Richard was born in September, 1157, at Beaumont Palace, near what is now Oxford, the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. An older brother, William, had died as a small child. Richard's older brother, also Henry, was destined to succeed their father as king of England, Duke of Aquitaine, and heir of the home provinces of Anjou and Maine. Richard was to be Eleanor's heir as Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou. He spent his early childhood in England but eventually began spending more and more time on the Continent, learning both French and the local language, Occitan, as well as a working knowledge of English. He grew to be unusually tall, 6'5" by some estimates, with red-gold hair and light, probably blue eyes, the Central Casting version of a Plantagenet male. In addition to the knightly and military skills of horsemanship, swordsmanship and the like, he was also a skilled musician and poet.
Richard was heir to one of the wealthiest inheritances in Europe and was considered an eligible marriage catch. Various matches were proposed, by one that emerged when Richard was still a young boy was to Alys, a daughter of Louis XVII of France. Alys was eventually sent to England to be brought up by Eleanor, but for one reason or another, the marriage kept being put off. This has raised questions about Richard's sexuality. He was known to have had one biological son, Phillip of Cognac, and was also known to be promiscuous with women when they were available. Whether he was homosexual or bisexual can't be known for certain and, at any rate, are only Richard's business. Most likely, the difficulties with marrying Alys concerned constant feuds over her dowry and the constant state of hot and cold war between the two kingdoms. By the time he was old enough to decide for himself, Alys had acquired the reputation of being Henry II's own mistress. By any standards, inheriting one's father's mistress had a kink to it and would have been beneath Richard's dignity as a Duke or a King. When the time came, he would find a wife, royal, virginal and devoted, to meet his needs.
Henry II and his sons, Henry the Young King, Richard, Geoffrey and John were locked in an eternal struggle from the time the boys were old enough to shave. Land and power were at the root of it. Henry had had Henry the Young King crowned in 1170. Though it was understood that he would inherit the bulk of their family possessions, neither Richard nor Geoffrey and John readily accepted this state of affairs. Richard was smart, and he knew it. He had a charisma with men and women, and he knew it. He knew his way around weapons and a battlefield, probably better than Henry Junior. To be only a mere Duke when he could have the entire family pie to himself was unacceptable. Henry, Geoffrey and John knew, as did Henry II and Eleanor, that Richard would take England and Normandy as well as Aquitaine and Anjou, the first chance he got. Richard could be chivalrous. He could be gracious. He could also be cunning and ruthless. As Henry II grew older, his sons were already spoiling for their inheritance, even if they had to fight him to get it. Henry the Young King died in 1183 and Geoffrey died in 1186. That left Richard to square off against his old man and, like his brothers before him, the issue was power. Henry II wanted to keep everything to himself and Richard wasn't willing to wait. Henry II would die fighting his two surviving sons in 1189.
And with his death Richard was King of England and Duke of Normandy. He was invested in Normandy on July 20, 1189 and crowned King of England on September 3, 1189. Although it was England that made him a King, Richard, like his father before him, esteemed the family's Continental possessions more. England, with its busy ports and wool trade, was a money pit that could be mined for financing the wars it would take to keep Plantagenet possession on the Continent out of the hands of Phillip II of France. But, first there was the matter of the Third Crusade. Crusading fever swept Europe in 1189 and both Phillip II and Richard were to lead two of the larger contingents of knights and men-at-arms to the Holy Land. That required money. Richard's reign was marred due to several incidents involving the Jews. Jewish merchants who came to pay their respects to Richard at his coronation were roughed up and not permitted in the banqueting hall. As he gathered money, men and material for his part in the Crusade, Richard spared no one. The Jews were taxed. So were Church leaders and Church lands in England. In the fervor, riots broke out against the Jews in many English cities, leading to pogroms and the first use of the word Holocaust to describe widespread destruction of Jewish people and property.
Richard delegated this and other problems to a council headed by William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and departed for the Holy Land. He arrived in Italy and became embroiled in some extended family drama. His sister Joanna, Queen of Sicily through her late husband, William II of Sicily. He had died and his successor, Tancred, was not only refusing to return Joanna's dowry money, but was besieging her in Sicily. Richard arrived in Messina and proceeded to take the town apart. Tancred surrendered Joanna and later her dowry, which went into Richard's war chest for the Crusade. Richard also had personal business. Having decided against Alys, he had asked his mother Eleanor to open negotiations with the King of Navarre for his daughter, Berengaria. Eleanor brought Berengaria to Sicily, then went back to England to keep an eye on John. Richard traveled on toward the Holy Land, traveling in a separate ship from his sister and fiancée. A storm blew up on the Mediterranean, forcing Joanna, Berengaria, and Richard's crusading funds to land in Cyprus where the Byzantine Emperor, Isaac Comnenus, made the mistake of imprisoning the two royal women and taking the treasury. Richard landed at Limasol and took it apart, too. He captured Isaac, who had some phobia about iron chains. Richard made sure that Isaac was cast in his own dungeon in appropriate silver chains, then married Berengaria and left her and Joanna in Cyprus while he continued on to join the siege of Acre.
