HOME | DD

Description
Richard the Lionheart was the king of England from 1189 to 1199, though if you asked him, he'd probably say "...what's an England?"

Yeah, even though Richard is renowned as one of England's greatest badasses and national heroes, England at this time was very much just sort of a French colony. I know, the worst timeline imaginable. The French nobles ruling the region at the time really couldn't give less of a damn about English customs or that dirty peasant tongue, and this mindset very much extended to Richard. I often see this glossed to imply that Richard couldn't even speak English, which might be a bit of an exaggeration. He very likely could speak English (probably would've had to for diplomatic reasons), he just didn't want to. Still, for as French as this King of England was, he was at least born in England. On September 8, 1157, he popped out of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Henry II, in Beaumont Palace near Oxford, and was raised in England until the age of eight. He was not the eldest son, though, and was never intended to be king. That responsibility instead fell to his brother Henry.

Henry had been dubbed "the Young King" when he was crowned heir apparent following his father's illness in 1170. The elder Henry had hoped to divide his territories nice and evenly between his sons (Richard for his part was given Aquitaine in 1172), to prevent his kids from killing each other. Unfortunately, this backfired tremendously when the sons all unanimously realized they'd all get a lot more out of the deal if they banded together to overthrow their stingy dad instead. In 1173, the Young King formed a coalition with his little brothers, their mother Eleanor, and her ex-husband Louis XII of France. Now that's a saucy reality TV show waiting to happen. Or maybe not, because somehow, each of these factions got absolutely trounced one by one. Louis fucked off, Eleanor was imprisoned, and the boys were sent to bed without supper. No really, Henry II just sort of gave his sons a slap on the wrist and sent them back to their respective territories. Richard, after hanging his head and saying "sorry daddy" was even assigned by Henry II to head out and crush any remaining noblemen who supported the rebel cause. It's during this period that Richard first earned his reputation as one of the greatest soldiers and military geniuses of his age. In 1179, using his cunning and sword arm, he managed to besiege and capture the rebel fortress of Taillebourg, once considered impregnable, within the span of three days. This total annihilation of the enemy largely snuffed out any remaining threads of resistance, though there were still many who pledged their sword to the Young King who was now swiftly turning into Richard's greatest rival.

In 1182, the Young King kicked up a fuss about Richard building a castle in Anjou (which was supposed to be Henry's side of the line), to which Richard was like "nuh-uh", and then Henry was like "yeah-huh", and then dad came in like "Richard, be nice to your big brother, just give him the castle as homage", and Richard dragged his feet like "but daaaaad", and the Young King took the opportunity to just invade Aquitaine like he owned the place. Evidently, even God was getting a bit peeved at this family drama, because in June 1183, Henry met the same fate we all aspire to go out on: he died of dysentery. The third brother, Geoffrey, I assume fed up with not being mentioned whatsoever in this story so far, died in August 1186, conveniently trampled by a horse during a tournament. There was also John but his biggest concern was puberty at that time. Still, Henry wanted Richard to cede Aquitaine to his pimply little brother, and since Aquitaine was Richard's favorite toy, he refused to hand it over. Henry knew that Richard was a total mama's boy, though, so he released Eleanor from prison just to send her to tell Richard to play nice and share. Of course, Richard wasn't exactly the kind of guy to sit in the corner like a good little boy, so in 1187, he started plotting with Philip Augustus, the King of France, to do what the Young King had tried to do but better. Richard paid homage to Philip in November 1188, and their united armies finally forced a concession out of Henry in July 1189. Richard was officially declared heir apparent, and Henry died, extremely conveniently, just two days later.

