Despite his hardworking routine, Henry II found time to share some of his wife’s literary tastes. This is evident in the case of Marie of France (who may have been his half sister, the bastard daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet), abbess of Shaftesbury in Dorset. Marie wrote lais (elegant narrative poems on Arthurian themes derived from Brittany) that included the tale of Tristan and Yseult.
Almost certainly Marie’s charming verse found favour with Eleanor, and Henry seems to have paid tribute to the queen’s admiration in an unusually imaginative way. Near the palace of Woodstock, deep in the forest, he built a bower inspired by the tale of Tristan and Yseult; in the story the lovers communicated by twigs dropped by Tristan into a stream flowing through Yseult’s chamber, which was in an orchard surrounded by a thick fence. At Everswell, this background was recreated, complete with spring, orchard and palisade, and in the seventeenth century John Aubrey was still able to reconstruct the plan of ‘Rosamund’s Bower’.
Source:
Seward, Desmond. “Queen of England.” Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: Times , 1979. 88. Print.
Further Reading:
Henry II of England / Court-manteau (Henry Curtmantle) / Henry FitzEmpress / Henry Plantagenet
Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou / Geoffrey V / Geoffrey le Bel (the Handsome or the Fair)
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