The marriage endured for fifteen fraught years, until Eleanor finally succeeded in having it annulled - only to enter an even stormier match with Henry of Anjou, who would soon ascend to the English throne as Henry II. At only fifteen, she inherited one of the great fortunes of Europe - the prize duchy of Aquitaine - yet was forced to submit to a union with the handsome but sexually withholding Louis VII, the teenage king of France. Born in 1122 into the sophisticated and cultured court of Poitiers, Eleanor of Aquitaine came of age in a world of luxury, bloody combat, and unbridled ambition. In an age of men, she was indeed a powerful woman. Her sons were kings of England and her daughters queens of Castile and Sicily, while her later descendants included a Holy Roman emperor and kings of France and Spain, as well as a couple of saints. She was an important factor in the reign of four kings, lived to the ripe old age of 82, bore 10 children and outlived all but two of them. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a remarkable woman.
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