August 25, 2010 • 19 mins
Today, Richard I -- better known as Richard the Lionheart -- is an iconic, legendary figure in European history. But how did he become "the Lionheart" in the first place? Tune in and learn more about Richard I in this podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy and I am
currently hopelessly addicted to the Florence and the Machine album.
(00:21):
Lung has been promising Sarah I will copy it for her.
And in one of the songs, Florence Welch sings, I
must become a lion hearted girl ready for a fight.
And since I've listened to the CD every morning for
approximately the last one mornings, I'm really in love with
this quote, and it also got me thinking about other
lion hearts, although I think the subject of this podcast
(00:42):
isn't quite the kind I'm striving for. Richard the First
of England, also known as Richard Lionheart or Richard cur
de Leon. And you might remember Richard from our episode
quite some time ago on Eleanor of Aquitaine. This is
his son, Eleanor. We sometimes call her the woman who
lived too long. Too long, that was so much research.
It was a podcast. He was a very elderly woman,
(01:04):
and I don't think we had quite learned to break
up podcasts. And they're like that, so Anyways, this is
Eleanor's son with Henry the second, and Richard is not
so great at being a son to Henry the second.
But that's not really what he's famous for. He's famous
for the Third Crusade and for being a great warrior. Say,
(01:25):
to give you some background on the Third Crusade, we
have a man named Saladin who is the ruler of
Egypt and Syria, a very powerful man and known to
be a very chivalrous one, which kind of makes him
the perfect counterpart to Richard's reputation as this perfect night.
Nights from the east and from the west they go together.
So in the years after the Second Crusade, Saladin had
(01:47):
taken most of the Crusader cities, including Awker, which was
a very important port city, Beirut, Nazareth, Caesaria, and then
finally Jerusalem in eight seven. The city had been in
Frankish control for eighty eight years, is a huge deal.
The only city he didn't have was Tire, a very
(02:07):
important coastal fortress, which would screw him in the end,
definitely ends up messing him up. But things had been
rough for the Crusaders through this time. They were suffering
through famine, disease, thirst because they had contaminated water. They
couldn't stand up to Saladine, and in the end they
were very few places left under Christian control. But Saladine
(02:27):
himself is dealing with some internal problems, especially the Sunny
Shiite divisions between the Muslims under his rule. So the
capture of Jerusalem is a huge blow to Christians, and
Europe is very shocked and very determined to act. And
we've talked about crusades already and housades and pope popes
(02:47):
like to have their own crusade. This is the same
case as the Fourth Crusade. Pope Gregory the eighth encourages
a new crusade to take back Jerusalem. And the interesting
thing about this crusade is just how many kings, I guess,
get involved. There's so many leaders involved in the lead
up to the third Again it is we have William
(03:08):
the second of Sicily that he died in nine which
kind of put a halt to his part of the war.
And Frederick the first Barbarossa, who had a huge army.
He was a formidable threat as they pushed through Byzantium
and Isaac the Second, a Jealous's attempts to thwart them,
but Frederick drowned before they reached Antioch, possibly because his
(03:30):
horse slipped in a river. He would not make our
list of best military horses. Um, and after that his
army kind of fell apart. It's it's hard to go
without your leader. And that was the end of that, definitely.
So rounding out our lineup, we also have Philip the
second Augustus of France and Henry the second of England,
(03:50):
who is owner of Aquataine's husband, and these two are
arch enemies and the cause of their dispute, like everything
else in the Middle Age of nobody gets along very well.
The cause of their dispute is land and dowries and
who gets what and who gets home and women is
pawns in marriage. Yeah, it really doesn't help much when
(04:12):
Philip teams up with Henry's son, Richard the Lionheart in
a revolt against him, so major problems between these two guys.
Henry died of a broken heart, I think shortly after
he lost to the two of them, to his son
and to this man he hates. And now it's up
to Richard to take up the cause of the Crusades
taking back Jerusalem. He was enthroned in Normandy in July
(04:36):
nine in England in September, but he would only spend
about six months in England during the whole of his rule.
He just wasn't really interested in that part of it.