Richard the Lionheart was now the King of the Angevin Empire… oh and I guess England too. That was nice, because now he had a big England-shaped piggy bank to sponsor his next project: the Third Crusade. His father had actually been the one who first agreed to take up the cross and tax the population to fund it, but he obviously had other things to worry about. Richard, on the other hand, saw the opportunity to take up arms and kick Saladin's ass as a bully good time that'd get the blood flowing. Though he had failed to find a buyer for London (as legend claims he bemoaned), he still had raised enough funds to set out for the Holy Land with Philip in the summer of 1190. In September, they took a pitstop in Sicily, because Richard's sister Joan had been overthrown and imprisoned by King Tancred, cousin to her late husband William II. Richard, obviously, was not very amused by this state of affairs, and when a peaceful settlement couldn't be reached, Richard burnt the capital city Messina to the ground. Tancred, thoroughly noogied, finally conceded to a treaty in March 1191. Interestingly, part of that treaty included the handover of a sword allegedly plucked from a royal grave in Glastonbury. Glastonbury, famously, is traditionally said to be the location of the mythical Avalon, and that sword was supposedly Excalibur. The Excalibur, and Richard just kinda said "yea here ya go I don't need it, it's just taking up space". Of course, this is assuming there was a historical Excalibur at all, and that this wasn't just some medieval hoax, but yeah, this is technically the last historical mention of the famous blade of Arthur. Last anyone saw Excalibur, it was in possession of the Kings of Sicily of all places. I don't know what sort of fantasy story that opens the door to, but I'll figure it out.

Richard continued on to the Holy Land in April, but a storm threw his fleet off course and landed him on the island of Cyprus. Cyprus was technically a province of the Byzantine Empire at the time, but it had been overtaken by a rebellious prince named Isaac Komnenos, because even the Byzantines took bites out of the Byzantine Empire, apparently. Komnenos took hostages from the shipwreck carrying Joan and Richard's betrothed Berengaria because hey, what else are you gonna do when a boat full of rich people crashes on your island? This pissed off Richard, so Richard did what he always did when he got pissed off: he burnt the whole place to the ground. The island was his by June, and Komnenos was brought to Richard bound in silver chains (cause you see, he had begged Richard to spare him the humiliation of being put in "irons", very poor choice of words). Richard didn't come all this way for Cyprus, though, so he sold the island to the Knights Templar for some quick cash and set off for the Levant. He arrived in wartorn Acre in June, probably made a positive remark about the smell of Greek Fire in the morning, and sent Saladin packing as his first order of business.

This is where we hitch on one of the more controversial acts of Richard's life. Following the Siege of Acre, he opened negotiations with Saladin to arrange the return of Muslim POWs in exchange for a ransom, all fairly standard stuff for medieval warfare. Saladin dragged his heels on paying up, however, and when a rumor began to spread that the Christian prisoners on the other side had been executed like the Templars at Hattin, Richard made the call: line up all the prisoners where Saladin could see them, and have them systematically executed one by one. This too, was sadly not uncommon in medieval warfare, but it was no less considered a brutal act of senseless violence which Muslim sources latched onto to show how fanatical the Crusaders were. Despite this atrocity, Richard and Saladin came to respect one another as noble kings and honorable warriors, though they never actually met in person. After Richard thrashed Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf in September, Richard even proposed a treaty which would see Saladin's brother Al-Adil married to Joan as king and queen of Jerusalem. The deal fell through, because Richard was adamant about Al-Adil converting to Christianity, but it does go to show how amicable he could be… when he wanted to be.

Meanwhile, Richard's relationship with most of his fellow Crusaders very quickly spiraled into a web of spite. The only one he really garnered a functional relationship with was Guy of Lusignan, who sought Richard's support in his claim to the throne of Jerusalem. That position had been occupied by the usurper king Conrad of Montferrat, at least until he was killed in the streets by the Assassins in April 1192. Before the body was even cold, Richard's nephew was married to Conrad's widow Isabella in order to get first dibs to that empty throne. I'm sure Richard had absolutely nothing to do with Conrad of Montferrat getting stabbed in the streets by Assassins. Yep. Nothing to see here, folks. Guy certainly got snubbed in this arrangement, but ahh well, the Templars weren't doing a great job at governing Cyprus anyways, so Richard told Guy he could just have it instead. He had other things to deal with, like his old buddy King Philip, who was being a dick.

