 Queen Eleanor was in actuality perhaps the wealthiest and most  powerful woman in Europe, and hardly the figure portrayed in the  play. Although here she remarks that she will complain to her uncle  the emperor, she was not related to Frederick Barbarossa.  Complaining to Frederick would have been awkward for a devout  Catholic anyway, as he had himself been excommunicated in 1160 and  was in a power struggle with the pope, establishing several rival  antipopes before reconciling with Rome in 1177.