And I liked this quote from Encyclopedia Britannica. His abilities
lay not an administration for which he had no talent,
but in war, at which he was a genius. So
that's the final word on that from an encyclopedia. So yeah,
(04:57):
instead of focusing on England and administration, he focuses on
the Middle East and in order to get the Crusaders there,
and when he needs money, he needs a lot of money,
so he starts selling off lands and titles and taxing
the people the saladine tax. Yeah. He also picks up
his father's fight with Philip of France, this argument over
(05:21):
marriages and dowries that is going on through the generations. Apparently,
so Philip wants to tear apart the Ajaban Empire of
which Richard is part and Richard, in preparation for leaving,
make sure that he has allies who will look after
his empire while he's gone, he doesn't really trust Philip
(05:41):
for a good reason well, and as part of that,
he ticks off Philip even more than he already was.
I didn't think that was possible, but it is. Because
he was supposed to marry Philip's sister Alice, and instead
he promises to marry Berengaria of Navar. Her father was
going to help take care of Richard's lands while he
was gone. Um, but he gets to keep some of
(06:02):
Alice's dowry lands instead of returning them to Philip. And
this is a grudge that would simmer for years. But
now both Philip and Richard headed for the Crusades, so
Richard goes to Sicily first, while Philip goes to Oker,
and Richard conquers Messina. He's very very efficient and very efficient. Yeah,
and then he's on his way to Cyprus, and in
(06:24):
this fun classic Middle Ages twist where you have nights
and damsels and distress, Richard saves both his sister and
his betrothed who have been shipwrecked and taken into custody,
so he rescues them from Cyprus, and yeah, then takes
the island sound that will teach you Byzantine ruler, and
then he goes to Aker to meet with Philip and
(06:45):
help him lay siege to the city. Earlier crusaders had
begun the siege in nine so it's been a couple
of years. You can imagine that both sides are tired.
They're pretty much had a stalemate. Neither side has given in,
and Philip shows up just in time an eleven ninety one,
and together he and Richard managed to breach the walls finally,
and the city surrendered in July, much to Saladine's displeasure.
(07:09):
He had told them not to, but they said unless
he came to their aid, they couldn't. They couldn't, We
can't hold it, and they did get it, so that
was the end um. As part of being the loser,
Saladine handed over the fragments of the True Cross that
he had and also promised ransom for getting back his
Muslim prisoners from Philip and Richard, but he didn't deliver
(07:30):
that money fast enough for Richard's liking, and he decided
to execute thousands of captives where Saladine could see it,
and Saladine retaliated in kind with Christian prisoners, so really
no one won that no this massive prisoner execution, And
just a note about these two men. It may not
seem like it, but Saladine and Richard had a lot
(07:52):
of respect for each other. We already mentioned you have
this ideal Night of the East and Night of the West,
but legends have the meeting and competing as equals. It's
fun to imagine them having some sort of jousting match
or something like that, Richard with his brute strength and
Soladine with his witty intelligence. But really they never meet.
They have messengers who communicate between them. It's not quite
(08:15):
as romantic as even though it would make a good story. Yes,
there's finally an open battle between Richard's armies and Saladines
in September at the Battle of Ours. Philip had returned
home by this time for unknown reasons, and it was
a decisive win for Richard and the only time the
two would directly confront one another. And Richard went on
to win Jaffa, a port city, and the rest of
(08:37):
the Levantine coast. But what he couldn't get was Jerusalem,
despite coming in sight of it two times almost being there,
he wouldn't lay siege to the city, and while this
made sense from a military strategy point of view, which
he was oh so good at. His troops didn't understand
his reluctance and they didn't like it. It's the point
of why they're there in the first place, to get
(08:59):
back Jerusalem. Instead, he wants to attack some of Staladine
Egypt holdings, but the troops don't see the point of
that either. Negotiations began between Solidine and Richard, but soon stalled,
and their armies continued to lose and retake cities and
attempting to avenge their dead brothers and very bloody conflicts.
But they finally came to a piece in September eleven
(09:21):
ninety two, and as part of that truce, Christians, as
long as they were unarmed and Muslims and Jews would
all be allowed to enter Jerusalem. So all in all,
despite not winning Jerusalem, which was, you know, the main
goal of this crusade, it was a pretty successful one.
Not at all like the Fourth Crusade. If you listen
to that episode a Crusade gone Wrong, in which everything
(09:42):
went wrong, they actually get some stuff in this crusade.
We're going to call that one a success. Semi attain
the Jerusalem motive so Richard heads home in October. You
have to imagine he's feeling pretty good, but he's shipwrecked.
And we always have these shocking shipwreck twists in our podcast.
Leopold of Austria, who's mad about Richard lighting him during
(10:04):
the crusade and possibly killing his cousin to stick him
in captivity, and he remains there for a while until
Henry the six, who is the Holy Roman Emperor, took him.
