Richard I
Richard I
 
Henry II had planned to divide his extensive    lands between his four sons. However, the death of Henry the Young    King in 1183 and of Geoffrey in 1186, left only Richard and John.
Military defeat at his rebellious son's hands    had forced Henry reluctantly to recognize Richard as his sole heir    just before his death (6 July 1189).
Richard spent most of his life fighting    abroad - he spent only six months of his ten-year reign in England. Four of those months    he spent there immediately after his accession - selling offices and    honors so as to raise money for his Crusade.
[For 10,000 marks, Richard sold the overlordship of Scotland that    had been extracted from William the Lion by Henry II; the buyer was the    Scottish king - William the Lion].
 
The Third Crusade was organized by Pope Clement        III (1187-91) in response to the conquest of the Christian        states by Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf, 1137-93) culminating in        the fall of Jerusalem (September 1187). Not only Richard I but        the Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa and Philip II of France        supported the Crusade
 
Richard the Crusader
Richard  sailed first to Sicily, where he agreed the Treaty of Messina with  Philip II (Augustus) of France (1191). In it Richard conceded the French king's feudal overlordship of  Richard's French territories. Richard then went to the Holy  Land via Cyprus.
Richard  arrived at Acre, June 1191.
 
Richard took command of the French forces          surrounding Acre and completed the siege of the City. His main          aim was the recapture of Jerusalem, and his first move was to          march to towards Jaffa.
Richard I disposed his troops          carefully - the column transporting supplies marched closest          to the sea, his knights formed a central column, and the          infantry (armed with spears and crossbows) marched furthest          inland where Saladin's army awaited its chance to attack.
Saladin's forces stormed from the Forest of Arsuf (7          September 1191):  Richard's outnumbered, but          disciplined infantry picked them off with crossbow fire. Only          when Saladin's army was dissolving into disorder did Richard          order his knights to charge the Turkish light horsemen. The          Battle of Arsuf was Saladin's first serious defeat.
Richard's attempts that winter to          take Jerusalem failed in the face of Turkish reinforcements          and unfavorable weather.
Although massively outnumbered, Richard organized a tenacious          defense of Jaffa (August 1192), and in September 1192, Saladin          and Richard concluded a peace treaty in which both sides made          concessions.
 
Richard the Captive
Richard wanted to return to England but heard  rumors that  his own brother John, Philip Augustus, and the Count of Toulouse were  conspiring to ambush him. So instead of going overland all the way to France, he  set sail in the Adriatic, but was  shipwrecked near Venice. He reached Vienna in December 1192 with  almost no companions and was soon seized by Leopold IV, Duke of  Austria.
In exchange for a cut of Richard's prospective  ransom, Leopold handed Richard over (February 1193) to Emperor Henry  VI.
Castle Dï¿½rnstein
where Richard I was imprisoned
There is a romantic legend that Richard I was          found by his faithful minstrel Blondel, who sang the first          verse of a favorite song beneath the castle walls, to which          Richard responded with the second verse.
A troubadour called          Blondel de Nesle did exist, but the legend dates from much          later (1260's) and has no foundation in fact.
 
Henry VI exacted a considerable price for  Richard I's freedom - 150,000 marks of silver and Richard's  acknowledgment of his feudal overlordship.
Richard was released in February 1194
 
built by Richard I to defend Rouen (the capital city of Normandy) from Philip
 
From 1194 to 1198, Richard fought  Philip almost continuously. He defeated him decisively at the battles  of Frï¿½teval (1194) and Courcelles (1198). A  five-year truce was concluded in 1199 with Richard in a very strong  position.
 
Chï¿½lus-Chabrol
Richard's successes meant nothing after he was        hit in the shoulder by a cross-bow bolt fired from the ramparts        of the castle of one of Philip's allies at Chï¿½lus-Chabrol.  Gangrene set in, and Richard was dead in ten days (6 April        1199).
 
Richard I was a highly capable military  commander, but he had created no institutions to preserve his personal  gains. Administrative advances had been made in England precisely  because of his absence. Bureaucratic systems and record-keeping had  improved, but many political problems remained and nothing had been  done to resolve the problem of the succession.