All language subtitles for 11nh.1111

1953. A coronation
fit for a king.

But it's a young queen
who is 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 6 decades.

But England's queens
haven't always been greeted

with such adoration,

and throughout our history,

women and power have made
an uneasy combination.

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 800 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
criticised and condemned.

Most graphically of all,

they'd been vilified as
She-Wolves.

These are the stories
of the She-Wolves of England,

and to explore them is to
realise just how far we've come

and how little has changed.

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 coronation

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 I

and granddaughter
of William the Conqueror,

but you won't find her on the
role-call of English monarchs.

This faint manuscript image

is the only contemporary picture
of her that survives.

Her attempt to claim the crown
was to throw the country

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.

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 Barfleur
to cross the channel.

At it's head was the King
of England, Henry I,

in his great dragon-headed
longship, and behind him,

in a newly fitted-out vessel
called the White Ship,

was his son and heir, 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 there seemed no need
for concern.

The King set sail first
at twilight, to be followed

by William and his company
of ebullient 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 Malmesbury wrote:

"No ship that ever sailed
brought England such disaster."

It was such a calamity
that 2 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 source of potential
power for future queens.

After all, they were the ones
who produced sons 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 I 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 2 sides
of a king's great seal,

the physical representation
of the crown's authority

that hung
from every royal decree.

It's an iconic image of power

that demonstrates the king's
most fundamental roles.

Here, on one side,

he sits with an orb and sceptre
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.

Even today, power still looks,
sounds and feels

overwhelmingly male.

Back then, there was no question
in contemporaries' 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.

At the age of 8,

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

at the greatest court in Europe,
and as a result,

she had a powerful sense
of her own majesty.

Matilda assumed that she
would spend the rest of her life

as a German empress,

but when she was 23,
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 1127,

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.

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 might 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.

So Henry chose as Matilda's
bridegroom Geoffrey 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,

to knight
his prospective son-in-law.

Henry was delighted
with the match,

but Matilda wasn't so pleased.

The good news?

Geoffrey was so handsome
and athletic

that he was nicknamed
"Geoffrey the Fair".

The bad? He was only 15.

Matilda clearly wasn't dazzled
by Geoffrey's good looks.

He was 11 years younger than her

and her junior by far
in status and experience.

She'd 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.

But Matilda didn't give in
easily.

She never called herself
Countess of Anjou.

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.

Matilda 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 60s,

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 2 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 Anjou
with Geoffrey,

standing shoulder to shoulder
with her husband.

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 8 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 Argentan,

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 Argentan.

The chronicler,
William of Malmesbury,

says only that she failed
to return to England

for "certain reasons",

which at a distance of almost
900 years is maddeningly opaque.

Maybe her pregnancy
had made her ill

or maybe she believed 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.

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 "Gesta Stephani",

"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.

Stephen's masterstroke 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.

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 3rd son had been born
safely at Argentan.

But now and she and her boys
were embattled there

with little prospect
of reclaiming her inheritance.

But it was Normandy
that came to her rescue.

To 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.

By then Normandy had collapsed
into anarchy

and so did Stephen's army,

as his soldiers began
to squabble among themselves.

At her base at Argentan,
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 1138,
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 centre 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 8 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 Arundel'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 Arundel.

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 Stephen's,

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
Stephen's army head on,

they did find a way
to wear him down

with feints
and lightning strikes,

a kind of guerrilla warfare

that kept Stephen
on the back foot.

For the next 2 years,
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.

"It was a dreadful thing",

said the chronicler
William of Malmesbury,

"that England, once
the noblest place of peace,

the peculiar habitation
of tranquillity,

had sunk to such wretchedness."

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 Stephens' army

and took the king prisoner.

It had been 5 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 recognise her as Queen.

She couldn't undo
Stephen'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 advisors.

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 Malmesbury.

This is a translation
of William's chronicle

and it's an extraordinary thing
more than 800 years later

to read an eye witness 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 breath-taking 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 6 long years to achieve.

So here at Winchester,
Matilda was recognised

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 exulted in spirit."

"She at once put on
an extremely arrogant demeanour

instead of the modest
gait 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 wont,

to such a point
hat 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 success of 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 "Gesta Stephani",

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."

Stephen was still a prisoner,

but troops loyal to his cause
began to ravage the land

south of the Thames,

just across the river
from the City of London.

Undeterred, Matilda 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,

bells began to toll.

The gates of the City
swung open

and out swarmed thousands
of armed Londoners

to drive her away
from the capital.

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 3 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 body guard
of just 3 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 7 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 "Gesta Stephani"
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 came to the realisation
that, as a woman,

she would never fit
her most powerful subjects' idea

of what a King should be.

But she was the mother
of a son, Henry,

and he was
an entirely different prospect.

Matilda recognised
that the battle she now faced

was to win the crown
for her son,

not to wear it herself.

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 recognised 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 2 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 councillor

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 FitzEmpress,

"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.

In the end, it was Matilda's
tough political pragmatism

that made her son King.

These Latin verses were later
inscribed on her tomb:

"Ortu Magna, viro maior,
sed maxima partu,

hic iacet Henrici filia,
sponsa, 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?

