Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquaitaine was born in 1122, and grew up in Provence, France in the era of the troubadours. She became the Countess of Poitou and Duchess of Aquitaine and Gascony at the age of 15, in an era when female leadership was exceptional. She first became Queen of France and then Queen of England; even when her son Richard was king, she continued to call herself queen and was actually queen regent during his reign, making many of Richard's key decisions.

During her marriage to her distant cousin, Louis VII of France, they went on crusades to the Holy Land together, but she had a limited scope for leadership. Having only given birth to two daughters after 15 years of marriage, they considered that their ...