So good old Eleanor of Aquitaine comes into the picture
here and raises the ransom for her son. But that's
not quite yet because in the meantime, of course, as
(10:25):
we mentioned, Philip had returned home and he has been
up to no good. Specifically, he's trying to take Richard's lands.
He believed that Alice's dowry lands should be returned to
his family. As far as I'm considered the point, he
does have a point, and he also didn't like the
fact that Richard had gotten all the glory from the crusades,
and Philip felt that once again the algebra had been
(10:48):
cheated out of what should belong to them. But since
Richard was a crusade or his lands were supposed to
be protected while he was gone. But this was Philip's chance.
I mean, when would he have another one. It's just
too good. So he faked some papers saying, hey, Richard
and I came to this agreement. He signed them, I'm
supposed to get those lands back. The Normans are like na,
(11:12):
so no, it's not going to happen. So he got
Richard's brother John on his side and some other counts
of French Lands. And to be fair, they weren't sure
that Richard would ever get out of prison and return home,
so they're kind of throwing their lot in with Philip
and hoping that will help. According to the article, I
got this from a lot of this from by Simon
Reyes in military history, so it did make sense to
(11:33):
stick with Philip for the time he's out of prison,
although it should be said for a while no one
knew where Richard was. John even announces that his brother
is dead, and Eleanor says, nope, he's not dead. So
you don't know if that's tricky John or if they
really believe it. I'm gonna go with sneaky John. So
Philip hits Jesure Castle and just rampages through Normandy pillaging
(11:56):
along the way, but is stopped at Rouen, the capital
by Arle Robert of Lester, and eventually Richard's minister has
decided to make a deal just to stop him from
making trouble. Keep what you've won already, will give you
a few other small territories, but we'll give Richard the
option of buying them back if he wants to and
he returns, which, of course Richard has too much self
(12:18):
respect for such a deal. Yeah. Well, and Philip and
John are trying to bargain with Henry the Six during
all this too, who is of course the one holding
Richard prisoner. They're saying, maybe you could turn him over
to us and will get care of him exactly. Um,
Henry the Six doesn't have any of that. He lets
Richard go February four and at this point fill it on.
(12:42):
It's on. So Richard raises money. We know he's good
at that already, and he has himself recrowned and he
heads tom. Yeah, hit home that point that I am back,
I'm king. So John comes pleading to his brother to
to forgive him. Richard says, you are a child. You
can just imagine the condescension way they do make up later,
(13:03):
we should mention that. But Richard and Philip fight up
and down Normandy. They fight through Turin and Aquitaine and
the Loire Valley, and they almost come to a piece
at the Droi Inven. But Philip is still working against
Richard even as these negotiations are going on, and Richard
figures it out. He's just no, we're calling the whole
(13:24):
thing off. So the two returned to fighting. You're going
to fight for pretty much the rest of your at.
In eleven ninety six, Richard manages to cut off philips
supply lines, which results in a temporary truth, but very temporary. Indeed,
they fight until January, and at that point they finally
come to some sort of terms. All well, Richard is
(13:45):
standing on a boat on the sun and he's yelling
at Philip, who's up on the banks. It's pretty ridiculous
for guys who have been fighting for years and years
to work it out like this, but a plus for him.
During this time, Richard built his beloved Chateau Guillard, which
cost eleven thousand, five pounds sterling at the time, an
astronomical sum of money. We decided that he and Ludvig
(14:07):
should hang out and have dinner, and it was also
the strongest castle of its time. But soon after this
we have the very murky ending of Richard's life. Yeah,
this is pretty confusing. We know how he died, but
the events leading up to it are completely confusing and
frankly bizarre. So he attacks the Lord of Challou in
(14:29):
March eleven ninety nine. Why does they do it? There
are two opinions on this one. It's possible he thought
that a vast cash of buried treasure had been discovered
and he had not gotten his share. Um in my
outline I wrote seriously in parentheses, but I don't know
any more about that. The second option is that maybe
(14:51):
he just wanted to destroy the holdings of the Count
of Limos. I like to think it's a big chest
full of China smashing this place. But either way, after
he's attacked this lightly guarded place, he's shot with a crossbow,
and the story is strange, again, really really weird. A
man fires at Richard, and supposedly Richard is impressed by
(15:16):
his bravery. Oh you you know you're shooting at me?
