Eleanor on the Run

With the annulment on 21 March 1152 from King Louis VII of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine was now a target for any unscrupulous noble who thought they could possess the province of Aquitaine by marrying her—whether she wanted to or not. She was at Beaugency with Louis during the council that decided on the annulment due to consanguinity (they were third cousins), and left directly from there to head south toward Poitiers (capital city of Poitou) where she would be safe.

There were two times on the journey where she had to evade capture. On the night of the 21st while she passed through Blois, the Count of Blois and Chartres, Theobald V, tried to surround her small retinue. She got on a boat at the Loire and floated down to Tours.

At the border of Poitou, she narrowly avoided Geoffrey, Count of Nantes (son of the Geoffrey, Count of Anjou who was part of the Anarchy, and brother of Henry Curtmantle, who had recently become Duke of Normandy on the death of their father). He was waiting for her at the Port des Piles, but she had been forewarned. After this, Eleanor continued to use rivers and avoided roads.

Once she reached Poitiers and safety, she immediately sent secret envoys to England to speak to Henry, Duke of Normandy. They had met when Henry came to Paris to pledge loyalty to Louis as a vassal of his, since Normandy was part of France. Eleanor must have been impressed by this man 11 years her junior. She wanted him to travel as soon as possible to Poitiers to marry her. Besides being Duke of Normandy, Henry was also Count of Anjou, on the northern border of Aquitaine. An alliance with Anjou would give Aquitaine protection from the north.

Henry received the envoys on 6 April. Six weeks later (eight after the annulment) the two were married on 18 May 1152 in a small ceremony at Poitiers Cathedral without any fanfare. As for consanguinity, Eleanor and Henry were more closely related than she was to Louis, but they did not let that stop them. They kept things quiet to avoid interference from Louis, who would have reason to try to prevent the alliance of all these territories on the continent that would create a force that could challenge his rule, especially since Henry was in line to become King of England. (You might get some idea of just how much of the continent would be out of Louis' hands in the illustration above.)

Louis refused to give up the title Duke of Aquitaine; if Eleanor had a male heir, that heir would come the next Duke, and Louis wanted to keep it for his daughters by Eleanor, Marie and Alice. He made preparations for war. And he wasn't alone: he had allies who were all too willing to join him, in the hopes that they would benefit from victory by dividing up Aquitaine and Poitou.

We will see how that turned out for them tomorrow.