RICHARD I, King of England, surnamed COEUR DE LION. — The fourth son of King Henry II Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine, he was born at Oxford on 18 September 1157 and died at Chalus in Limousin on 6 April 1199. When his elder brother William died in early childhood (1153–56) and the youngest, Henry, died without issue in 1183, Richard ascended the throne without difficulty in 1189. Before this, however, he had rebelled several times—together with his mother and brothers—against Henry II at the instigation of the kings of France, Louis VII and Philip Augustus; indeed, it was in 1189 that the King of England died, defeated and abandoned by his own.
Richard devoted himself to strengthening the “imperial” ambitions of his dynasty and paid little heed to his continental domains except for Aquitaine; like his father, he hoped one day to dominate the county of Toulouse and reach the Mediterranean. During the Crusade, he married a Spanish woman, Berengaria, daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre (May 1191), in Cyprus. He also dreamed of becoming King of Jerusalem and of reclaiming for himself the imperial crown of Henry VI and his claims to Constantinople. Richard’s megalomania might have destroyed the Capetian sovereignty, hemmed in on all sides, had France not been ruled by an intelligent and energetic king in Philip Augustus. Yet Richard succeeded in exhausting the resources of the Angevin Empire and would have ruined Henry II’s work entirely had he not found loyal and devoted servants in England—though he deigned to visit his kingdom only on rare occasions.
Henry II died on 6 July 1189. Richard spent six months in England to be crowned (3 September) but by the end of the year he had already departed for the Crusade, from which he did not return for five years (1194).
The kings of the West had formed a league to wrest Jerusalem from Saladin, who had captured it in 1187. Richard and Philip Augustus, outwardly bound by friendship, set out together, quarreled in Sicily, and then parted ways—Richard to conquer Cyprus and Philip to regroup at Saint-Jean-d’Acre. Together they recaptured the city from the infidels after a siege that was the longest and most deadly of the Middle Ages (June 1189–July 1191), and Richard earned a legendary reputation for valor. After quarreling with Philip, Richard attempted alone to retake Jerusalem, but in vain; he had to negotiate a truce with Saladin that allowed pilgrimages. On his return through Central Europe, Richard was imprisoned by Duke Leopold of Austria, handed over to Emperor Henry VI, and freed only after paying a ransom.
Upon his return, Richard found his states in a precarious and dangerous condition. Philip Augustus had tried to exploit his absence by dismembering the Plantagenet Empire, encouraging the ambitions of his ingrate brother John Lackland, who sought to usurp his brother’s lands and perhaps even the crown. Philip stirred up the discontent of the English barons and bishops, supported the citizens of London, who were organizing themselves into a commune. Yet Richard’s interests were well defended and his errors corrected by Walter Hubert, the great “justiciar” and Archbishop of Canterbury, who governed England from 1193 to 1198 with an iron fist. Thanks to him, Richard was able to make only a brief appearance in his kingdom in 1194 before returning to his continental possessions, from which he never came back.
While Normandy, administered with order, remained loyal, Aquitaine was continually the scene of feudal revolts. Richard also encountered strong resistance from the Bretons, who were loyal to his nephew Arthur, whom he intended to dispossess. Everywhere the Plantagenets met the hostility of the Capetians. During Richard’s absence, Philip had annexed the eastern regions of Normandy (the Vexin, the counties of Aumale and Eu). After the King of England’s return, war devastated the borders of Berry and Normandy for five years. Philip was defeated several times, notably at Fréteval in 1194, and his adversary, to block his access to Normandy, built a series of fortresses, of which Château-Gaillard in the Seine valley remains the most important monument. Richard also stirred up new adversaries against Philip: Renaud of Boulogne and especially Count Baldwin IX of Flanders; and he added to his allies Emperor Otto of Brunswick, against whom the King of France tried to set Philip of Swabia. It seemed, then, that Richard would triumph; yet all forgot the Crusade, and the Pope, recalling it to their memory at an opportune moment for Philip Augustus, imposed a truce on the two enemies (1199). A few months later, Richard’s ambition and glory collapsed when he met his obscure death during the siege of the castle of Châlus (6 April 1199).