Richard lionheart, and he ducked but too late and was
shot in the shoulder and the doctor couldn't get it
out properly, and the wound turned gangrenous, and Richard forgave
his killer, whoever it was, but his men did not,
and after Richard died, the man was flayed to death.
(15:38):
And again we still don't really know what happened there.
But John was named his successor, and he just wasn't
the man that Richard was. Now he he appears in
a book I have called Histories and Monsters, so we
might have to talk about him a little later. But
Philip wore him down and accomplished what he set out
to do in the first place. He broke the Ingabant
(15:58):
Empire into many little pieces. So with John's reign leaving
much to be desired, a lot of people are left
longing for this the days of the Lion Heart. Yeah,
Richard seems like the perfect example of a night and
some historians agree and some don't. There's this ongoing fight,
for one about his sexuality. Oh right, my favorite excerpt
(16:22):
I was reading so that he was and I quote,
accused of homosexuality. We would like to point out, for
all your history writers, we do not accuse people of
sexual orientation not the Oscar wild trial there. But they
all agree on one thing that militarily Richard was brilliant.
That's why he is the lion Heart. And if you
care to go over each and every one of his battles,
(16:45):
both during the Crusade and with Philip, I didn't that
would have taken us quite a long time. In this
podcast you'll see multiple examples of how smart his strategy was.
He was undoubtedly very talented, but was he what England
needed at the time and is his reputation deserved? That's
your choice. But just to give you a little bizarro
(17:06):
world follow up some postscripts. So remember how we've been
talking recently about Napoleon and his invasion of Egypt and
all of these Mama Lukes and the warrior slave cast
that rule Egypt. Tire is taken by the mom Luke's
in twelve nine one, So it's a small world after all.
(17:29):
On a podcast reverse order podcast here, And another note
on one of the cities we've talked about in this podcast.
The Old city of Aker is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
And as for Sladin our Eastern Night, he died as
his seventeen sons fought bitterly over his estate, so sad circumstances,
and he was a really interesting man. So I'm considering
(17:50):
a podcast on him and get entering a few podcasts
out of this one. So let us know what you
think about that suggestion. You can email us at History
Podcast at House of Works dot com. But that brings
us to a very special listener mail, and this addition
of listener mail is a present listener Maal. Christmas and
(18:12):
August always very exciting from Melinda. We received two really
awesome shirts and one is handprinted specially for the podcast
based on our Lilya Kolani Lack Queen of Kawaie episode
and it says team Lilia Kolani and if you'll remember,
we are your big fans the queen. We stand with
her as far as that goes. And the other one
(18:35):
says the Lusitania is an inside job. You can't buy
the Lolyoa Kolani T shirts those are just for us,
but you can get the Lusitania one. I think she
gave us her website. Yeah, it's Austin Apparel. So thank
you very much, Melinda. We have been wearing our T
shirts proudly and thank you for the podcast support and
all of your kind words. We're going to put up
(18:56):
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(19:18):
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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy and I am
currently hopelessly addicted to the Florence and the Machine album.
(00:21):
Lung has been promising Sarah I will copy it for her.
And in one of the songs, Florence Welch sings, I
must become a lion hearted girl ready for a fight.
And since I've listened to the CD every morning for
approximately the last one mornings, I'm really in love with
this quote, and it also got me thinking about other
lion hearts, although I think the subject of this podcast
(00:42):
isn't quite the kind I'm striving for. Richard the First
of England, also known as Richard Lionheart or Richard cur
de Leon. And you might remember Richard from our episode
quite some time ago on Eleanor of Aquitaine. This is
his son, Eleanor. We sometimes call her the woman who
lived too long. Too long, that was so much research.
It was a podcast. He was a very elderly woman,
(01:04):
and I don't think we had quite learned to break
up podcasts. And they're like that, so Anyways, this is
Eleanor's son with Henry the second, and Richard is not
so great at being a son to Henry the second.
But that's not really what he's famous for. He's famous
for the Third Crusade and for being a great warrior. Say,
(01:25):
to give you some background on the Third Crusade, we
have a man named Saladin who is the ruler of
Egypt and Syria, a very powerful man and known to
be a very chivalrous one, which kind of makes him
the perfect counterpart to Richard's reputation as this perfect night.
Nights from the east and from the west they go together.
So in the years after the Second Crusade, Saladin had
(01:47):
taken most of the Crusader cities, including Awker, which was
a very important port city, Beirut, Nazareth, Caesaria, and then
finally Jerusalem in eight seven. The city had been in
Frankish control for eighty eight years, is a huge deal.
