"Books - David Eddings - Rivan Codex, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

Eleanor was related tofive (count 'em) different kings (or
pseudokings) during the twelfth century. Her father was the Duke of
Aquitaine (now known as Gascony) and, since he controlled more
land than the King of France, he routinely signed official documents
as 'the King of Aquitaine'. In 1137, Louis of France arranged a
marriage between his son, Prince Louis and 'princess' Eleanor.
Eleanor wasn't a good wife, since she had what's politely known as
a 'roving eye'. Evidently, it was more than her eye that roved.
Her husband, who soon became Louis Vii of France, was a pious
man, and his wandering wife not only failed to produce an heir to
his throne, but also became notorious as an adulteress. He finally
managed to have their marriage annulled in 1152, and two months
later Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, who
incidentally also happened to be King Henry II of England. Eleanor,
as it turned out, was not barren, and she bore Henry several sons.
Aside from that, Henry and Eleanor didn't really get along together,
so he took the easy way out and locked her up to keep her out of his
hair. After he died, Eleanor stirred up trouble between her sons,
Richard the Lionhearted and John the Incompetent, both of whom
became kings of England. They also locked Mother away to keep her
out of mischief.
Thus, Eleanor spent a lot of her time locked up. Embroidery
didn't thrill her too much, so she read books. Books were very
expensive in the twelfth century because they had to be copied by
hand, but Eleanor didn't care. She had money, if not freedom, so she
could afford to pay assorted indigents with literary pretensions to
write the kind of books she liked. Given Eleanor's background
it's understandable that she liked books about kings, knights in
shining armor, pretty young fellows who played the lute and sang of
love with throbbing emotion, and fair damsels cruelly imprisoned in
towers. Her literary tastes gave rise to troubadour poetry, the courtly
love tradition, and whole libraries of interminable French romances
that concentrated heavily on 'The Matter of Britain' (King Arthur et
al) and 'The Matter of France' (Charlemagne and Co.).
Now we jump forward three hundred years to the Wars of
the Roses. There was a certain knight named Sir Thomas Malory
(probably from Warwickshire) who sided with the Lancastrians.
When the Yorkist faction gained the ascendancy~ Sir Thomas was
clapped into prison. He was not, strictly speaking, a political
prisoner, however. He was in prison because he belonged there, since it
appears that he was a career criminal more than a political partisan.
There may have been some politics involved in the various charges
leveled against him, of course, but the preponderance of evidence
suggests that he was a sort of medieval jesse james, leading a gang
of outlaws on a rampage through southern England. He was
imprisoned for sedition, murder, the attempted murder of the Duke of
Buckingham, cattle-rustling, horse theft, the looting of monasteries,
jail-breaking and not infrequently of rape. Sir Thomas seems to have
been a very bad boy.
He was still a nobleman, however, and a sometime member of