Crusade Against the Grail - Rennes-le-Chateau Research and ...

12 PART ONE
Elvira of Castile, on Pilgrim Mount in Lebanon. During the course of the
crusade, India was made prisoner by the infidels and taken to the harem of
Sultan Nur ad-Din in Aleppo. The enslaved India eventually became his
wife and reigned over the empire of the Seljuqs after his death.
Alfonso's son Raimundo was only ten years old when his father left for
Palestine. After Alfonso's death, the Kings of France, England, and Aragon
and their most powerful neighbors contested his inheritance. Louis VII of
France, as a descendant of Clovis and Charlemagne, believed that he could
claim Toulouse. Henry II of England, as the husband of Eleonore of
Poitiers (who was related to the Counts of Toulouse), believed his wife had
rights to it. For his part, the King of Aragon insisted that he was the
successor of the legendary Basque leader Lupo. Raimundo followed the
only path left open for him: He allied himself with one of the kings against
the other two, "rendered homage to the King of France, and married Louis'
sister, Constance, widow of the Count of Boulogne."
The resulting marriage was a dismal failure. Constance was a cold
woman, quarrelsome, and to top it off, older than her husband. It also
appears that she didn't take conjugal loyalty very seriously, something that
Raimundo could also be reproached for. He didn't behave any better, and
the monk-historiographer Pierre de Vaux-Cernay even claimed that he was
a homosexual. 11 Whatever he was, the Castel Narbonnais, the palace where
the Counts of Toulouse resided, was filled with their rancor.
Raimundo locked Constance in a tower before declaring war against
the King of Aragon, with whom he disputed the sovereignty of Provence.
She managed to flee to her brother in Paris, who was obviously not convinced
that she was right because he refused to break with his brother-inlaw.
The House of Anjou had reigned in England since 1154. The name
Plantagenet comes from the branch of the furze (planta geneta) that
adorned its coat of arms. Henry II, the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and the
English Princess Mathilde, dominated England, Anjou, Tourraine, and
since 1106, Normandy. In addition, his marriage to Eleonore de Poitiers
(1152) brought him Aquitania, Poitou, Auvergne, Perigord, and Limousin,
which is to say a quarter of France.
Henry II, called Curtmantle (for having introduced to England