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

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 Fontevraud 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 centre
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.

Eleanor's childhood
was spent in Poitiers,

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.

This exquisite church,
with its elaborate carvings

and richly painted walls,
gives us a rare glimpse

into the sumptuousness
of Eleanor'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 heiress.

Just like Matilda before her,

she was an asset
to be traded in marriage.

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,
Eleanor was Queen of France,

wife of King Louis VII.

Louis, who was unworldly
and young for his years,

was puppyishly devoted
to his beautiful wife.

Eleanor was much less
impressed.

According to later gossip,

she said he was more monk
than King.

Eleanor's role as consort
was to give Louis an heir.

And it may be evidence
of her distaste for the job

that it was 8 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.

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 Saint-Denis,
in June 1147,

Eleanor knelt
to receive 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.

Eleanor 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.

A crusade
was not to be taken lightly.

A treacherous journey
across 1,000s of miles

to face dangers of landscape,
climate, disease and 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.

According to one chronicler,

Raymond was the handsomest
of the princes of the earth

and Eleanor delighted
in his company.

Soon the intimacy between them

began to spark
scandalous gossip

that raced across Europe.

This was a dangerous moment
for Eleanor.

She was suspected of having
an incestuous affair

with her uncle.

"Bad enough," you might think.

For a Queen, however,
adultery was also treason.

But Eleanor seemed
completely undaunted

by this innuendo
and speculation.

When Louis decided
to leave Antioch,

Eleanor, 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.

Eleanor 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 7 generations,

as Eleanor and Louis did.

But this was a law that
the powerful could always

get permission to ignore.

According to the chronicler
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 4th and 5th 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 Eleanor 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.

In 1149,
the failed crusade trailed home,

and for the next 2 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.

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 9 years younger
than Eleanor,

a fiery and charismatic
young man

with boundless energy
as a soldier and a leader.

And just 7 months later,

the difficulties
in Eleanor'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 Eleanor left Paris
immediately for Poitiers.

Just 8 weeks and 2 days
after her divorce,

she married Henry.

In doing so,

she changed the balance
of power in Europe.

Eleanor had inherited
the vast Duchy of Aquitaine

from her father,
and by adding this

to Henry's lands in England,
Normandy and Anjou,

she helped him build an empire

that stretched from the Pyrenees
to the Scottish borders.

Eleanor had already shown

that she would determine
her own future.

But now in her 2nd 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 2
formidable women.

But what we do know

is that while Eleanor
did her duty as Henry's Queen

producing 8 children
in 15 years,

it was Matilda who was
the elder states woman

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.

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

in Eleanor's city
of Poitiers,

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

Aquitaine's lords around her.

But she wasn't accused
of unnatural pride,

as Matilda had been in England.

Instead, her role as Aquitaine's
Duchess was accepted.

A woman in charge
was much less challenging,

it turned out,
if she were ruling

as the lieutenant
of an absent husband.

However,

the stories that surround
this period of Eleanor'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 valour to win their hearts.

One 12th century text
entitled "De Amore"

puts Eleanor at the centre
of these stories,

ruling over a court of love
that pronounced judgement

on questions such as whether
true love could exist

in marriage.

There's no evidence

that the courts of love
ever really existed,

but it's interesting
that the idea

has persisted so powerfully.

How much easier to think of
Eleanor as the Queen of romance,

concerned with emotions,
not politics.

But what Eleanor did next,
I think, demonstrated

in the most dramatic way just
how important power was to her.

This magnificent castle
at Chinon

along the banks of the Loire

was one of the most important
centres of Henry's rule.

It was also the setting
for what was to be

Eleanor's most assertive
bid for power.

Eleanor 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 sons' 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 Eleanor's 3 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.

Eleanor'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 too
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 Rosamund",
the "Rose of the World".

There's no way of knowing now
what Eleanor 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 Eleanor's
life, emotion gets used

to fill a gap
left by an absence of evidence.

All kings had mistresses

and Eleanor 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

in Aquitaine wasn't everything
he'd promised.

Eleanor was treading
an intensely dangerous path,

but she had never been
held back by fear.

She had already done
the unthinkable

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 Rouen

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".

But Eleanor, 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 a man.

With Eleanor 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 honour.

To Eleanor,
he was not so magnanimous.

Eleanor 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.

Eleanor 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.

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 Fontevraud Abbey,

10 miles westward
along the Loire River.

His heir was his 2nd son,
Richard,

Eleanor's favourite child,

who would one day be known
as the Lion Heart.

It was dusk when Richard
stepped into the church

to look for the last time
at his dead father's face.

Then he sent word 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
Eleanor'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,

Eleanor travelled 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 emphasised

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 n 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 travelled hundreds of miles,

the length and breadth of France
to support John's rule.

But eventually

age and exhaustion
caught up with Eleanor.

She returned here
to Fontevraud to rest

and from that point on
she retreated into silence.

Eleanor died on the 31st March
1204 at the age of 80.

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 Eleanor'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
and horror.

The fear of the she-wolves
had begun.

In the next programme,

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.