A warrior from a political family
Richard was born in 1157, the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Because of his mother’s inheritance, he was made Duke of Aquitaine as a young man, and he spent much of his early life fighting to control its restless nobles. This was good training in war, and it shaped his reputation as a capable commander. His later nickname, “the Lionheart,” appears in later tradition, and what is known about how widely it was used in his lifetime is limited.
Richard’s early adult life included rebellion against his father, encouraged by the French king Philip II Augustus. When Henry II died in 1189, Richard succeeded him. He was crowned at Westminster that September, and almost at once began raising money for a crusade.
Preparing the crusade
The loss of Jerusalem to Saladin after the Battle of Hattin in 1187 had stirred much of Western Europe. Richard, like Philip and the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, took the cross. To pay for the expedition, Richard sold offices, collected taxes and is said to have remarked that he would sell London if he could find a buyer, a line that sources attribute to him but that may be embellishment. He also arranged for officials to run England while he was away. The sums raised were large for the time, and the heavy burden fell on his subjects.
Crusader and commander
Richard set out in 1190 and wintered in Sicily, where disputes with the local ruler resulted in his forces taking Messina. He then moved on to Cyprus, which he conquered in 1191 after its ruler mistreated shipwrecked travelers, and he later passed it on, first to the Knights Templar and then to Guy of Lusignan. The island stayed in crusader hands for centuries.
At the siege of Acre, Richard arrived to join an effort already long under way, and the city surrendered in July 1191. Soon afterward Philip went home. Richard led the army south along the coast and defeated Sultan Saladin’s forces at Arsuf in September 1191. He twice came close to Jerusalem but decided that the city could not be held or supplied, a judgment many historians consider realistic. In 1192 he negotiated the Treaty of Jaffa with Saladin, which left the coast in Christian hands and allowed Christian pilgrims access to Jerusalem. The war itself was a mixed result, with Jerusalem not recovered, but Richard’s skill was widely respected.
Capture and ransom
Richard left the Holy Land in fall 1192, and storms and the danger of passing through hostile territory forced him to travel overland through the Alps. Near Vienna he was recognized and seized by Duke Leopold of Austria, with whom he had quarreled at Acre. Leopold handed him to the emperor Henry VI. Richard was held for more than a year.
Negotiations produced a ransom, commonly given as 150,000 marks, a huge sum, to be raised in England and elsewhere. His mother, Eleanor, played an active role in organizing it. In the meantime, his brother John and Philip tried to take advantage of his absence, though they did not succeed in dislodging him. Richard was released in February 1194. Tradition credits him with composing a song during his captivity, but the attribution is uncertain, and many details of the story are later embroidery.
Years away
Richard was king for just under ten years, and by most counts he spent only a few months of that time in England. That does not mean England was neglected. Administrators such as Hubert Walter, who became Archbishop of Canterbury and chief justiciar, kept the machinery of government running, and the English crown continued to collect money, which the king used for war. Richard’s priorities were his crusade and his French lands, which he regarded as the heart of his inheritance. Many medieval kings of this family were similarly mobile across their holdings, but Richard’s absence was unusually long.
War in Normandy
After 1194 Richard returned to France to deal with Philip. For the rest of his life, he fought to recover places lost during his captivity, and he built a great fortress, Château Gaillard, overlooking the Seine in Normandy, completed in about 1198. The campaigns were often successful, and in this period he held the upper hand. He died in April 1199 from a crossbow wound received while besieging a minor castle at Châlus in the Limousin, and was buried at Fontevraud near his father.
Reputation
Richard’s fame as a hero owes a lot to later legend, especially the Robin Hood stories, and to his role in the Third Crusade, which writers on both sides described. Some modern historians criticize him for the cost he imposed on England and for leaving no heir; his brother John inherited the crown and soon lost much of what Richard had held. Others argue that he governed effectively through delegation. A balanced view is that he was an able soldier whose rule worked when he was present and strained when he was not.