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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amphytrion" data-source="post: 9763535" data-attributes="member: 7046181">No, that's not what I said. Please go back and reread the comment, for I said the exact opposite! Here's an excerpt of what I wrote:"Eleanor was a political actor (as befits the heir and ruler of half of the Angevin empire), and she was indeed a shrewd politician and gifted administrator, but not in the way you imply. The idea that she is some sort of devious schemer or instigator is pure fiction (fantastic fiction and drama in The Lion in Winter, but still false). There was a time (roughly in the early 20th century and before) when historians did characterize her as such (in itself part of a lionization of Henry II), but scholarship has vastly revised that characterization."I then provided sources for that claim.I'm not "hooked" on this idea (which is, of course, absurd), and at no time have I defended it or put up Eleanor as some sort of paragon of virtue. Maybe she was a "bad person" (by modern standards), and she certainly lived in a world alien to our own, but the reasons you have cited thus far do not stand to scrutiny. Your understanding of Eleanor seems to me to be a reflection of outdated ideas and debunked conspiracies. See some of your prior statements copied below (in italics):<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">For those who don’t know much about Eleanor, before the events of Robin Hood, she orchestrated a rebellion against King Henry II (this is false), using Richard as her catspaw (this is also false), and was locked in a tower until Henry died. Later, she was the one who put John on the throne when Richard died (it's not that simple. Eleanor certainly helped, but there are other reasons John acceeded, including other powerful supporters). Frankly, making her a villain isn’t much of a stretch.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It wouldn’t be inconsistent with the actual historical record for Eleanor to be clever, scheming, and manipulative, and Richard a dim-witted mummy’s boy. (these are both inconsistent with current historiography).</li> </ul>What I did tell you in my prior comment is that there was a period in which historiography painted Eleanor as some sort of subversive schemer well beyond her husband and other contemporary monarchs (this is the basis for her characterization in some ficitional pieces, such as The Lion in Winter). While this did lean into some mysoginistic stereotypes (e.g. the voracious predator), there were other reasons for this perspective (a late Victorian trend to see Henry II as a glorious precursor to the British Empire, for example). Modern historians (and by modern, I mean settled scholarship of over 50 years) do not believe that Eleanor was particularly manipulative or villainous, and haven't done so in many decades. All of Eleanor's recent biographers and a good many Plantagenet academics have spent considerable ink to dispell this myth (known in the field as the black legend, or légend noire). I did not invent this, nor is this a personal interpretation. I've referred you to the work of the most preeminent historians in the field, in both French and English.If your position has now evolved to that Eleanor was "just as bad" as anyone else who ran a large dominion in the 12th century, then I think the back-and-forth has reached its natural conclusion.To bring back this discussion closer to Robin Hood interpretations and the topic at hand--while Ridley Scott's Robin Hood was a bit dull, I did like a lot of the supporting cast. This included Eleanor (played by the ever-brilliant Dame Eileen Atkins), but also William Marshall (played by William Hurt), and Prince John (in what be my favorite role of Oscar Isaac). It's a pity the central part of the film didn't work as well.</blockquote>

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