Queens Consort

May 31, 2010
Although intended to breed royal heirs, England's medieval queens offered substantial strength, mental acuity, and personal ambition, beginning with the 1066 Norman invasion's elevation of Matilda of Flanders and up through the Plantagenet Elizabeth of York, who married Henry VII in 1486. Hilton (Athénaïs: The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress) successfully unravels the tangled biographies of such queens as the legendary and imposing Eleanor of Aquitaine and the ill-matched but determined Isabella of France, placing them within the context of European politics and property wars. Hilton nimbly pares popular myths and reanimates long-forgotten figures such as Queen Berengaria, married to the crusading Richard I, who never lived in England. When kings wriggled themselves out of undesirable marriages, strange situations sometimes occurred, such as King John in the 13th century sending his second wife, Isabelle, to live with his former wife, Isabella. Hilton offers a pleasurable but serious study of a group of remarkable women and their role in the development of queenship in England. 16 pages of color illus.; maps.