[The following takes place during the Second Crusade.]
Eleanor was outraged by her husband’s [Louis VII] stupidity. In front of everyone she spoke long and passionately in favour of her uncle’s plan [to attack Saracen strongholds, particularly Alleppo; Louis wanted to instead move on to Jerusalem]. Infuriated by what must have seemed open contempt for him, the king announced that he was leaving Antioch without further delay and that as a dutiful wife she had to accompany him. The queen, by now equally angry, answered that he might go but she would stay in Antioch, and that furthermore she wanted their marriage annulled on grounds of consanguinity (i..e. that they were within the degree of kinship that made a marriage canonically illegal). One unreliable chronicler claims that she told Louis he wasn’t ‘worth a bad pear’.
The king’s paymaster, a Templar named Thierry Galeran, was a eunuch of whom Eleanor had made an enemy by mocking at his disability. No doubt with relish, Thierry advised Louis to use force. Accordingly in the middle of the night, royal troops broke into the queen’s palace and dragged her off to the St Paul gate, where her husband was waiting. They left Antioch secretly, before dawn.
Source:
Seward, Desmond. “The Crusader.” Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: Times , 1979. 51. Print.
Further Reading:
Aliénor d'Aquitaine / Éléonore / Alienora (Eleanor of Aquitaine)
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