The King of France had decided he'd done his part after Acre (and that he was fed up with Richard's overbearing personality), and so returned to Europe shortly thereafter. Now, there was one small problem with Richard's relationship with Philip: the French were technically the proper lords over Richard's territory, and they'd been really wanting to put the Angevins back in their place. So, Richard was away in the Holy Land (getting frightfully sick, no less) while his kingdom back home was left completely unguarded against the encroaching frogs. So, after one last squabble with Saladin over Jaffa in August, the two sides agreed to peace terms, and Richard began the long trek back home. Unfortunately, during his time in the Holy Land, he'd also pissed off a middling little weasel: Leopold, the Duke of Austria who threw his banner up alongside Richard's at the Siege of Acre as if he could hold a candle to Richard's contribution to the battle. Richard felt insulted, tore the banner down, and Leopold went home to the Holy Roman Empire to skulk and scheme his revenge. When Richard passed through the Holy Roman Empire, barely disguised, Leopold had him captured and shipped off to the Emperor, Henry VI, to be held for ransom.

This was arguably the worst possible circumstances Richard could find himself in, because pretty much everyone benefited from him being in chains. Rumors reached him that the now grown John was usurping the throne of his precious Aquitaine, oh no! Oh and… England too, oh no, I guess. This is actually the basis for the common trope in Robin Hood stories of Richard being this distant hero on a noble quest to return home and one day liberate the English people from his supervillain brother. I think it's fair to say that both sides of this dynamic are a bit exaggerated. In fact, in real history, once Richard finally did make it back to England, he forgave his brother and named him as his official heir. No, the real problem was Philip, who was probably laughing his ass off at the situation because he straight up paid Emperor Henry a ransom to keep Richard imprisoned. The offer was declined, and Richard was released in 1194. He only popped over to England long enough to be re-coronated, and within the month he was back on the continent. He'd spend the remainder of his years warring with Philip in France, never again setting foot on that dirty peasant island Whatsitsface.

Richard was mortally wounded while putting down a revolt at the fortress of Châlus in 1199. The story goes that there was a lone archer taking potshots from the ramparts of the castle and blocking any returning fire with a frying pan. Richard found this incredibly humorous, but while he turned his head to make jests about it to his men, the archer scored a hit directly into Richard's shoulder. Richard presumably followed this up with that "not bad" meme face, excused himself to his tent, and attempted to extract the arrow. He called in a surgeon, but the operation was poorly handled, and Richard's wound turned gangrenous. He knew what that meant in a world of medieval medicine. He summoned his mother that he might die in her arms, and also summoned the archer who did him in. This lone soldier turned out to be a young peasant lad who just wanted to avenge his father who had died in the siege, so Richard decided then and there that he held no ill will against the boy. Indeed, he gave him a sack of silver for his troubles and ordered that he should be free to go. Richard's men, however, did not share his mercy. As soon as Richard passed away on April 6, they seized the archer and had the kid's skin flayed on the spot. You know, I'm Heathen, so what do I know, but I'm fairly certain that wasn't very Christian of them to do-

Design notes, there's no shortage of historical artwork of King Richard out there. In fact, this is one of the rare times I've run into an overabundance of source material to take reference from, making it hard to pick and choose details for the composition. I think it's interesting to look back on a comment I made in the King Arthur blurb: how Arthur sort of is the caricature of a medieval king. Now I realize, it's more so Richard that people envision when they try to imagine a generic king, and by extension that image gets subconsciously shifted onto Arthur. Just an interesting realization, that. Ultimately, I narrowed in on a handful of works: the 1841 portrait by Merry-Joseph Blondel, an 1814 etching by Noël Joseph Blaisot, an 1804 engraving by Philip James de Lourherbourg, and a couple of engravings published in John Cassell's Illustrated History of England, originally published in 1865. I'm pretty happy with how the composition came together, though there's certainly room for improvement. Honestly, the only part I got hung up on was how to depict his coat of arms, as this actually changed throughout the course of his life. Originally, Richard only bore one or two lions during the more famous events of his career. He only adopted the iconic third lion in 1195 as a symbol of how he was still very much here and very much in charge despite what John and Philip had to say. The three lions are certainly the most iconic arms he wore, however, so ultimately I decided to roll with it for this reference sheet, figuring it would be pretty easy to change based on the in-scene context anyways. As it was ultimately Richard's way of saying "I am very badass", he'd probably approve of the decision as well, and I can rest easy knowing he probably won't come back from the dead just to kick my ass.

