The Devil's Crown

[parrot_knight]

nwhyte has directed me towards the long-sought The Devil's Crown, the BBC's lavishly non-naturalist drama about the early Plantagenets from 1978. A French edition, though with English soundtrack, has turned up on YouTube. I'm only a few minutes into the first episode, with Brian Cox's Henry not-yet-II courting Eleanor of Aquitaine (Jane Lapotaire)

Comments

[widsidh]

(slightly confusing if one doesn't know her backstory)

As is the nickname Empress. I guess back then people would have been expected to know that kind of thing.

[parrot_knight]

They would - and Matilda would object to Empress being a nickname, as she always used her title as an imperial widow, even when married to Geoffrey of Anjou and also when reigning as lady of the English!

[widsidh]

But was that technically valid? She was his widow and not the heir to the Empire.
I was going to say "title" originally, but then had second thoughts.

[parrot_knight]

It was valid by courtesy; women usually kept the highest title they had held even after marriage to someone of a lower rank than their previous husband.