Alienor’s sister Petronella proved a conundrum. In the records she is sometimes referred to as Aelith and sometimes Petronella. I have used the latter as it is a name of southern France and perhaps linked to the cathedral of Saint-Pierre in Bordeaux. Petronella did indeed marry a man decades older than herself, and it appeared at the outset to be a love match. Chronicler John of Salisbury tells us she died circa 1151, but then she just may appear in a later pipe roll of Henry II in connection with Alienor. I have steered a middle course in the novel to explain her exit from the stage. I suspect that she may have had a lot in common with her maternal grandmother, the notorious ‘Dangerosa’ or ‘Dangereuse’. The latter was a nickname, and one has to wonder how she came by it!

Readers will not find Henry’s mistress Aelburgh in the historical record under that name. However, he did have a mistress called ‘Hikenai’ of whom the chroniclers were disparaging and who was the likely mother of his son Geoffrey. I take it that Hikenai was probably a garbling of ‘Hackney’, the term for a common riding horse, and derogatory, so I gave her the name that turned up in my Akashic Records research.

In The Summer Queen, I have given Alienor dark blond hair and blue eyes. This is based on my alternative research method of the Akashic Records, which I use to fill in the blanks and explore what happened in the past from a psychic perspective. You can find out more about them on my website. Using conventional resources, it is a fact that we don’t know what Alienor looked like. One modern historian tells us she had black hair, an olive complexion and a curvaceous figure that didn’t run to fat in old age! However, there is not a shred of evidence to prove this and is, I suspect, modern male wish fulfilment! Another historian gives her ‘sparkling black eyes’. Again, it’s pure fabrication. There has been the suggestion that a mural at Chinon depicts a crowned, auburn-haired Alienor riding a horse, but this is now thought to be unlikely; it probably depicts Henry’s children, including the Young King as the crowned figure. However, we do know Alienor had blond hair in her ancestry as one of the Dukes of Aquitaine was called William the Towhead, suggesting his hair was the colour of straw.

It has been quite a journey researching Alienor’s young womanhood from 1137 to 1154 and bringing her story to life. By turns I have been fascinated, frustrated, enlightened and uplifted. I have come to admire Alienor’s grit, dignity

and endurance in often distressing and trying times. Also her wit, intelligence and determination. On occasions I have been very angry on her behalf for what was done to her, and for all the lies and damned lies told about her down the centuries. However, drawing Alienor out from the shadows has been ultimately one of the most rewarding experiences of my writing career.

She was a woman of her time, but what a woman.

I am so looking forward to continuing the story of her marriage to Henry II and her life as Queen of England in The Winter Crown and The Autumn Throne.


Select Bibliography

In my opinion the most useful biographies are Ralph Turner’s and Jean Flori’s, and the Wheeler and Parsons series of articles provide an excellent summary of aspects of Alienor’s life.

Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and its Art Treasures, edited, translated and annotated by Erwin Panofsky, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0 691 003 14 9

Baldwin, John W., Paris, 1200, Stanford University Press, 2010, ISBN

978 0 8047 7207 5

Boyd, Douglas, Eleanor April Queen of Aquitaine, Sutton, 2004, ISBN 978 0750 932905

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John C. Parsons, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 978 0 230 60236 6

Flori, Jean, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen and Rebel, Edinburgh University Press,

2004

Gobry, Ivan, Louis VII 1137–1180, Pygmalion, 2002, ISBN 978 2 7564 0391 5

Grant, Lindy, Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France, Longman, 1998, ISBN 0 582 051508

John of Salisbury’s Memoirs of the Papal Court, translated from the Latin with introduction and notes by Marjorie Chibnall D. Phil., Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1956

Kelly, Amy, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, 1950, ISBN 978 067424254 8

King, Alison, Akashic Records Consultant

Meade, Marion, Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography, Frederick Muller, 1978, ISBN 0 584 10347 6

Odo of Deuil, De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem, edited with an English translation by Virginia Gingerick Berry, Columbia University Press, 1947

Owen, D. R., Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend, Blackwell, 1993,

ISBN 0 631 17072 3

Painter, Sidney, ‘Castellans of the Plains of Poitou in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, article published in Speculum, 1956

Pernoud, Régine, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Collins, 1967

Sassier, Yves, Louis VII, Fayard, 1991, ISBN 978 2213 027869

Seward, Desmond, Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen, David & Charles, 1978, ISBN 0 7153 7647 0

Turner, Ralph, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Yale, 2009, ISBN 978 0 300 11911 4

Weir, Alison, Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England, Pimlico, 2000, ISBN 978 0 7126 7317 4

The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries, edited by Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu, Boydell, 2005, ISBN 1 84383 114 7


Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the lovely people who have been involved in the process of bringing The Summer Queen from first idea to finished novel. Obviously the writing and crafting is mostly my input, but no author is ever an island and so many have helped me along the way.

I would like to thank the team at Little, Brown UK, especially my editor Rebecca Saunders who is always there for me and braced for my ‘enthusiasms’. Also my copy-editors Richenda Todd and Hannah Green; their eagle eyes and advice have been so helpful. Any errors that remain are mine.

My agent Carole Blake and everyone at Blake Friedmann are without compare. I have the best agent in the world – it’s official.

I owe a big thank you to Thea Vincent at Pheonix Web Designs for putting together my marvellous website, which is a constant work in progress.

My thanks to the regular bunch of readers and writers at Facebook and Twitter for daily discussions on all things historical, medieval, and especially the Marshal family! I can’t name you all individually but you know who you are. A special shout-out too to my Australian fanclub and thank you so much for the T-shirt!

Another thank you goes to my dear writer friend Sharon Kay Penman, who is an example to every author of historical fiction.

I couldn’t have written The Summer Queen without the insight and rare talent of my very good friend and colleague Alison King.

And last but never least, a special thank you to my husband Roger who has a knighthood for services rendered, with a special mention for a constant replenishment of my tea mug and biscuit plate!