Eleanor as Penthesilea and Artemus

Queen Eleanore the wife of King Henry, whom Wace presented his Roman de Rou, saw herself as Penthesilea who worshiped the goddess Artemus, the Greek Diana. Penthesilea sided with the Trojans ad was killed by Achilles. Eleanore rode about on a white horse as Penthesilea bidding folks to go on Crusade. Eleanore went on Crusade with her husband the King of France she and her entourage of 300 women dressed in armour. Here was the Queen of the Amazons taking on the scourge of Mahomet, she no doubt inspired by the pseudo history of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

“The Historia Regum Britanniae (English: The History of the Kings of Britain) is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written c. 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the…