Joanna Plantagenet: life of the week

Hello and welcome to Life of the Week from History Extra, where leading historians delve into the lives of history's most intriguing and significant figures. Richard the Lionheart may be well known for his travels to distant land, time on crusade, and wrangling with international politics. But less well known is the fact that his sister, Joanna Plantagenet, otherwise known as Joan of England, Queen of Sicily, led a life of adventure and danger to rival that of her famous brother. In this Life of the Week episode, I spoke to author and historian Catherine Hanley to chart Joanna's extraordinary life. We are going to be delving into the life of Joanna Plantagenet.

Now, she comes from a very famous family, but relatively her life has gone unknown. But you've just written a book all about her, Lioness Heart. Can you briefly introduce us to Joanna Plantagenet? Okay, well, Joanna was the youngest but one child in the family of Henry II, the King of England, and his Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. I think it's fair to say that over the years the sons of Henry and Eleanor have tended to hog the limelight.

They had four surviving sons and three daughters. You know, in a lot of history books you're kind of quite lucky if the daughters even make it onto the family tree at the beginning. Never mind being discussed fully in the text. And I just thought it was about time, you know, that we looked at these women more carefully and specifically Joanna because she had a really exciting, action-packed life, you know, was just as exciting as that of her brother, known as Richard the Lionheart, hence the title of the book. And I just thought it was about time we explored the life of this woman who was a princess and a queen and a prisoner and a pioneer and a crusader and a countess and a warrior and all of this stuff.

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