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** spoiler alert **
This is a rattling good read. I always line up my reference books when embarking on a historical adventure so that I can cross check details and this is rapidly turning pages. It's so interesting and especially love the young Eleanor in her army following days where she met Henry.

Read By: David Case
Genre: History
Publisher: Books on Tape
Series Name: The Pageant of England
Position in Series: 1
Abridged: No

Book Description Blurb
================
THE CONQUERING FAMILY is the first book of four by Thomas Costain on
the Plantagenet kings of England.

The troubled period after the Norman Conquest, when the foundations
of government were hammered out between monarch and people, comes to
life through Costain's storytelling skill and historical imagination.-

THE CONQUERING FAMILY chronicles the reigns of Henry II (1154-1189),
and his sons Richard I "the Lionhearted" (1189-1199) and John (1199-1216).
Henry II, created an empire that included not only Britain, but perhaps
as much as two-thirds of present day France (thanks, in great part,
to his marriage to the dynamic Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Duchess of
that province and the former Queen of France.) By the end of John's
reign, virtually all French possessions were lost and England was racked
by civil war. No chip off the old block was John.

The general public usually associates Henry II with his quarrel with,
and eventual murder of, Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury. Richard
I is, of course, "the Lionhearted" king who crusaded in the Holy Land
against the infidels, and who has a fictional association with Robin
Hood. And, lastly, there's the misfit King John, of Magna Carta fame.

-----

Western Europe circa 12th Century - an expectant mother enters Ye Locale Shoppe looking for a book on baby names. She leaves a couple of minutes later, down a few groats but such a pretty book...

Boys name... William or Henry

Girls name... Matilda or Eleanor


That's it!