Description
Richard the Lionheart was the king of England from 1189 to 1199, though if you asked him, he'd probably say "...what's an England?"

Yeah, even though Richard is renowned as one of England's greatest badasses and national heroes, England at this time was very much just sort of a French colony. I know, the worst timeline imaginable. The French nobles ruling the region at the time really couldn't give less of a damn about English customs or that dirty peasant tongue, and this mindset very much extended to Richard. I often see this glossed to imply that Richard couldn't even speak English, which might be a bit of an exaggeration. He very likely could speak English (probably would've had to for diplomatic reasons), he just didn't want to. Still, for as French as this King of England was, he was at least born in England. On September 8, 1157, he popped out of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Henry II, in Beaumont Palace near Oxford, and was raised in England until the age of eight. He was not the eldest son, though, and was never intended to be king. That responsibility instead fell to his brother Henry.

Henry had been dubbed "the Young King" when he was crowned heir apparent following his father's illness in 1170. The elder Henry had hoped to divide his territories nice and evenly between his sons (Richard for his part was given Aquitaine in 1172), to prevent his kids from killing each other. Unfortunately, this backfired tremendously when the sons all unanimously realized they'd all get a lot more out of the deal if they banded together to overthrow their stingy dad instead. In 1173, the Young King formed a coalition with his little brothers, their mother Eleanor, and her ex-husband Louis XII of France. Now that's a saucy reality TV show waiting to happen. Or maybe not, because somehow, each of these factions got absolutely trounced one by one. Louis fucked off, Eleanor was imprisoned, and the boys were sent to bed without supper. No really, Henry II just sort of gave his sons a slap on the wrist and sent them back to their respective territories. Richard, after hanging his head and saying "sorry daddy" was even assigned by Henry II to head out and crush any remaining noblemen who supported the rebel cause. It's during this period that Richard first earned his reputation as one of the greatest soldiers and military geniuses of his age. In 1179, using his cunning and sword arm, he managed to besiege and capture the rebel fortress of Taillebourg, once considered impregnable, within the span of three days. This total annihilation of the enemy largely snuffed out any remaining threads of resistance, though there were still many who pledged their sword to the Young King who was now swiftly turning into Richard's greatest rival.

In 1182, the Young King kicked up a fuss about Richard building a castle in Anjou (which was supposed to be Henry's side of the line), to which Richard was like "nuh-uh", and then Henry was like "yeah-huh", and then dad came in like "Richard, be nice to your big brother, just give him the castle as homage", and Richard dragged his feet like "but daaaaad", and the Young King took the opportunity to just invade Aquitaine like he owned the place. Evidently, even God was getting a bit peeved at this family drama, because in June 1183, Henry met the same fate we all aspire to go out on: he died of dysentery. The third brother, Geoffrey, I assume fed up with not being mentioned whatsoever in this story so far, died in August 1186, conveniently trampled by a horse during a tournament. There was also John but his biggest concern was puberty at that time. Still, Henry wanted Richard to cede Aquitaine to his pimply little brother, and since Aquitaine was Richard's favorite toy, he refused to hand it over. Henry knew that Richard was a total mama's boy, though, so he released Eleanor from prison just to send her to tell Richard to play nice and share. Of course, Richard wasn't exactly the kind of guy to sit in the corner like a good little boy, so in 1187, he started plotting with Philip Augustus, the King of France, to do what the Young King had tried to do but better. Richard paid homage to Philip in November 1188, and their united armies finally forced a concession out of Henry in July 1189. Richard was officially declared heir apparent, and Henry died, extremely conveniently, just two days later.

