Plantagenet Queens lived in the shadow of the role created by Eleanor of Aquitaine. Steven J Corvi’s book includes some of the women who followed Eleanor in wearing the Plantagenet crown but also two who were not queen consorts.
Not every Plantagenet Queen is included in this study, which is a shame, as the greatest strength of this book for me, is how each woman built on the role of her predecessors, how they compared and what they individually brought to their queenship. I found this aspect of the book to be fascinating and it is a pity that there are gaps.
For the missing queens, it would have been interesting to see (even if their queenships were traditional and did not differ greatly), what they individually brought to the role and the challenges they faced. This would then have completed the comparison of how the role of royal consort developed over the centuries.
Thank you to Amberley Publishing for my review copy.
