High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Eleanor the "Fair Maid of Brittany", 5th Countess of Richmond (c. 1184 – 10 August 1241), also known as Damsel of Brittany or Pearl of Brittany for her peerless beauty, was the eldest daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet and Constance, Duchess of Brittany. As the rightful heiress to vast lands including England, Anjou, and Aquitaine since 1203 and thus a potential threat to the throne of her uncle John of England and cousin Henry III of England, she was imprisoned from 1202 and thus became the longest imprisoned member of an English royal family, which also led to her succession failure to Duchy of Brittany. Like Empress Matilda and later Elizabeth of York, her claim to the English throne gained little (if any) support from barons, due to the incompletion of English succession law when female rights were somehow ignored. Some commented that her imprisonment was "the most unjustifiable act of King John". Her long imprisonment was mysterious. Though apparently innocent and never tried, sentenced or locked in a cell, and lived a relatively comfortable life according to some reports, she was viewed as a "state prisoner", forbidden to marry and guarded closely even after her child-bearing years, and finally ended up in prison.