Captive Queen; A Novel of Eleanor of Aqutaine (2010)

Eleanor of Aquitaine was first married to King Louis of France, but he was more interested spending his time in prayers than with his wife. She’s not happy and extremely bored and when it’s suggested that Louis finds a new wife to get much needed male heir she’s not resisting.
Then she meets young Henry FitzEmpress and it’s insta-lust from the start. After Eleanor gets her divorce from Louis she and Henry marries without permission.

I’m still wondering why I ever started this book and how I managed to finish it. I haven’t been huge fan of her fiction books but this sure was something.

The sex scenes weren’t so bad than I thought and not as graphic but I don’t need sex scenes from the start. At page 2 she’s remembering her hot night with her future husband’s father and it’s downhill from there. But then she sees Henry for the first time and forgets Geoffrey just like that and after just few hours after their first meeting Eleanor and Henry are having sex. She’s supposed to have had an affair with this troubadour guy too, and of course with her uncle. Because if there’s some ugly rumour ever spoken of Eleanor you can trust to find it in here. As I said the sex wasn’t that graphic but it also wasn’t good and got very repetitive very soon. And I’m wondering how she managed to do all this without her servants knowing?

At page 22 we get this wonderful peace of information

Henry was surprised to find his father’s muscles iron-hard – not bad for an old man of thirty-eight, he thought. He had glimpsed too Geoffrey’s impressive manhood, and wondered seriously for the first time if his father had indeed been speaking the truth about knowing Eleanor carnally, and if he had, whether he had satisfied her as well as he, Henry, had done.

Like any normal father-son day, right?

Somehow Weir manages to turn this strong and intelligent woman into weak, childish, sex-addicted woman. And her portrayal of Henry isn’t that better. Where is this powerful man who’s spectacular rages made men fear? Instead we get someone who spends most of his time drinking, swiving random women at closets and other random places and stamping his foot when everything won’t go as he planned. There’s some fighting between Eleanor and Henry but unfortunately it sounds like a 3 year old is having a tantrum.

And if this all wasn’t enough she had to make Beckett to be in love with Henry. Like seriously?

I wasn’t fan of the writing itself which was the biggest reason why I hated this. But towards the end something happens and the writing get better and the characters started coming to life. We actually get one moving scene between Eleanor and Henry regarding Rosamund.
Speaking of writing, at some point after she has given birth she’s thinking about how queen’s can’t raise their kids and breastfeed them by themselves and then few pages after she puts the baby to her breast. Ouch!

I think this is time to stop reading her fiction books and not even try her next book! ( )

http://www.monniblog.com/2010/12/the-captive-queen-by-alison-weir/ ( )

To say that Eleanor of Aquitaine was an incredible woman is an understatement, to say the least. After her father’s death, Eleanor became Duchess of Aquitaine at age 15, a lush region in the south of France. Soon after, she married King Louis VII and became Queen of France. As Queen of France, she traveled east and participated in the Second Crusade. Tiring of Louis, she divorced him and married Henry FitzEmpress, heir to the throne of England. When he was crowned in 1154, she became Queen of England. In 1174, she was imprisoned by Henry for having aided theirs sons in a revolt against him. She remained his captive for 16 years. Justifiably, I was incredibly excited to read Captive Queen, but my fervour soon dissipated after a few minutes of reading.

I discovered during the first few pages that Weir’s Eleanor was not the formidable woman I imaged. The novel begins when Eleanor, soon to be divorced of Louis, first meets the young Henry II. The moment she set eyes on Henry II, sparks were flying and she fell madly in lust (or what Weir insists, love) with him. This Eleanor was not motivated by power, but by her attraction to Henry. The idea that if Eleanor could rid her troublesome husband and marry Henry, she could a build vast and powerful empire was a mere afterthought (if that) compared to her intention of bedding him. And bed him she did. After the first 20 pages -the very night they met- Henry and Eleanor were already committing ”sins of the flesh”. This is the start of an unfortunate pattern of sex scenes that are needlessly detailed, but lacking in even an ounce of passion.

see more at:

http://windowtoapast.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/captive-queen-by-alison-weir/ ( )

This epic novel is full of intrigue, conflict, and hope; it is pulled together with high quality writing. ( )

[Previously posted at Bookin' It.]

Alison Weir is a noted historian who has written two other fictionalized accounts of women from British history, Innocent Traitor (Lady Jane Grey) and The Lady Elizabeth (the first). While I enjoyed those, and also liked her nonfiction The Lady in the Tower, about the fall of Anne Boleyn, this novel about Eleanor of Aquitane was not quite as good as those.

On the plus side, the book introduced me to the life of this fascinating woman, whom I'd certainly heard of but knew little about. Weir also included a seven-page author's note at the end of the book, where she identifies what is true and what is conjecture (much of the latter being due to little documentation from the late 1800s). I also appreciated the family trees and map at the beginning of the book, that helped me keep track of who was who and what was where.

The book covers the period of Eleanor's life when she was involved with England's Henry II. It starts at the end of her unsatisfying marriage to King Louis VII of France, when she first meets Henry, eleven years her junior, and has an affair with him (she's also apparently had affairs with Henry's father, a troubadour, and an uncle). The Church annuls her marriage to Louis (despite having two daughters), apparently because they are too closely related, and she goes on to marry Henry. At first their marriage is very passionate (they had eight children in thirteen years, including four sons who survive to adulthood), and in the novel, it seems they're constantly in bed (most of their conversations occur there). Then Eleanor learns of Henry's infidelities, and Thomas Becket stirs up strife, and their sons start to fight each other and their father, and Henry "imprisons" Eleanor (hence the title) because of her support for her sons, especially her favorite, Richard. After Henry's death in 1889, there is an epilogue (on Eleanor's deathbed in 1204) where she reflects on the last fifteen years of her life.

I could have done without much of the sex and Eleanor's lustful longings. Not that I'm a prude, but I do think it detracted somewhat from the rest of the story.

© Amanda Pape - 2012

[This book was borrowed from and returned to my local public library.] ( )