Louis accepted this advice, but he had his wife closely watched, and would not allow her to go to Provence at all. She complained of the stupid life she led in Paris, and made great fun of her husband for wearing plain clothing and keeping his head and beard closely cropped, which she declared made him look more like a priest than a king.

Well, in time another princess was born, and named Alice. Soon after this event Henry Plantagenet visited Paris. He was a noble-looking young prince, full of energy and very intellectual.

A.D. 1151. Eleanora fell so desperately in love with him that without hesitation or advice she applied for a divorce from Louis, and got it. No doubt the king was glad to be rid of such an undutiful, unwomanly wife, though he did have to give up all control over his southern provinces, even Guienne.

Eleanora went straight to her favorite home, where Henry Plantagenet followed her. He was probably not so very much in love with her, for she was twelve years his senior, but he needed her money and her ships to fight King Stephen, and lay claim to the throne of England, which he did during the first year of their marriage.

He returned in triumph, and was besieging the castle of a rebel duke in Normandy when the news of Stephen's death reached him. For six weeks England was without a king, until Eleanora and Henry arrived with their young son. They were crowned at Westminster Abbey in 1154, and such a magnificent coronation had never been seen. The costumes of costly silk and brocade worn on that occasion had been brought by Eleanora from Constantinople. In one of her portraits she wears a close coif, or hood, over which is a band of precious stones; a rich brocade gown is fastened with full gathers just below the throat, and confined there with a costly collar of exquisite gems. Over this is an outer robe, or pelisse, bordered with fur, the large sleeves of which fall open from the shoulder, displaying the tight ones of the gown beneath. In some portraits her hair is braided and wound closely around her head with jewelled bands, and over this is a piece of fine gauze, which could be so arranged as to serve the double purpose of veil or bonnet, just as the wearer chose.

Before marriage, the girls of that time wore their hair in long ringlets, but the church required married ladies to conceal their locks. After Henry I. cut off his curls, and forbade his courtiers to wear their hair long, they adopted wigs, but Henry II. abolished them, and appeared at his coronation with short hair and shaven chin. His dalmatica, or long gown, was of the richest brocade with elaborate gold embroidery; over this he wore the short cloak afterwards called the court-mantle. This coronation introduced into England the sumptuous robes of silk and velvet worn by the ecclesiastics there on that occasion. The queen's first residence in England was at a little village nearly opposite to London, and she must have been struck with the grandeur of that remarkable city, with its tower, its tall spires, and the river Thames running through it, so different from anything she had ever seen before.

Now, although she did not please her new subjects, who were acquainted, of course, with her former behavior, they felt the advantage of being connected with her Aquitainian dominion, and in a few months large fortunes were made by the London traders in the wines imported from the port of Bordeaux.

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