Henry II became King of England in 1154 after twenty years of civil war. He was the first Plantagenet king, the founder of England's most successful and longest ruling dynasty. But Henry did not come to the throne alone. He had married Eleanor of Aquitaine, a feisty, formidable and powerful woman ten years his elder. This book charts the early lives of Henry and Eleanor before they became a European power couple, examine the impact of their union on contemporaries and European politics.