Her marriage to Henry II ended in prison

In 1173–1174, three of Eleanor and Henry's sons rose out in rebellion against him, with Henry the Young being the catalyst. Henry the Young believed his father had not given him enough authority. Eleanor was detained and imprisoned for 16 years after choosing to side with her boys. She was only able to visit her children on rare occasions and remained behind bars until King Henry II's death in 1189. Since Henry the Young had also passed away in 1183, Richard I of England, Eleanor's third son, assumed the throne.

Fortunately for her, as soon as he took the throne, he freed her. Richard passed away without leaving an heir in 1199, and John was proclaimed king in his place. In 1200, nearly 80-year-old Eleanor crossed the Pyrenees to retrieve her granddaughter Blanche from the court of Castile and marry her to the son of the French king out of concern for the Plantagenet domain's impending collapse. She anticipated that by arranging this union, the Plantagenets of England and the Capetian rulers of France would live in harmony. She aided in protecting John's French possessions in the same year by aiding in the defense of Anjou and Aquitaine against her grandson Arthur of Brittany. In 1202, she once more owed John for keeping Mirebeau against Arthur until John, to her relief, was able to capture him. John’s only victories on the Continent, therefore, were due to Eleanor.