Acre was key to the Christian presence in the Holy Land, as it was a seaport town and the staging area for pilgrims heading to the Holy Sites. It was also a near impregnable fortress. Contingents from Germany, Austria and Italy had been hard at work besieging Acre since 1189 but with little success. Phillip of France also threw his men into the effort, but it was Richard, who had thought to bring battering rams, more money, and most of all his own military and organizational aptitude to the struggle. Acre fell in 1191. Meanwhile, Richard had come down with scurvy and was near death. Despite this, he was still a force to be reckoned with. When Leopold of Austria dared to have his banner hoisted on Acre's walls level with those of the two kings, Richard ordered the banner hauled down. When the Muslim commander of Acre refused to release Christian prisoners as part of the terms ending the siege, Richard ordered over 2,000 Saracen prisoners beheaded within sight of the town's walls. His actions angered most of his Christian allies and made him feared among his Islamic foes. Melech-Ric became a household name, used to frighten little children into being good and minding their manners.
Melech-Ric was soon proving himself a military match for Sultan Saladin, himself no slouch as a military commander. The two met in several battles, culminating in the Battle of Jaffa, the Battle of Arsuf, and in June, 1192, Richard came within sight of Jerusalem. Morale in Saladin's army was low, the weather was unbearably hot and rations and supplies were stretched thin. The prize was Richard's, but at the last moment he turned back, unwilling event to lay eyes on the Holy City. Why? Historians and novelists have speculated on his sudden reversal, again asserting that some secret, terrible sin kept Richard from profaning Jerusalem with his presence. Likely, though, Richard was smart enough to know that the odds of keeping Jerusalem once he'd conquered it were slim. Saladin would regroup and reclaim the Holy City with more blood spilled on either side. The best way was to make a truce and agree terms. Saladin and Richard agreed to a three year truce. Pilgrims of both faiths could visit the Holy Sites, the Crusader States would remain intact, the military orders could continue to operate. It was time for Richard to return to Europe where news reached him that John was on the verge of taking over England and Phillip II was already invading Normandy.
As Richard traveled back toward his brother-in-law's domain in Saxony, he knew that he faced the risk of capture. Phillip II wanted his hide, so did Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Leopold, Duke of Austria. Richard was captured, humiliatingly, in a tavern outside Vienna, Austria and locked up in Durnstein Castle on the Danube River in Austria, pending a ransom of 150,000 marks of silver, literally 100,000 pounds of silver be paid. Contrary to legend, Richard's whereabouts weren't a secret and it didn't take his favorite minstrel to find him. Leopold and Henry VI wanted everyone to know who their prisoner was. They knew that England and Normandy would turn themselves upside down to get the money, which is about what happened. After a partial payment, Richard was released but couldn't return to England just yet. He had to head Phillip off in Normandy.
In 1196, Richard began to take back Normandy from Phillip, piece by piece. He also set about building his masterpiece, Chateau Gaillard, above the Seine River. Having seen the fortifications in the Middle East, Richard wanted to build the ultimate impregnable fortress. At an 1198 battle of Gisors, in Normandy, Richard first used the motto, Dieu et Mon Droit, God and My Right, still used by the British Monarchy, today. In 1199, he was in Limousin, suppressing a revolt by a local vassal at Chateau Chabrul. On March 25, 1199, Richard was walking around his lines without armor, overseeing the sappers, when a shot from the castle wall from a crossbow bolt struck the King in his upper left shoulder. Crossbow bolts, thicker and sharper, were almost always lethal because difficult to remove without excessive bleeding and infection. His surgeons tried to remove the bolt, but damaged Richard's arm and shoulder in the process. It was only a matter of time.
Gangrene set in as the castle fell to Richard's siege. The bowman, a young man or boy by most accounts, was brought before Richard, who pardoned him. He bequeathed his lands to his younger brother John, bypassing their nephew Arthur of Brittany, and bequeathed his personal property to his nephew Otto, who was with him at the time of his death. Eleanor heard of her son's injury and knew what it meant. She arrived by April 6, 1199, time enough to clasp her son in her arms before he died. As soon as he died, the crossbowman who shot him was burned alive. Richard's heart was buried at the Cathedral in Rouen, his entrails in Chalus, where he died. Eleanor had the rest of her son transported to Fontevrault Abbey, where a full-length effigy or gisant, was carved to cover the tomb. Richard's body had been embalmed with spices, but what was left of it was scattered during the French Revolution, though the tomb survives today.
Thought he'd only spent months in his kingdom, Richard's stamp on the monarchy and the minds and hearts of the English was irreversible. It was Richard who used the personal emblem of the three golden lions rampant, which became the Plantagenet and thus the royal coat of arms, used by the monarchy to this day. Stories of Richard's strength, his stern sense of justice that could be tinged with cruelty, his connections to Robin Hood, Blondel the Minstrel, Saladin and the Templars and the Assassins, on and on, continue with each new novel or movie made. He figures in two Walter Scott novels, Ivanhoe and The Talisman, as well as the novel and movie, The Lion in Winter. Historical opinion on Richard has always been mixed. While many sources praise him as a military commander and daring knight, his lack of performance as a ruler, his temper, greed and personal vengefulness and cruelty have been condemned. It was the Victorian era, though, who put some polish back on the legend and it was during Victoria's reign in 1856, that an equestrian statue of Richard was erected in Old Palace Yard, Westminster, outside the Houses of Parliament. Whatever his personal failings, he will always be the Lionheart.
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