- [Matthew] It's 1193 and Richard the Lionheart,
King of England, is missing.
Eleanor of Aquitaine, dowager Queen of England,
and the only person holding the web
of Angevin alliances together is frantic.
She received word her son's ship wrecked in Italy
and that he'd attempted to travel overland
to his brother-in-law's territory in Saxony
but never arrived.
Meanwhile, her son, John, is already on the continent
pursuing an alliance with Philip of France,
who's only too happy
to encourage more Plantagenet infighting.
Then the letter arrives.
It's from Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI
informing the court that King Richard is his prisoner,
and he will absolutely release the monarch,
you know, provided he receives the sum of 150,000 marks.
That's more than double the annual revenue
of the English crown.
Eleanor, now 71 years old, gets her quill and parchment
and starts fundraising.
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The seeds of Richard's capture were sewn
during the Third Crusade, when at the Siege of Acre,
he'd clashed with Leopold of Austria badly enough
that his troops pulled Leopold's battle standard down
and threw it from the wall.
Infuriated by this and suspecting that Richard
had his relative killed during the crusade,
Leopold knew exactly what to do.
When he heard from informants that Richard was passing
through his lands, disguised as a returning pilgrim,
just before Christmas of 1192,
he arrested the King of England and shut him up in a castle.
When word of this got out, it caused a huge stir,
and seeking a more powerful ally,
Leopold turned Richard over to the Holy Roman Emperor
who then demanded the exorbitant ransom.
150,000 marks was a lot of money.
Eleanor immediately started a letter writing campaign,
petitioning the pope on Richard's behalf.
The letter is, well, extreme.
In it, she says she wishes for death, for blindness,
that her brain and blood and marrow dissolve in tears,
that she feels her entrails are being ripped out,
and asks the Pope to pity her
now that young Henry and Geoffrey are dust.
"Two sons remain in my solace," she wrote,
"who today survive to punish me, miserable and condemned.
"King Richard is held in chains.
"His brother, John, depletes his kingdom
"with iron sword and lays waste with fire.
"In all things, the Lord has turned cruel to me
"and attacked me with the harshness of his hand."
The letter worked on the pope.
He excommunicated Leopold of Austria,
since it was illegal to detain a Crusader.
But by then,
Richard was in the Holy Roman Emperor's custody,
and even the pope wasn't gonna tangle with that.
So Eleanor set herself to raising the ransom,
not an easy feat
since Richard had stripped the royal treasury
and squeezed out new taxes to pay for the crusade.
But she whipped up support by casting Richard
as a national hero who had boldly taken the cross
and won great victories,
creating a structure where giving to the cause
was an act of loyalty and patriotism,
and nobles competed to offer the biggest contribution.
There was a danger, however,
that they would be secretly outbid.
John and King Philip had offered the Holy Roman Emperor
80,000 marks to keep Richard imprisoned
while they tried to put John on the English throne.
But that wasn't going so well.
Though Philip and John had overrun Angevin territory
in Normandy, Eleanor and Richard's counsel
had started hardening English defenses
as soon as John left for France.
So when John's supporters rose up
and he crossed the channel, they made little to no progress,
until one day, in February of 1194,
when John got a message from Philip.
It read, "Look to yourself, the Devil is loose."
Eleanor had raised the enormous ransom
and managed to get it safely into the emperor's hands,
meaning King Richard was free and on his way back.
John, unable to best his mother, ran back to Normandy.
But Richard, probably with Eleanor's counsel,
was in a forgiving mood.
See, when Richard left for Crusade, he'd skipped John over
as heir, instead naming his then two-year-old nephew,
Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, as his heir presumptive.
Arthur was Geoffrey's son, born after his brother died,
and got the nod presumably because he was a toddler
and therefore unlikely to seize the crown
while Richard was gone.
Yet Richard's capture likely frightened he and Eleanor
at the prospect of the English throne
going to a five-year-old who, it should be noted
that in the meantime, had been kidnapped by Philip
and raised in Paris, making him too tied to France.
So it turned out John was the logical choice,
and his family would just ignore a little rebelling.
Richard, somewhat patronizingly,
and again, probably with Eleanor's advice,
declared that John was but a child misled by his advisors.
