Eleanor of Aquitaine Read Online Free PDF

said, became close friends. But despite Philippa’s great dedication to the abbey and to the ideal of feminine superiority on which it was based, she was able to find little contentment living there as a rejected wife. Full of resentment and anger, she could not accept the fact that William had treated her shamefully by tossing her aside for a concubine. She soon disappeared from history, the records stating only that she died on November 28, 1118, whether from illness or wretchedness there is no way of knowing.
    Little is known, too, about the viscountess of Chatellerault, except for the obvious inference: She was a woman who did as she pleased and who cared little for public opinion. At the time of her “abduction,” Dangereuse had been married for about seven years and had borne three children: Aenor, Hugh, and Ralph. While her husband could not have been pleased about being openly cuckolded, nonetheless the fact remained that the incorrigible William was his liege lord, and had Viscount Aimery objected strongly—for even in Aquitaine wife stealing was a fauxpas —there was really little that he could do to alter the situation. As time passed, it became clear to all that La Maubergeonne had come to stay, and her presence at court became more or less taken for granted.
    Although Dangereuse could never become the official duchess of Aquitaine, she determined that her relationship with William be recognized in some manner. After several years, she proposed the ingenious scheme of marrying his eldest son, William, to her daughter, Aenor; if she could not be duchess, then her daughter would hold that title in her stead. And it is a tribute to her perseverance that the duke finally agreed. The marriage did not take place without opposition, however, one of the main objectors being young William himself. When Dangereuse first arrived at court, he was barely sixteen, a strapping lad who towered over his father. He had a prodigious appetite—it was later claimed that he ate enough for eight men—and already showed signs of a stubborn, quarrelsome nature. Although he had inherited his father’s charming manner, the resemblance between father and son ended there. One chronicler contended that the boy, provoked beyond endurance by the injury that his father’s liaison had done to his mother, revolted in a seven-year struggle that ended only with his capture by the duke. While the records flatly contradict this theory, nonetheless it must be concluded that young William did not adapt to the changes in his family life without great difficulty. Although the idea of marrying the daughter of his father’s mistress may have been distasteful to him, the will of La Maubergeonne finally prevailed, and the marriage took place in 1121.
    In contrast to her colorful mother, Aenor appears to have been a rather timid person who lacked the smallest semblance of forcefulness. Puppetlike, she moved through life doing the things expected of her and leaving behind no trace of an interesting or even distinct personality. Presumably her mousy character had been influenced by the unorthodox events of her early life: her abandonment as a child when her mother suddenly disappeared one day as well as the resulting stigma of being the daughter of a notorious adulteress. Perhaps Dangereuse believed that she was making up for Aenor’s early deprivation by arranging a brilliant marriage, for undeniably the position into which she finagled Aenor was highly desirable; but on the other hand, there is no evidence that it brought the girl happiness. No more than fourteen and possibly younger, Aenor moved into the Poitevin court under her mother’s watchful eye and set about the difficult task of trying to please a husband who must have regarded her with something less than enthusiasm. Careful to give no offense, she soon realized that her main obligation, the route by which she might gain favor, was to provide her awesome father-in-law with grandchildren.