So very sorry that I am finished this wonderful book, about my very favorite historical character, and written by a gifted writer and researcher. Alienor, as Chadwick chooses to refer to her citing her own charters, comes to life in a new way for me, which is very amazing as I thought I knew everything there was to know.
It makes absolute sense to me that Geoffrey of Anjou would have been first to suggest or hint about a marriage of Henry to Eleanor as they were known to each other and were even related. They could, and probably did, have a discrete discussion about that possibility that Henry and Eleanor followed through with. Research shows that Henry consulted his vassals about that possibility several days after Louis and Alienor's annulment went through. Yes, it works that for years the possibility of that annulment ebbed and flowed, and was not a well kept secret.
Always it has seemed to me that Eleanor, married so young to an ineffective, erratic and reluctant husband and being very beautiful was attractive to men. Never did I think she had an affair with Her uncle Raymond or that she was an unfaithful wife. Geoffrey of Rancon or others like him surely were very attentive to her, and very surely she appreciated that fact.
Eleanor was a strong and resilient woman and Elizabeth Chadwick described her character, as well as Henry's in an extremely effective manner. I wholeheartedly recommend ordering this one right now!
About Elizabeth Chadwick
Best selling historical novelist Elizabeth Chadwick won a Betty Trask Award for her first novel The Wild Hunt. She has been shortlisted for the UK's mainstream Best Romantic Novel of the Year Award 4 times and longlisted twice. Her novel The Scarlet Lion about the great William Marshal and his wife Isabelle de Clare, has been selected by Richard Lee, founder of the Historical Novel Society as one of the landmark historical novels of the last ten years.
When not at her desk, she can be found taking long walks with the dog, baking cakes, reading books (of course!) exploring ruins, listening to various brands of rock and metal music, and occasionally slaving over a steaming cauldron with re-enactment society Regia Anglorum.
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