I'm sure that John, who was 27 at the time, just loved that.
But becoming heir presumptive
was worth eating a little crow, and John did it.
In fact, he settled down, severed his connections to Philip,
and went about fighting to reclaim the French lands
that he'd helped Philip take.
Meanwhile, Richard returned to England for a ceremonial redo
of his coronation, just to remind everyone
who was in charge, and sitting next to him at that ceremony,
in the queen's place, was not his wife Berengaria
but his mother Eleanor.
As Richard returns to Normandy to reclaim his territories
and fortify his castles, Eleanor retired to the abbey
in Aquitaine where she'd buried Henry
and where she'd planned to spend her final years.
She was, after all, 72 years old.
Having built an empire, she was now leaving it
in capable hands with a steady line of succession.
But then, in March, 1199, she got a message.
By the time she got to Richard's bedside,
the wound had already gone gangrenous.
During the siege of a minor castle, Richard had come
to the front line to see an absurd spectacle.
A French child was scampering along the wall of the castle,
firing at Richard's troops with a crossbow
while deflecting incoming arrows with a frying pan.
And as Richard the Lionheart watched,
amused and totally unarmored, The boy lowered his crossbow
and shot the king through the shoulder.
Richard died in his mother's arms,
having never produced an heir, and Eleanor would bury him
in her abbey at his father's feet,
leaving the crown of the Angevin Empire to John.
The resentful son, always passed over, demeaned,
and called deceptive and villainous, now ruled England.
Despite her reservations,
Eleanor backed her sole remaining son,
ensuring that he rather than her grandson,
Arthur of Brittany, would take the throne.
But remember, years earlier, the Earl of Chester
an old school Anglo-Norman who still felt tied
to the French court, had abducted Arthur to Paris.
John's nephew, now 12, had grown up
with Philip's son, Louis, and was unabashedly pro-French.
So John enlisted his mother for one last diplomatic mission.
To keep the peace with France,
he'd agree to marry Philip's heir to one of his nieces,
the daughter of his sister, Eleanor,
who his mother had married to the King of Castile,
and his mother would also select which niece would be best.
The trip was arduous.
She had to cross the Pyrenees again
and was briefly held hostage by a French noble,
but she accomplished the mission, bringing the girl back.
Yet at the age of 77 and in poor health,
Eleanor was slowing down.
She had to pass her granddaughter off to others
and retire to her abbey.
However, she was dragged out again a year later
when John went to war against Philip.
Knowing that young Arthur would strike for Aquitaine,
the aged Eleanor traveled to her chief fortress
and rallied her forces there,
where her 15-year-old grandson besieged them.
But John swept in and captured Arthur,
allowing Eleanor to finally retire to her abbey
for real this time and take vows as a nun.
And there she rested, living in quiet until she died
at the age of 82, buried with her second husband and sons.
By one measure, John squandered her hard work.
He was a disastrous king, who lost much
of the French territory his mother had protected for decades
via political maneuvering.
And after a revolt by English barons,
he would be forced to sign the Magna Carta,
limiting royal power.
But even John couldn't totally squander
Eleanor's decades of work.
Due to her careful management of succession
and political alliances, England held Aquitaine
and several other claims in France
remaining across channel empire.
This set the agenda of English-French relations
for the next two centuries
and laid the groundwork for The 100 Years War,
which you can watch our series on here.
On top of that, Henry and Eleanor's Plantagenet Dynasty
would rule England for over three centuries,
but not just England.
The fact that she had birthed three Kings and two Queens,
defended their claims,
and strategically married her children
into important provinces all across the land
gave her the nickname, the Grandmother of Europe.
She also inspired a cultural legacy of books, plays,
and films that borrowed elements from her life,
ranging from Shakespeare's "King John"
to Katherine Hepburn's Oscar winning performance
in "The Lion in Winter"
to the Queen of Thorns in "Game of Thrones".
And honestly, that really does sum it up
because, when we imagine what political power looked like
for women in the Middle Ages, we're often thinking
of one woman, Eleanor of Aquitaine,
Mother of Empires. (dramatic music)
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