Lions' Forge: The Epic True Story of 5 Kings and the Lion Queen

From castles to carrots, legends to dynastic plans, the Plantagenets are swept along in the quickening currents of the 12th century.

The fated marriage of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine is buckling.

Thomas Becket and Louis Capet suddenly possess the power to trouble Henry Plantagenet, whose life faces unimagined new challenges.

Thomas Becket, closest friend of Henry Plantagenet, lover of worldly luxury, battling warrior, Chancellor of England, and now the new Archbishop of Canterbury.

Never again would Henry Plantagenet have such command of his world, success upon success, daring upon daring.

Bolstered by the brilliant and energetic Thomas Beckett, Henry Plantagenet enters the grandest period of his reign, while his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine is left to frustration and depression.

The new King, intelligent, educated, and fiercely energetic, takes on the challenges of rebuilding England after the Anarchy.

The most marvelous of times for the newlyweds as Henry takes England, making an empire for the Plantagenets.

The newlyweds, Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine, are about to create the greatest kingdom in Western Europe.

Alienor of Aquitaine wins her freedom from Louis Capet and France but she won’t be single long. Henry Plantagenet waits impatiently in the wings.

The golden masks of the Fates were raised to bring Henry Plantagenet into the troubled marriage of Alienor of Aquitaine and her husband Louis Capet.

Could even the Pope himself save the troubled marriage of Louis Capet and Alienor of Aquitaine?

It’s 1148: the Second Crusade turns to the conquest of great Damascus……..but instead finds treachery and exhaustion, and melts back into the stunned disbelief of Christian Europe.

Alienor and her uncle Raymond of Antioch were said to be lovers…………and the French royal marriage is left in tatters…..

A crushed and bleeding army follows its king and queen to the comforts of Antioch.

In the year 1148, the Second Crusade begins with an eclipse of the sun on the banks of the Bosphorus, a fearful prophecy that plays out in the battle of Dorylaeum

The French, under King Louis and Queen Alienor, and the German forces under Conrad III, King of the Romans, met to plan their retaking of Edessa. Their journey would take them to the fabled city of Constantinople, the Gem of the East!

The Second Crusade is close at hand; Alienor is pledged to join in the Crusade, the Germans are entering the fray, and preparations are beginning in earnest. Hearts beat with the excitement of a great adventure, a Crusade which would unquestionably lead to the victorious culmination of Christendom’s fifty-year-old battle with Islam.

It’s the year 1145. Massive forces are building across the world. A Crusade, the world war of its time, is about to begin. It will engage men from Paris to Jerusalem in battles witnessed by the gods themselves.

Louis's troubles continue with the lack of an heir and a new Pope. Tensions are building in the Middle East with the fall of Edessa. Could another war be brewing?

The young couple we met in the last episode, the Aquitanian heiress Alienor, newly married to Prince Louis Capet, both elevated to the French throne upon Louis’ father’s death, would be husband and wife for fifteen years. They would have two daughters and no sons. Given the fixation of powerful men, especially Frankish kings, on having a male heir, very few wives unable to produce little boys were...

Alienor of Aquitaine and Louis Capet of France had just married and, mere weeks later, inherited the French throne. He was seventeen, she a mere thirteen. They had unparalleled wealth thanks to HER fortune and they had considerable respect thanks to HIS father. And they had the great advantage of the aid and counsel of Abbot Sugar, one of the truly extraordinary people of his day. In this episode,...

Two deaths and one marriage lead to new leadership in the Aquitaine. How our Eleanor becomes Queen.

Today we learn of our Heroine's fate as her life is suddenly turned upside down.

Here we will meet our Heroine's parents, and learn of the circumstances surrounding her family's tumultuous history.