honor

to eleanor he was not so magnanimous

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elena was taken as a prisoner from

france to england and for the next 15

years she's almost lost in silence we

don't even know for certain where she

was held

but for a woman who'd always believed in

her own agency captivity can only have

been relentlessly difficult to endure

elena was blamed for their family's

descent into civil war

but during the 15 long years she was

kept under lock and key they kept on

fighting

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it was a conflict that claimed the life

of her eldest son

and it didn't stop until 1189

when at the age of 56 in his fortress of

chinon henry ii died

his body was taken to fontevro abbey

10 miles westward along the loire river

his heir was his second son richard

elena's favorite child who would one day

be known as the lionheart

it was dusk when richard stepped into

the church to england

that his mother was now a free woman

eleanor was 65 years old and after 15

years in captivity her moment had come

and this time she wasn't just given the

duchy of aquitaine to rule but the

kingdom of england

richard sent word that his mother should

have the power of doing whatever she

wished in the kingdom

eleanor had to rule england because

richard was away on crusade

and unusually for elena's controversial

career her power didn't provoke critical

comment

it seemed that a queen mother ruling on

behalf of her son the king

was infinitely more acceptable than a

queen ruling in her own right

to establish her son's new regime ellen

traveled from city to city and castle to

castle at the head of her queenly court

an unusual adjective for the chronicler

roger of howden to choose but one that

emphasized the rare spectacle of a woman

alone at the helm of english government

and she had to do the job for much

longer than anyone had anticipated

on his way back from the holy land

richard was captured and spent more than

a year behind the walls of a german

castle

it was eleanor who kept the peace in

england during his absence and eleanor

who raised the ransom that eventually

bought his freedom

when richard died in 1199 struck by a

stray arrow at a siege in france it was

eleanor who secured the succession of

her youngest son john

amazingly at the age of 75 she traveled

hundreds of miles the length and breadth

of france to support john's rule

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but eventually age and exhaustion caught

up with eleanor

she returned here to fontevro to rest

and from that point on she retreated

into silence

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elena died on the 31st of march 1204

at the age of 80.

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despite her long years of conflict with

her husband she was laid to rest beside

him

matilda and eleanor both believed in

their right to rule for themselves

matilda got to the very brink of her own

coronation as queen of england and when

elena's power and autonomy were

threatened she went so far as to lead a

rebellion against her own husband

but in practice it turned out that the

sight of a woman pursuing power for

herself caused consternation

in the next program we meet the queens

who inspired that title in literature

one accused of murder the other of

plunging the country into the wars of

the roses isabella and margaret each

fought for power in one of the most

brutal periods of english history

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nina ramirez delves into the lives of

the medieval kings here on bbc hd

tomorrow at 7 in illuminations back to

tonight now though and we're getting a

lesson in norwegian waffles next with

the hairy bikers

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so

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do

do

so

do

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lose his authority on his nobles

could this possibly be a job for a woman

these are the two sides of a king's

great seal the physical representation

of the crown's authority that hung from

every royal decree

an iconic image of power

that demonstrates the king's most

fundamental roles

here on one side he sits with an orb and

scepter in his hands to give justice to

his people

on the other

he rides a war horse with his sword

unsheathed to defend his kingdom

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even today power still looks sounds and

feels overwhelmingly male

back then there was no question in

contemporary's minds about the order of

god's creation

men ruled and their women obeyed

in fact the anglo-saxon word for queen

didn't mean a female king

it meant the wife of a king and as a

king's wife a queen could advise her

husband or even represent him

but her authority always depended on him