Captive Queen

This post first published July 20, 2012.

Author: Alison Weir
First Published: March 2010
Published: Ballantine Books
473 pages (paperback)
 
This is my second Alison Weir book. I loved her first one, Innocent Traitor, on Lady Jane Grey and was very excited to read more of her works. Captive Queen is about Eleanor of Aquitaine, who, despite my limited knowledge on her, is a favourite Queen of mine from history. This book has its flaws, but I thought overall it was quite well done and I was pretty addicted to reading it. The book starts off a bit slow, but builds up increasingly. By the middle of the book, I couldn’t put it down at all.

Captive Queen begins when Eleanor is almost thirty years old, beginning with her failure of a marriage to King Louis of France. Eleanor is a beautiful, headstrong Queen with a high sex drive; unfortunately, her husband is so pious that Eleanor practically needs to beg him to come to bed with her, for the sake of an heir at least. When Eleanor lays her eyes on young Henry of Anjou (future King Henry of England), eleven years her junior, she is instantly attracted — and so is he. Daringly, Eleanor arranges for her marriage to Louis to become annulled and before anyone can say anything, she is wed to Henry. Their relationship is extremely passionate, as Henry shares the same sexual appetite as her and together, they eventually come to have eight children.

However, as the years go on, Eleanor and Henry’s relationship begins to break down. Though they can’t get enough of one another in the bedroom, outside they are butting heads politically over land and over their children. Finding out about Henry’s faithlessness also drives the wedge deeper between them. When Eleanor’s sons revolt against their father, Eleanor can’t help but side with her sons, a decision that will cost her her freedom.

As I mentioned earlier, the book begins a bit on the slow side. I still liked it, but it wasn’t anything too impressive. I read some reviews where people were unhappy with how much sex Eleanor and Henry had in the book, but that didn’t bother me one bit. I mean, they were both known to be quite into sex, it’s kind of hard to leave that out. However, I do agree that the beginning of the book seemed to be overly dominated with sex scenes and sexual-related scenes and the like. I guess it just drove home how much of Eleanor and Henry’s relationship was built upon pure, unrestrained lust — and unfortunately, lust doesn’t last.

What I loved was reading about Eleanor and Henry’s relationship dissolving. In some ways, this book isn’t really about just Eleanor, but rather, Eleanor and Henry. They couldn’t agree on so many things outside of the bedroom. Henry wanted things one way, Eleanor wanted things another way. Eleanor, who was quite an intelligent woman herself, resented the fact that Henry technically had control of her lands as her husband, even though none of her vassals liked Henry. She would try to persuade Henry to let her handle her own vassals since they like her more, but Henry is too prideful, too “manly” to let a woman handle his affairs. Then there was also Becket, Henry’s new BFF, who came between Eleanor and Henry’s relationship even more. She hated that she wasn’t the first person Henry would turn to for advice anymore. When their children grew older, she sided with her sons who felt their father was hogging all the power, which of course, drove Eleanor and Henry apart even more. As morbid as it sounds, I loved reading about their marriage and relationship falling apart. It was exciting! Dramatic!

I loved this book a lot! No, it’s not perfect — I do wish the author focused a bit more on Eleanor’s children, specifically her sons — but it’s a great book on its own. Whether you are knowledgeable about Eleanor’s life or not, I think many people will find this book quite exciting to read.

My Rating: 4.5/5