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| Charlemagne |
My family can trace its roots back to the rule of Charlemagne. When Charlemagne had his son, still a child, made King of Aquitaine, he nominated a group of nobles to rule for him. The warrior William of Orange, Count of Toulouse was the foremost and strongest of these rulers. But William was defeated by the Moors of Spain and he retired to an abbey and died there. When Charlemagne's empire fragmented, the Counts of Poitiers and Toulouse fought over the territory of Aquitaine. Ebalus, the Count of Poitou, was the victor of these wars and a distant cousin of the renowned William of Orange.
Ebalus is my ancestor. Indeed, he is the ancestor of all the Dukes of Aquitaine. His son was William III, presumably named after aforesaid warrior William of Orange. He was a capable ruler and married a strong woman like myself, Adela of Normandy.
There were another seven William's, in the ducal line, before me. The last of which was my father. The second to last, my grandfather. William IX, my grandfather, was an interesting man. Passionate, artistic, poetic and very sensual. He was a troubadour and wrote erotic, sensual and lustful poetry. He married twice, first to Ermengarde of Anjou and then to Philippa of Toulouse. A rather rash man, he fell in love with the wife of on of his vassals, a woman named Dangerosa, kidnapped her and took her to his palace. to patch up relations between his children with Philippa and Dangerosa, a marriage was arranged between Aenor--Dangerosa's daughter from her previous marriage and William--son of Philippa.
Aenor and William were my parents. They were both reluctant to marry as neither had liked the attention they got from their parents' notorious affair. William in particular was greatly offended by his father's betrayal of his mother Philippa. But they can't have gotten on that badly, for I was born in 1122, just a years after their marriage.
Works Cited
- Weir, Alison. "Opulent Aquitaine." Eleanor of Aquitaine: a Life. New York: Ballantine, 2000. 7-13. Print.
