All About History 123: Eleanor of Aquitaine

At one time the medieval Crusader Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine escaped kidnapping plots and assassination makes an attempt to turn out to be the Queen of England after marrying the long run Henry II. This is able to show to be a pivotal second in historical past, as she helped to forge the legendary Plantagenet dynasty.

Nonetheless, Eleanor has additionally been wrongly maligned in historical past as a jealous spouse, a schemer, and the top of a mythological “Court docket of Love”. Within the newest problem of All About Historical past (opens in new tab), on sale now, historian Matthew Lewis separates the parable from the true historical past.

Learn the total story of Eleanor, “The First Lioness”, and extra in problem 123.

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Eleanor of Aquitaine feature spread, All About History 123 — (Picture credit score: Future)

Sticking with the mythological, in problem 123 you may additionally study the true historical past behind mermaids and different folklore; learn how the primary jet fighter was invented in the course of World Warfare II; uncover how African American mathematician Katherine Johnson helped put man on the moon; and why historians nonetheless know subsequent to nothing about one of many world’s most well-known philosophers, Plato.

Associated: Learn a free problems with All About Historical past

Additionally, because the World Cup attracts nearer, you’ll be able to discover the historical past of soccer, together with the influence of the event on world historical past. Issues additionally take a wierd flip with odd tales of public executions in Britain; plus historian Danny Chaplin ponders what might need occurred if Japan hadn’t united underneath the mighty Tokugawa shogunate in 1600. It is all in All About Historical past 123.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Queen Eleanor by Frederick Sandys

A portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Frederick Sandys, 1858 (Picture credit score: Public Doman: Wiki/Nationwide Museum Wales, Artwork UK)

Eleanor of Aquitaine had stopped off at Port-de-Piles in France. The aim of reaching her native Poitou was nearly in sight, only a brief distance to the south. It was heat and relaxed — in stark distinction to the austere gloom of the Paris she was abandoning.

As she rested, information reached her from eyes and ears lively throughout the area of one other plan to kidnap her. It was the second plot inside days. She had barely made it south from the county of Blois, slipping by way of the fingers of Rely Theobald V.

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All About History 123 cover — (Picture credit score: Future)

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In March 1152, the senior churchmen and the Aristocracy of France had gathered at Beaugency on the banks of the River Loire in Blois. If the spring was heat, the welcome for Queen Eleanor had been decidedly chilly. On the age of 28, her 15-year marriage to King Louis VII of France was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, a too-close familial relationship that everybody had conveniently simply remembered. Eleanor had loved quite a lot of affect over her husband, whom chroniclers constantly portrayed as a love-sick pet led astray by a lady who threatened to be the destroy of his reign and his kingdom.

Louis had led a failed army marketing campaign into Toulouse as a part of an ongoing dispute with Eleanor’s household over possession of the county. He had waged struggle on a few of his strongest topics when Eleanor’s sister had begun an affair with a married older man. The royal couple had gone on campaign to the Holy Land collectively, however that had all gone terribly incorrect. Monk chroniclers had furrowed their brows, looked for a purpose for all this calamity, and aimed their inky bile at the queen. It needed to be her fault in order that it wasn’t the king’s.

Learn extra in All About Historical past 123 (opens in new tab).

Mermaids and sea myths

The Mermaid's Rock, by Edward Matthew Hale

The Mermaid’s Rock by Edward Matthew Hale, circa 1894 (Picture credit score: Public Area: Wiki/ Leeds Artwork Gallery)

For 1000’s of years the planet’s oceans have supplied us with meals and assets, and allowed explorers to journey to the farthest reaches of the Earth. However additionally they current huge unknown depths — based on Oceana, a company for the safety of the world’s oceans, some 80 per cent of the ocean stays unexplored. So it’s little surprise that all through historical past many individuals have requested themselves, what’s it that lies simply beneath the floor?

Probably it was these primal fears that led sailors to entertain one another with eerie tales of sea monsters, ghost ships and different mysterious issues that lurked beneath the waves or simply over the horizon. From the legendary demon of the deep Davy Jones to malicious mermaids who weren’t so little, we dive into the origins of the myths and legends related to the deep blue sea.

Study extra about mermaids and different sea myths in All About Historical past 123 (opens in new tab).

Plato: Pillar of philosophy

Cropped image of The School of Athens

Plato and Aristotle depicted in The College Of Athens, by Raphael, 1509 (Picture credit score: Public Area: Wiki/ Vatican Museums)

We’re instructed that Plato was the son of Ariston and a citizen of Athens. His father might hint his ancestors again to legendary kings of Athens and his mom was Perictione, who might hint her lineage again to Solon, an necessary determine within the growth of Athenian democracy.

This info comes from a biography of the thinker by Diogenes Laertius, who was writing within the third century CE. He’s important for our data of historic philosophy and wrote Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, a doxography (that means a group of extracts from historic Greek philosophers and commentary on them).

It’s a testomony to Plato’s significance that a complete ebook is dedicated to him. Nonetheless, Laertius was writing greater than 500 years after Plato lived and wrote and, though Laertius refers to myriad sources, there’s a lot that has been misplaced and far that’s confused.

Learn extra about Plato’s life and influences in All About Historical past 123 (opens in new tab).

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