The only city he didn't have was Tire, a very
(02:07):
important coastal fortress, which would screw him in the end,
definitely ends up messing him up. But things had been
rough for the Crusaders through this time. They were suffering
through famine, disease, thirst because they had contaminated water. They
couldn't stand up to Saladine, and in the end they
were very few places left under Christian control. But Saladine
(02:27):
himself is dealing with some internal problems, especially the Sunny
Shiite divisions between the Muslims under his rule. So the
capture of Jerusalem is a huge blow to Christians, and
Europe is very shocked and very determined to act. And
we've talked about crusades already and housades and pope popes
(02:47):
like to have their own crusade. This is the same
case as the Fourth Crusade. Pope Gregory the eighth encourages
a new crusade to take back Jerusalem. And the interesting
thing about this crusade is just how many kings, I guess,
get involved. There's so many leaders involved in the lead
up to the third Again it is we have William
(03:08):
the second of Sicily that he died in nine which
kind of put a halt to his part of the war.
And Frederick the first Barbarossa, who had a huge army.
He was a formidable threat as they pushed through Byzantium
and Isaac the Second, a Jealous's attempts to thwart them,
but Frederick drowned before they reached Antioch, possibly because his
(03:30):
horse slipped in a river. He would not make our
list of best military horses. Um, and after that his
army kind of fell apart. It's it's hard to go
without your leader. And that was the end of that, definitely.
So rounding out our lineup, we also have Philip the
second Augustus of France and Henry the second of England,
(03:50):
who is owner of Aquataine's husband, and these two are
arch enemies and the cause of their dispute, like everything
else in the Middle Age of nobody gets along very well.
The cause of their dispute is land and dowries and
who gets what and who gets home and women is
pawns in marriage. Yeah, it really doesn't help much when
(04:12):
Philip teams up with Henry's son, Richard the Lionheart in
a revolt against him, so major problems between these two guys.
Henry died of a broken heart, I think shortly after
he lost to the two of them, to his son
and to this man he hates. And now it's up
to Richard to take up the cause of the Crusades
taking back Jerusalem. He was enthroned in Normandy in July
(04:36):
nine in England in September, but he would only spend
about six months in England during the whole of his rule.
He just wasn't really interested in that part of it.
And I liked this quote from Encyclopedia Britannica. His abilities
lay not an administration for which he had no talent,
but in war, at which he was a genius. So
that's the final word on that from an encyclopedia. So yeah,
(04:57):
instead of focusing on England and administration, he focuses on
the Middle East and in order to get the Crusaders there,
and when he needs money, he needs a lot of money,
so he starts selling off lands and titles and taxing
the people the saladine tax. Yeah. He also picks up
his father's fight with Philip of France, this argument over
(05:21):
marriages and dowries that is going on through the generations. Apparently,
so Philip wants to tear apart the Ajaban Empire of
which Richard is part and Richard, in preparation for leaving,
make sure that he has allies who will look after
his empire while he's gone, he doesn't really trust Philip
(05:41):
for a good reason well, and as part of that,
he ticks off Philip even more than he already was.
I didn't think that was possible, but it is. Because
he was supposed to marry Philip's sister Alice, and instead
he promises to marry Berengaria of Navar. Her father was
going to help take care of Richard's lands while he
was gone. Um, but he gets to keep some of
(06:02):
Alice's dowry lands instead of returning them to Philip. And
this is a grudge that would simmer for years. But
now both Philip and Richard headed for the Crusades, so
Richard goes to Sicily first, while Philip goes to Oker,
and Richard conquers Messina. He's very very efficient and very efficient. Yeah,
and then he's on his way to Cyprus, and in
(06:24):
this fun classic Middle Ages twist where you have nights
and damsels and distress, Richard saves both his sister and
his betrothed who have been shipwrecked and taken into custody,
so he rescues them from Cyprus, and yeah, then takes
the island sound that will teach you Byzantine ruler, and
then he goes to Aker to meet with Philip and
(06:45):
help him lay siege to the city. Earlier crusaders had
begun the siege in nine so it's been a couple
of years. You can imagine that both sides are tired.
They're pretty much had a stalemate. Neither side has given in,
and Philip shows up just in time an eleven ninety one,
and together he and Richard managed to breach the walls finally,
and the city surrendered in July, much to Saladine's displeasure.
