Eleanor of Aquitaine
Annulment (1152)

In the summer of 1150, Eleanor gave birth to a second daughter, Alix (Adelicia). The lack of a male heir was unprecedented in the Capetian line, Eleanor was now twenty-six and had been married for thirteen years. Not only was the likelihood of a son being born to secure the succession seen as remote, but the lack of an heir was perceived as an omen. Suger had been a strong advocate for the political advantages of the marriage between Louis and Eleanor. When he died on 13 January 1151, the balance changed since Bernard of Clairvaux was a critic of the marriage's consanguinity. A number of nobles and courtiers also advised the King to dissolve the marriage. Later that year, Henry, Count of Anjou, appeared at the court in Paris to pay homage as the new Duke of Normandy to King Louis. Chroniclers such as Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales), William of Newburgh and Walter Map later implied that something happened between Henry and Eleanor, eleven years his senior, that contributed to the dissolution of her marriage with Louis.

By this stage, her reputation badly damaged, Eleanor's influence at court was waning. Any such dissolution would require a complex political realignment, separating the Aquitanian and Capetian possessions and jurisdictions, and in the autumn of 1151 the couple made a tour of the duchy during which much of the French presence, such as garrisons, was replaced with Eleanor's people. On 11 March 1152, at the royal castle of Beaugency on the Loire, near Orléans, Hugues de Toucy, Archbishop of Sens and Primate of France, presided over a synod to consider the matter. Louis and Eleanor were both present, as were the archbishops of Reims, Bordeaux and Rouen and many other bishops and nobility. Archbishop Samson of Reims acted for Eleanor, who did not contest the action.

On 21 March, the four archbishops, with the approval of Pope Eugenius, granted an annulment on grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree; Eleanor was Louis's third cousin once removed, and shared common ancestry with Robert II of France and his wife Constance of Arles. Their two daughters were, however, declared legitimate. Children born to a marriage that was later annulled were not at risk of being "bastardised," because "here the parties married in good faith, without knowledge of an impediment, the canonists held that the children of the marriage were legitimate and that the marriage itself was valid up to the day it was declared null". Custody of their daughters was awarded to King Louis, as both custom and law decreed. Louis assured Archbishop Samson that Eleanor's lands would be restored to her.

While Eleanor stated that the reason for the annulment was "for reasons of kinship with my Lord, Louis", the event fueled speculation as to her behaviour and added to the growing legend. Equally without evidence are accounts of a distraught discarded wife.
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