The Courts of Love

"When I look back over my long and tempestuous life, I can see that much of what happened to me-my triumphs and most of my misfortunes-were due to my passionate relationships with men."

Raised in the pleasure-loving Aquitaine duchy of France, where music, poetry and love were all, Eleanor was married to Louis VII, King of France, and then to the great Plantagenet, Henry II of England. She was passionately engaged in life, as a Crusader against the Turks, as the mother of two kings--Richard the Lion-Hearted and wicked King John--as a shrewd politician, and as her husband's prisoner for sixteen long years. Told by Eleanor herself, this story is a medieval tapestry come to blazing life, with unforgettable scenes of war, betrayal, adulterous passions, heartbreak, love and murder.