The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [249]
3. Eleanor repeatedly asks herself why she married Henry: “Perhaps he was not the mighty figure I had imagined him. In fact, he was by no means the man with whom I had fallen passionately in love. . . . Why had I married him?” (page 252) How would you answer that question? Do you think that she knew Henry’s true nature when she married him, or was love blind in her case? How are Henry and her first husband Louis similar and different? How is Eleanor like her husbands?
4. Throughout the novel, Eleanor fondly refers to her grandfather’s “Courts of Love,” speaking longingly of the troubadours who charmed the crowd with their songs of ardor and devotion, and wishing she could replicate the Courts’ emotion and sensuality in her own court. Why do you think she longed for this time in her life so often?
5. Eleanor has been described throughout history as one of the world’s greatest female rulers, revered for her superior intellect, extraordinary courage, and fierce loyalty to her children and her land. Does Jean Plaidy’s portrait of Eleanor mirror history’s “snapshot” of her? Where might it differ?
6. When her father leaves for his pilgrimage, Eleanor’s sister Petronilla asks her to tell her stories of the Courts of Love. Eleanor says, “I remember some of it, but I did not understand it all at the time. . . . Men were very daring in those days and they have changed little. They will sing songs of love and devotion and how they adore you and set you on a pedestal so that they can worship you, and all the time it is merely to lull your feelings into a sense of security, and when you are sufficiently lulled they will take advantage of you. And once that has happened they will tire of you” (page 33). Discuss Eleanor’s opinion of men in terms of her relationships with Louis and Henry. Did she learn from these words?
7. Although Eleanor was greatly disappointed in Louis’s hesitant and rather indifferent style of romance, she also looked at his sexual inadequacies as an opportunity to control him, saying, “There was something rather timid about him. While that irked me in a way, for perhaps I had dreamed of a masterful lover, in another way it pleased me for I knew at once that I should be able to lead him the way I wanted him to go” (page 38). Was she able to control him throughout their relationship, and after? How so? Where was she not able to control him? Do you think that his lack of attention to her in this manner actually caused her to lose control of herself?
8. At her coronation as Queen of France, Eleanor takes notice of the men of her court and makes the following observation about one in particular: “[Raoul of Vermandois] had the trick of almost creating a sexual encounter by willing it to take place, a kind of mental seduction. I found it amusing and stimulating; and with a husband like Louis I needed a little stimulation at times” (page 60). Is Eleanor’s frankness about her sexual needs surprising?
9. Eleanor learns that Petronilla is the mistress (and carrying the child) of Raoul of Vermandois—the same man Eleanor has lusted after. Eleanor is devastated upon this discovery, saying, “It was a great blow to my self-esteem. I began to wonder how sincere any of the men were who cast desirous eyes on me” (page 72). Is it surprising when Eleanor admits that she draws strength from the admiration of men? How does this contradict her feminist notions about the qualities of a female ruler?
10. Henry’s intense yet torturous friendship with Thomas Becket is very similar to Louis’s close attachment to the monk Bernard of Clairvaux. Eleanor bitterly despises