Richard the Lionheart was now the King of the Angevin Empire… oh and I guess England too. That was nice, because now he had a big England-shaped piggy bank to sponsor his next project: the Third Crusade. His father had actually been the one who first agreed to take up the cross and tax the population to fund it, but he obviously had other things to worry about. Richard, on the other hand, saw the opportunity to take up arms and kick Saladin's ass as a bully good time that'd get the blood flowing. Though he had failed to find a buyer for London (as legend claims he bemoaned), he still had raised enough funds to set out for the Holy Land with Philip in the summer of 1190. In September, they took a pitstop in Sicily, because Richard's sister Joan had been overthrown and imprisoned by King Tancred, cousin to her late husband William II. Richard, obviously, was not very amused by this state of affairs, and when a peaceful settlement couldn't be reached, Richard burnt the capital city Messina to the ground. Tancred, thoroughly noogied, finally conceded to a treaty in March 1191. Interestingly, part of that treaty included the handover of a sword allegedly plucked from a royal grave in Glastonbury. Glastonbury, famously, is traditionally said to be the location of the mythical Avalon, and that sword was supposedly Excalibur. The Excalibur, and Richard just kinda said "yea here ya go I don't need it, it's just taking up space". Of course, this is assuming there was a historical Excalibur at all, and that this wasn't just some medieval hoax, but yeah, this is technically the last historical mention of the famous blade of Arthur. Last anyone saw Excalibur, it was in possession of the Kings of Sicily of all places. I don't know what sort of fantasy story that opens the door to, but I'll figure it out.

Richard continued on to the Holy Land in April, but a storm threw his fleet off course and landed him on the island of Cyprus. Cyprus was technically a province of the Byzantine Empire at the time, but it had been overtaken by a rebellious prince named Isaac Komnenos, because even the Byzantines took bites out of the Byzantine Empire, apparently. Komnenos took hostages from the shipwreck carrying Joan and Richard's betrothed Berengaria because hey, what else are you gonna do when a boat full of rich people crashes on your island? This pissed off Richard, so Richard did what he always did when he got pissed off: he burnt the whole place to the ground. The island was his by June, and Komnenos was brought to Richard bound in silver chains (cause you see, he had begged Richard to spare him the humiliation of being put in "irons", very poor choice of words). Richard didn't come all this way for Cyprus, though, so he sold the island to the Knights Templar for some quick cash and set off for the Levant. He arrived in wartorn Acre in June, probably made a positive remark about the smell of Greek Fire in the morning, and sent Saladin packing as his first order of business.

This is where we hitch on one of the more controversial acts of Richard's life. Following the Siege of Acre, he opened negotiations with Saladin to arrange the return of Muslim POWs in exchange for a ransom, all fairly standard stuff for medieval warfare. Saladin dragged his heels on paying up, however, and when a rumor began to spread that the Christian prisoners on the other side had been executed like the Templars at Hattin, Richard made the call: line up all the prisoners where Saladin could see them, and have them systematically executed one by one. This too, was sadly not uncommon in medieval warfare, but it was no less considered a brutal act of senseless violence which Muslim sources latched onto to show how fanatical the Crusaders were. Despite this atrocity, Richard and Saladin came to respect one another as noble kings and honorable warriors, though they never actually met in person. After Richard thrashed Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf in September, Richard even proposed a treaty which would see Saladin's brother Al-Adil married to Joan as king and queen of Jerusalem. The deal fell through, because Richard was adamant about Al-Adil converting to Christianity, but it does go to show how amicable he could be… when he wanted to be.

Meanwhile, Richard's relationship with most of his fellow Crusaders very quickly spiraled into a web of spite. The only one he really garnered a functional relationship with was Guy of Lusignan, who sought Richard's support in his claim to the throne of Jerusalem. That position had been occupied by the usurper king Conrad of Montferrat, at least until he was killed in the streets by the Assassins in April 1192. Before the body was even cold, Richard's nephew was married to Conrad's widow Isabella in order to get first dibs to that empty throne. I'm sure Richard had absolutely nothing to do with Conrad of Montferrat getting stabbed in the streets by Assassins. Yep. Nothing to see here, folks. Guy certainly got snubbed in this arrangement, but ahh well, the Templars weren't doing a great job at governing Cyprus anyways, so Richard told Guy he could just have it instead. He had other things to deal with, like his old buddy King Philip, who was being a dick.

