The Plantagenet Prelude (Plantagenet Saga #1)

By: Jean Plaidy

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Synopsis: At the beginning of the Plantagenet era there lived three people-- vital, clever, dominating, and all destined to play a major part in English history-- a King, a Queen, and an Archbishop. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of the "Courts of Love," quickly tiring of her monk-like husband the King of France, was divorced and married Henry Plantagenet. The union of this ruthless and self-willed man and the passionate Eleanor was necessarily stormy. Into the King's life came Thomas a Becket who became his Chancellor and greatest friend; but when Thomas became Archbishop of Canterbury, the conflict between the Church represented by Thomas and the State by Henry began. It was to end in tragedy in the Cathedral. Although Henry becomes the most powerful man in Europe, his wife Eleanor hates him and brings up their sons to do the same. Henry is haunted by guilt for the murder of the Archbishop, and at the end of The Plantagenet Prelude, he faces an uneasy future.