Plantagenet Princes: Sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II

When Count Henry of Anjou and his formidable wife Eleanor of Aquitaine became king and queen of England, they amassed an empire stretching 1,000 miles from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, including half of France.Henry’s grandmother Empress (of Germany) Mathilda had taught him that ruling is like venery: show the hawk the reward, but take it away at the last moment, to keep the bird eager to please.To sons and vassals alike, Henry promised everything but gave nothing, keeping the three adult princes hating him and the other siblings all their lives. Plantagenet Princes traces the lives and infamous webs of mistrust and intrigue among them.What sons they were! Henry (b. 1155), ‘the Young king’ was entitled to succeed his father, yet was a rich playboy who died crippled by debt before his thirtieth birthday, after living the life of a robber baron.Richard (b. 1157), ‘the Lionheart’ was lord of his mother’s duchy of Aquitaine and became, thanks to her, England’s most popular king des