The Lion in Winter Study Guide 2008
Characters Henry II The first Plantagenet / King of the English, Lord of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Count of Anjou, Brittany, Poitou, and Normandy, Maine, Gascony, and Aquitaine / now fifty, has been King of England since he was 21 / married Eleanor of Aquitaine at age eighteen Eleanor of Aquitaine Mother of 11 children / owner of the most powerful province on the Continent of Europe / married to King Louis of France / annulled by Louis when the couple did not produce a male heir / fought civil wars against Henry / has been imprisoned in Salisbury Tower for ten years Richard At 26, he rules the Aquitaine / engaged to Alais Capet in a pact with France / a famous soldier, he has been a general since age sixteen / is alleged to have had a relationship with Philip Capet, now King of France / is now the eldest of the Plantagenet sons, now that Henry (the Young King) has died / favored by Eleanor Geoffrey At 25, he is Duke of Brittany / has the “best brain of a brainy family” / complains that he has received nothing but “indifference” from his parents for years / has agreed to be both John’s and Richard’s chancellor, depending on whom is named heir to the throne John Youngest of the Plantagenet sons / is favored by Henry Philip King of France / seventeen years old / is the son of Louis, Eleanor’s former husband / is alleged to have a had a relationship with Richard two years earlier / younger brother of Alais Capet Alais Her dowry is the Vexin, a small but important province in France / a pact between England and France ensures Alais’s betrothal to Richard / raised by Eleanor since age seven, Alais has been Henry’s mistress since she was sixteen / she is Philip Capet’s younger sister Vocabulary primogeniture syphilis Theme family power greed People, Places and Things Chinon the Aquitaine the Vexin Brittany Poitiers Salisbury Tower the Crusades brandywine Rosamund Clifford Thomas Becket Geoffrey of Anjou King Lear Caesar Héloïse and Abélard the Pope Charlemagne Louis VII, King of France Henry, the Young King Medea chancellor rhetoric allusion coronation annulment blasphemy dowry