The King of France had decided he'd done his part after Acre (and that he was fed up with Richard's overbearing personality), and so returned to Europe shortly thereafter. Now, there was one small problem with Richard's relationship with Philip: the French were technically the proper lords over Richard's territory, and they'd been really wanting to put the Angevins back in their place. So, Richard was away in the Holy Land (getting frightfully sick, no less) while his kingdom back home was left completely unguarded against the encroaching frogs. So, after one last squabble with Saladin over Jaffa in August, the two sides agreed to peace terms, and Richard began the long trek back home. Unfortunately, during his time in the Holy Land, he'd also pissed off a middling little weasel: Leopold, the Duke of Austria who threw his banner up alongside Richard's at the Siege of Acre as if he could hold a candle to Richard's contribution to the battle. Richard felt insulted, tore the banner down, and Leopold went home to the Holy Roman Empire to skulk and scheme his revenge. When Richard passed through the Holy Roman Empire, barely disguised, Leopold had him captured and shipped off to the Emperor, Henry VI, to be held for ransom.

This was arguably the worst possible circumstances Richard could find himself in, because pretty much everyone benefited from him being in chains. Rumors reached him that the now grown John was usurping the throne of his precious Aquitaine, oh no! Oh and… England too, oh no, I guess. This is actually the basis for the common trope in Robin Hood stories of Richard being this distant hero on a noble quest to return home and one day liberate the English people from his supervillain brother. I think it's fair to say that both sides of this dynamic are a bit exaggerated. In fact, in real history, once Richard finally did make it back to England, he forgave his brother and named him as his official heir. No, the real problem was Philip, who was probably laughing his ass off at the situation because he straight up paid Emperor Henry a ransom to keep Richard imprisoned. The offer was declined, and Richard was released in 1194. He only popped over to England long enough to be re-coronated, and within the month he was back on the continent. He'd spend the remainder of his years warring with Philip in France, never again setting foot on that dirty peasant island Whatsitsface.

Richard was mortally wounded while putting down a revolt at the fortress of Châlus in 1199. The story goes that there was a lone archer taking potshots from the ramparts of the castle and blocking any returning fire with a frying pan. Richard found this incredibly humorous, but while he turned his head to make jests about it to his men, the archer scored a hit directly into Richard's shoulder. Richard presumably followed this up with that "not bad" meme face, excused himself to his tent, and attempted to extract the arrow. He called in a surgeon, but the operation was poorly handled, and Richard's wound turned gangrenous. He knew what that meant in a world of medieval medicine. He summoned his mother that he might die in her arms, and also summoned the archer who did him in. This lone soldier turned out to be a young peasant lad who just wanted to avenge his father who had died in the siege, so Richard decided then and there that he held no ill will against the boy. Indeed, he gave him a sack of silver for his troubles and ordered that he should be free to go. Richard's men, however, did not share his mercy. As soon as Richard passed away on April 6, they seized the archer and had the kid's skin flayed on the spot. You know, I'm Heathen, so what do I know, but I'm fairly certain that wasn't very Christian of them to do-

Design notes, there's no shortage of historical artwork of King Richard out there. In fact, this is one of the rare times I've run into an overabundance of source material to take reference from, making it hard to pick and choose details for the composition. I think it's interesting to look back on a comment I made in the King Arthur blurb: how Arthur sort of is the caricature of a medieval king. Now I realize, it's more so Richard that people envision when they try to imagine a generic king, and by extension that image gets subconsciously shifted onto Arthur. Just an interesting realization, that. Ultimately, I narrowed in on a handful of works: the 1841 portrait by Merry-Joseph Blondel, an 1814 etching by Noël Joseph Blaisot, an 1804 engraving by Philip James de Lourherbourg, and a couple of engravings published in John Cassell's Illustrated History of England, originally published in 1865. I'm pretty happy with how the composition came together, though there's certainly room for improvement. Honestly, the only part I got hung up on was how to depict his coat of arms, as this actually changed throughout the course of his life. Originally, Richard only bore one or two lions during the more famous events of his career. He only adopted the iconic third lion in 1195 as a symbol of how he was still very much here and very much in charge despite what John and Philip had to say. The three lions are certainly the most iconic arms he wore, however, so ultimately I decided to roll with it for this reference sheet, figuring it would be pretty easy to change based on the in-scene context anyways. As it was ultimately Richard's way of saying "I am very badass", he'd probably approve of the decision as well, and I can rest easy knowing he probably won't come back from the dead just to kick my ass.