Richard I of England
Richard I spent about six months of a ten-year reign in England and is its most famous medieval king. He was born in Oxford in 1157, the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, was raised in Aquitaine and spoke Occitan and French, and rebelled against his father twice in alliance with his brothers and his mother — the second rebellion in 1189 ended with Henry dying, reportedly on being told that his favourite son John had joined it. He inherited England, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine, and sold offices, castles and charters to fund a crusade, remarking that he would have sold London if he could find a buyer. The Third Crusade was his life's project. He took Cyprus on the way, captured Acre in 1191, executed some 2,700 prisoners there when the negotiations over the terms stalled, beat Saladin at Arsuf, came within a day's march of Jerusalem twice and turned back both times on the correct judgement that he could take it and not hold it. He negotiated a truce guaranteeing Christian pilgrims access, which was the practical object. He was shipwrecked on the way home, captured by the Duke of Austria whom he had insulted at Acre, and held for over a year for a ransom of 100,000 marks — several times the English crown's annual revenue, raised by a levy on everything. He spent his remaining five years fighting Philip Augustus in France and was killed by a crossbow bolt at a minor siege in 1199. His reputation in England is largely a Victorian construction and rests on a king who taxed the country ruinously and barely visited it. The statue outside Parliament went up in 1860, and the legend attaching him to Robin Hood is later still.
- Lived: 1157 CE – 1199 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: military_leader, leader
