The Woman in the Bower - Timeline

The Woman in the Bower - Timeline
Tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine in Fontevraud
  • 1151 Eleanor’s marriage to King Louis VII of France is annulled; she marries King Henry II of England
  • 1153 Death of St. Bernard of Clairvaux
  • 1165 Henry II first meets Rosamond de Clifford
  • 1166 John is born (the last child born to Henry and Eleanor)
  • 1166 Eleanor relocates to Poitiers, initiating a separation from Henry
  • 1170 Martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket (canonized in 1173)
  • 1173 Civil war breaks out, Eleanor imprisoned for supporting her sons against Henry
  • 1174 Rosamond enters Godstow Nunnery after the affair becomes public
  • 1176 Rosamond dies
  • 1183 The year The Lion in Winter is set in
  • 1189 Henry II dies; King Richard releases Eleanor from her long imprisonment and embarks on the Third Crusade
  • 1199 King Richard dies; is succeeded by King John
  • 1204 Eleanor dies
  • 1215 Magna Carta signed
  • 1405 Christina de Pisan’s City of Women is published
  • 1678 The Comtesse de la Fayette’s La Princess de Clèves is published
  • 1693 John Bancroft tragedy about Rosamond
  • 1704 Woodstock disappears, torn down by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough who build Blenheim Palace there instead
  • 1707 Joseph Addison’s unsuccessful opera Rosamond
  • 1884 Tennyson play Becket