Richard I of England (the Lionheart)

King of England, he was born in Oxford in 1157 and died in Aquitaine in 1199. He was the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was also known as Richard the Lionheart or Coeur de Lion because he was a great military chieftain and warrior. When he was only 16, he already had his own army. He inherited of his mother the Duchies of Aquitaine (1168) and Poitiers (1172), territories in which he had to fight constantly to support his nobility.

In 1173-74, he took part, with his mother and his brothers, in the great revolt against his father, who invaded his territories. Richard forced his father to beg his pardon.

He rebelled again in 1188 against Henry II, when the king glided to divide his inheritance between Richard and his brother John, Count of Mortain; at this moment Richard decided to be allied with the king of France to fight together till his father recognized Richard as the only inheritor.

When his father died, in 1189, he became the king of England, Duke of Normandy. But he was never “at home”. His obsession was the Crusade of the Christianity against Saladin, which had just taken Jerusalem; and, exactly, he was one of the chiefs of the Third Crusade (1189-92), together with the German emperor and the king Philip Augustus of France. Because of the Crusade, he put in danger his continental territories and also he sold at a loss the royal patrimony to finance it.

When he was in Palestine he had continuous clashes with the crossed Germans and Frenchmen, and did not reach the objective to take Jerusalem. In 1192 Richard did a truce that guaranteed to the Christians the free access to the sacred places of Jerusalem.

All in all, Richard the Lionheart was an important character of the Medieval England. He was considered by a lot of people as the alive symbol of tales of cavalry and as a hero who fought for justice.

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