Queens Consort

"This book explores the lives of the twenty women who were crowned queen consort of England between 1066 and 1503, reconsidering the fictions surrounding well-known characters like Eleanor of Aquitaine and illuminating the lives of forgotten figures such as Adeliza of Louvain. War, adultery, witchcraft, child abuse, murder - and occasionally even love - formed English queenship, but so too did patronage, learning, and fashion. The author considers the evolution of the queenly office alongside intimate portraits of individual women, dispelling the myth that medieval brides were no more than diplomatic pawns. From Eleanor of Castile's eccentric passion for fruit to Anne of Bohemia's contribution to the Protestant Reformation, Queens Consort is a provocative and dramatic narrative which redefines English history in terms of an exceptional group of women whose personal ambitions, triumphs and failures helped to give birth to the modern state."--Jacket.