The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [250]
11. Having been attracted to him from a young age, Eleanor acts on her feelings for her uncle Raymond and they become lovers, their affair ending when Louis abducts her and later when Raymond is tragically killed in battle. “My uncle! My lover! And the most handsome, the most perfect man in the world. . . . Raymond, my love, so alive, so different, the one I had been waiting for all my life—and now he was dead” (page 145). Was it an accident of fate that the man Eleanor believed to be the greatest love of her life happened to be a close relation? Or do you think Raymond was a deliberate choice on her part?
12. Discuss the power of religion and the church over Eleanor, her husband, and her father.
13. What did you think of Eleanor’s decision to repair to the nunnery, Fontevrault, to spend her final days? She says, “I realized that I could be content to spend what was left of my life here. I liked the ways of the convent” (page 543).
14. When Eleanor finds out about Henry’s lover Rosamund, Eleanor exclaims, “He was actually in love with her. That was what was so galling to me. He cared about her. She was not just a woman of the moment. He had brought her to the palace of Woodstock, and while I was in France taking care of the dominions there, Rosamund was living in my apartments as Queen!” (page 314) In light of Henry’s other infidelities of which she was aware, how would you explain why Eleanor found this one to be so egregious?
15. After she leads her sons to revolt against their father, Henry incarcerates Eleanor as punishment. In what ways was Eleanor a captive of Henry’s, other than her physical imprisonment?
Also by Jean Plaidy
From Three Rivers Press
The Wives of Henry VIII
The Rose Without a Thorn
The Lady in the Tower
Katharine of Aragon
The Sixth Wife
The Tudor Princesses
Mary, Queen of France
The Thistle and the Rose
The Tudor Queens
In the Shadow of the Crown
Queen of this Realm
Royal Road to Fotheringhay
Murder Most Royal
Victoria Victorious
The Loves of Charles II
The Norman Trilogy
The Bastard King
The Lion of Justice
The Passionate Enemies
The Plantagenet Saga
Plantagenet Prelude
The Revolt of the Eaglets
The Heart of the Lion
The Prince of Darkness
The Battle of the Queens
The Queen from Provence
Edward Longshanks
The Follies of the King
The Vow on the Heron
Passage to Pontefract
The Star of Lancaster
Epitaph for Three Women
Red Rose of Anjou
The Sun in Spendor
The Tudor Novels
Uneasy Lies the Head
Katharine, the Virgin Widow
The Shadow of the Pomegranate
The King’s Secret Matter
Murder Most Royal
St. Thomas’ Eve
The Sixth Wife
The Spanish Bridegroom
Gay Lord Robert
The Stuart Saga
The Captive Queen of Scots
The Murder in the Tower
The Wandering Prince
The Three Crowns
The Haunted Sisters
The Queen’s Favorites
The Georgian Saga
The Princess of Celle
Queen in Waiting
Caroline the Queen
The Prince and the Quakeress
The Third George
Perdita’s Prince
Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill
Indiscretions of the Queen
The Regent’s Daughter
Goddess of the Green Room
Victoria in the Wings
The Queen Victoria Series
The Captive of Kensington Palace
The Queen and Lord M
The Queen’s Husband
The Widow of Windsor
The Ferdinand and Isabella Trilogy
Castile for Isabella
Spain for the Sovereigns
Daughter of Spain
The Lucrezia Borgia Series
Madonna of the Seven Hills
Light on Lucrezia
The Medici Trilogy
Madame Serpent
The Italian Woman
Queen Jezebel
The French Revolution Series
Louis the Well-Beloved
The Road to Compienge
Flaunting, Extravagant Queen
Evergreen Gallant
Myself, My Enemy
Beyond the Blue Mountains
The Goldsmith’s Wife
The Scarlet Cloak
Defenders of the Faith
Daughter of Satan
Copyright 1987 by Jean Plaidy
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint