Take the Queen Mother, combine with Margaret Thatcher, insert into Medieval England (and France) and that’s Eleanor of Aquitaine. Chances are you’ve never heard of her (King John’s mother if you remember your Maid Marion) but worry not.
Weir has a habit of taking the most controversial and misunderstood historical persons and situations and rendering them in such considered detail, free from salacious diatribes and glib asides, so that you finish with the full story told. This is no exception but with the added bonus of a genuinely fascinating and wilful monarch who let nothing – her first husband, her second, her children, the Pope and the Crusades (which she joined in with, on horseback) get in her way. Informative and entertaining.
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