The Captive Queen and Eleanor of Aquitaine

A special bundle of one fiction and one non-fiction title from bestselling historian Alison Weir, both exploring the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

The Captive Queen:

It is the year 1152 and a beautiful woman of thirty, attended by only a small armed escort, is riding southwards through what is now France, leaving behind her crown, her two young daughters and a shattered marriage to Louis of France, who had been more like a monk than a king, and certainly not much of a lover. This woman is Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, and her sole purpose now is to return to her vast duchy and marry the man she loves, Henry Plantagenet, a man destined for greatness as King of England. Theirs is a union founded on lust which will create a great empire stretching from the wilds of Scotland to the Pyrenees. It will also create the devil's brood of Plantagenets - including Richard C½ur de Lion and King John - and the most notoriously vicious marriage in history.

Eleanor of Aquitaine:

Wife of Louis VII of France and subsequently of Henry II of England and mother of Richard the Lionheart, Eleanor played a prominent part in the politics of the 12th century. In her biography, Alison Weir brings all the colour and ever-present dangers of Eleanor's world to life, filling the text with absorbing background detail and revelatory contemporary anecdotes. The result is a fresh and thoughtful perspective on the energetic 82 years of life of a determined and ambitious woman living with the sexism, excesses and violence of a society in which the word of a single man could condemn thousands to be put to death.

Alison Weiris one of Britains top-selling historians. She is the author of numerous works of history and historical fiction, specialising in the medieval and Tudor periods. Her bestselling history books includeThe Six Wives of Henry VIII,Eleanor of Aquitaine,Elizabeth of Yorkand, most recently,The Lost Tudor Princess. Her novels includeInnocent Traitor,Katherine of Aragon: The True QueenandAnne Boleyn: A King's Obsession. She is an Honorary Life Patron of Historic Royal Palaces. She is married with two adult children and lives and works in Surrey.

A special bundle of one fiction and one non-fiction title from bestselling historian Alison Weir, both exploring the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine