Eleanor of Aquitaine place of burial Fontevraud Abbey
Eleanor was again unwell in early 1201. When war broke out between John and Philip, Eleanor declared her support for John and set out from Fontevraud to her capital Poitiers to prevent her grandson Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, posthumous son of Eleanor's son Geoffrey and John's rival for the English throne, from taking control. Arthur learned of her whereabouts and besieged her in the castle of Mirebeau. As soon as John heard of this, he marched south, overcame the besiegers, and captured the 15-year-old Arthur, and probably his sister Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany, whom Eleanor had raised with Richard. Eleanor then returned to Fontevraud where she took the veil as a nun.
Eleanor died in 1204 and was entombed in Fontevraud Abbey next to her husband Henry and her son Richard. Her tomb effigy shows her reading a Bible and is decorated with representations of magnificent jewellery; such effigies were rare, and Eleanor's is one of the finest of the few that survive from this period. However, during the French Revolution the abbey of Fontevraud was sacked and the tombs were disturbed and vandalised – consequently the bones of Eleanor, Henry, Richard, Joanna and Isabella of Angoulême were exhumed and scattered, never to be recovered. By the time of her death she had outlived all of her children except for King John of England and Queen Eleanor of Castile.
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