Eleanor of Aquitane

Was reading the "Mistress of the Art of Death" series set in Henry II's England, so wanted to digress for a time with Alison Weir's excellent biography about his dynamic wife. Legends abound about the famous Eleanor, but as usual, Weir gets to the crux, with real historical documents by the subject and contemporary historical accounts. Somehow, Weir always finds a way to make her research into a compelling story about a misunderstood figure. I don't know how she does this in biography after biography, but she should accept the title "Mistress of the Art of Biography". Concerning Eleanor, there are many colorful stories about her, but you have to take them all with many grains of salt considering her many enemies and shifting loyalties amongst her husband and children through her turbulent life as Duchess and Queen. Her most famous children, Richard I (Lionheart) and John (Softsword), were made who they were by Eleanor's tutelage and character, but you certainly can't understand them without the context either. For movie portrayals, check out Becket, with Richard Burton as Henry II's "turbulent priest" and The Lion in Winter, the latter with the incomparable Katherine Hepburn as the Duchess herself.