Divine right of angry Eleanor
QUESTION Why did Eleanor of Aquitaine proclaim upon her marriage that ‘I am the Queen of England, by the wrath of God’?
ELEANOR of Aquitaine (c. 11221204) was Queen Consort to both Henry II of England and Louis VII of France. She was mother to Richard the Lionheart and John of England and was a powerful and influential figure in medieval Europe.
Though she was popularly said to have made this proclamation on her wedding day, there is no evidence of this. The phrase was used after Richard was imprisoned and ransomed on his return from the Third Crusade. He’d been captured by Leopold of Austria, who handed him over to his liege, German Emperor Henry VI, who demanded a huge ransom of 150,000 marks for his return.
Eleanor wrote three letters, via the hand of her secretary Peter of Blois, to Pope Celestine III, first pleading and then demanding his intercession on Richard’s behalf.
The first letter was directed ‘To her revered father and Lord, Celestine... by the wrath of God queen of the English... to show himself a father to her, a suffering mother.’ The phrase was used as a plea from authority, stressing her own divine right as Queen as a reason for the Pope to intercede.
By the time of the third letter the Queen was furious, describing Leopold as the ‘worst beast... who sold my son, a soldier of Christ, anointed of the Lord, a pilgrim of the crucified, bound in chains, to the Emperor and betrayed him’, thus equating him with Judas Iscariot.
She demanded of the Pope: ‘Give my son back to me, man of God, if you are a man of God and not a man of blood!’
While the Pope did excommunicate Duke Leopold, he did not excommunicate Emperor Henry VI or place either of their territories under interdict, fearful of crossing the bellicose Emperor.
Simon Laws, Bath, Somerset.
QUESTION Why is the word ‘cue’ used as a signal for an actor to speak in a play?
IN THEATRE, a ‘cue’ signals when a certain line or action should begin. It comes from the Latin quando, meaning ‘when’. Indeed, the letter Q can be found in certain 16th-century and 17th-century scripts.
A snooker cue has a different origin. It is a variant of queue, which comes from the Latin cauda, ‘tail’. The meaning ‘long roll or plait of a wig or hair worn hanging down, a pigtail’ was in use from 1731 and that of ‘a tapering rod with a small soft pad, used in billiards’ by 1749.
R. E. Read, Cowes, Isle of Wight.
QUESTION Did wealthy women once drink liquid gold as a beauty treatment?
GOLD’S ability to resist corrosion led to a belief that its ingestion could prevent ageing. Wei Boyang, a Chinese alchemist from the second and third century AD, wrote: ‘Gold is the most valuable thing in the world because it is immortal and never gets rotten. Alchemists eat it, and they enjoy longevity.’
Drinkable gold became a health and beauty remedy in medieval Europe, spurred on by the alchemical search for an elixir of life. Paracelsus, the 15th-century Swiss physician credited as the founder of medicinal chemistry, wrote: ‘Drinkable gold will cure all illnesses, it renews and restores.’
The 17th- century physician Nicholas Culpeper developed a gold chloride pill that could be dropped into water to treat epilepsy and mental illness.
Unfortunately, the only lasting effects of gold ingestion were illness, including potentially fatal kidney damage and profuse salivation.
Gold’s most famous victim was the French beauty Diane de Poitiers, who wielded much power and influence as King Henry II’s royal mistress. She drank a daily tonic of gold chloride mixed with diethyl ether which accounted for her ‘fine appearance’. She died in Anet, France, in 1566, aged 66. When her remains were discovered in 2009, scientists found high levels of gold in her hair, suggesting that the ‘drinkable gold’ she took to preserve her youth might have ultimately killed her.
Marjorie stevens, Bacup, lancs.
QUESTION What became of boxer Brian London, who once fought Muhammad Ali?
FURTHER to the earlier question, Brian London was a popular figure in his adopted town, Blackpool.
He did indeed remain fit, regularly jogging laps around the 2.2-mile perimeter of Stanley Park.
He was a staunch supporter of Blackpool FC and a regular sight at Bloomfield Road.
On the last occasion I saw him, I doffed my cap and he responded with a wave and smile, as he always did. RIP, Brian.
Sam Johnson, Blackpool.
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