Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor of Aquitaine was a queen of France and later a queen of England. That alone should pique your interest in this woman. How can that be? Did she simply toss off her French crown hop across the Channel grab an English crown and establish herself on a throne? Well of course not. But how then did she pull off this trick? Eleanor also went on a crusade to the Holy Land. Moreover she traveled to Germany to Sicily to central Spain all around France up and down England. In between she had ten children.These children born in the twelfth century spread out around Europe had children of their own and what do you know! By the early sixteenth century four hundred years after Eleanor's birth her direct descendants included Henry VIII King of England Francis I King of France Charles I King of Spain and Maximilian I Holy Roman Emperor. What's more their wives were also in the Eleanor family-all direct descendants. How about that?