Richard Lionheart

Entry #27 in Project #EuropeanBios is Richard The First of England, aka Richard Lionheart. But unfortunately it turns out Richie was kind of a useless shitbird so this is going to be a very short thread indeed.

Richard was the third of five sons of the redoubtable Eleanor of Aquitaine, a far more significant and interesting figure who you should read more on. Third in line to the throne, he was unlikely to become king but all his brothers died.

Richard was born in Oxford in the UK but grew up mostly in France and then famously took part in the third crusade. In fact, he only spent about a year of his life in the UK, using it as a source of revenue and soldiers to fight for control of his other territories in France.

One of the things I learned reading this and others bios of crusaders is that the Knights Templar, who I thought were fictional, were an extremely real Catholic military organization that was very important to military campaigns around Jerusalem.

Equally important at the time and considerably more successful were the Knights Hospitaller, who were roughly the same kind of organization in the same place at the same time but I'd never heard of until now. They lasted well into the 1800s.

Anyway, Richie showed up, conquered a bunch of the middle east, tried to take Jerusalem (the point of the Crusades) and failed, but secured a treaty with Saladin to let Christian pilgrims visit, moved the goalposts, called it a win and went home.

Part of why he rushed back was because his kingdom went into revolt while he was gone. On his way back to Europe he was captured and ransomed off, and he spent ages fighting various rebellious nobles to get his various territories in France back under control, it was dull.

He died aged 41 of an arrow wound with "no legitimate heirs" and there are persistent rumors that he was gay, but probably he was bisexual, though not in a fun or interesting way.

Richard's legacy is that he was very well thought of by the people of England, though he spent almost no time there and did very little for them, so possibly it's a case of absence making the heart grow fonder. Overall I do not see what the fuss is about.

Oh, and he was called Lionheart because he was supposed to have defeated a lion in combat, he absolutely did not do that.