Eleanor of Aquitaine — Alison Weir

Weir's biography of Eleanor follows her from the court of her grandfather — the first known troubadour, Duke of Aquitaine — through two marriages to kings of France and England, a rebellion against her second husband, fifteen years of imprisonment, and a widowhood in which she outlived most of her children. Eleanor governed Aquitaine for sixty-seven years, launched the Third Crusade, and shaped the political landscape of twelfth-century Europe in ways that formal political history, focused on the men around her, has consistently underestimated.

'Weir is a superb historian who writes with the pace and vividness of a novelist. Her Eleanor is a woman for all ages.' — The Independent. 'An authoritative and immensely readable account of one of the most remarkable women in history.' — Historical Novel Society