(07:09):
He had told them not to, but they said unless
he came to their aid, they couldn't. They couldn't, We
can't hold it, and they did get it, so that
was the end um. As part of being the loser,
Saladine handed over the fragments of the True Cross that
he had and also promised ransom for getting back his
Muslim prisoners from Philip and Richard, but he didn't deliver
(07:30):
that money fast enough for Richard's liking, and he decided
to execute thousands of captives where Saladine could see it,
and Saladine retaliated in kind with Christian prisoners, so really
no one won that no this massive prisoner execution, And
just a note about these two men. It may not
seem like it, but Saladine and Richard had a lot
(07:52):
of respect for each other. We already mentioned you have
this ideal Night of the East and Night of the West,
but legends have the meeting and competing as equals. It's
fun to imagine them having some sort of jousting match
or something like that, Richard with his brute strength and
Soladine with his witty intelligence. But really they never meet.
They have messengers who communicate between them. It's not quite
(08:15):
as romantic as even though it would make a good story. Yes,
there's finally an open battle between Richard's armies and Saladines
in September at the Battle of Ours. Philip had returned
home by this time for unknown reasons, and it was
a decisive win for Richard and the only time the
two would directly confront one another. And Richard went on
to win Jaffa, a port city, and the rest of
(08:37):
the Levantine coast. But what he couldn't get was Jerusalem,
despite coming in sight of it two times almost being there,
he wouldn't lay siege to the city, and while this
made sense from a military strategy point of view, which
he was oh so good at. His troops didn't understand
his reluctance and they didn't like it. It's the point
of why they're there in the first place, to get
(08:59):
back Jerusalem. Instead, he wants to attack some of Staladine
Egypt holdings, but the troops don't see the point of
that either. Negotiations began between Solidine and Richard, but soon stalled,
and their armies continued to lose and retake cities and
attempting to avenge their dead brothers and very bloody conflicts.
But they finally came to a piece in September eleven
(09:21):
ninety two, and as part of that truce, Christians, as
long as they were unarmed and Muslims and Jews would
all be allowed to enter Jerusalem. So all in all,
despite not winning Jerusalem, which was, you know, the main
goal of this crusade, it was a pretty successful one.
Not at all like the Fourth Crusade. If you listen
to that episode a Crusade gone Wrong, in which everything
(09:42):
went wrong, they actually get some stuff in this crusade.
We're going to call that one a success. Semi attain
the Jerusalem motive so Richard heads home in October. You
have to imagine he's feeling pretty good, but he's shipwrecked.
And we always have these shocking shipwreck twists in our podcast.
Leopold of Austria, who's mad about Richard lighting him during
(10:04):
the crusade and possibly killing his cousin to stick him
in captivity, and he remains there for a while until
Henry the six, who is the Holy Roman Emperor, took him.
So good old Eleanor of Aquitaine comes into the picture
here and raises the ransom for her son. But that's
not quite yet because in the meantime, of course, as
(10:25):
we mentioned, Philip had returned home and he has been
up to no good. Specifically, he's trying to take Richard's lands.
He believed that Alice's dowry lands should be returned to
his family. As far as I'm considered the point, he
does have a point, and he also didn't like the
fact that Richard had gotten all the glory from the crusades,
and Philip felt that once again the algebra had been
(10:48):
cheated out of what should belong to them. But since
Richard was a crusade or his lands were supposed to
be protected while he was gone. But this was Philip's chance.
I mean, when would he have another one. It's just
too good. So he faked some papers saying, hey, Richard
and I came to this agreement. He signed them, I'm
supposed to get those lands back. The Normans are like na,
(11:12):
so no, it's not going to happen. So he got
Richard's brother John on his side and some other counts
of French Lands. And to be fair, they weren't sure
that Richard would ever get out of prison and return home,
so they're kind of throwing their lot in with Philip
and hoping that will help. According to the article, I
got this from a lot of this from by Simon
Reyes in military history, so it did make sense to
(11:33):
stick with Philip for the time he's out of prison,
although it should be said for a while no one
knew where Richard was. John even announces that his brother
is dead, and Eleanor says, nope, he's not dead. So
you don't know if that's tricky John or if they
really believe it. I'm gonna go with sneaky John. So
Philip hits Jesure Castle and just rampages through Normandy pillaging
(11:56):
along the way, but is stopped at Rouen, the capital
by Arle Robert of Lester, and eventually Richard's minister has
decided to make a deal just to stop him from
making trouble. Keep what you've won already, will give you
a few other small territories, but we'll give Richard the
option of buying them back if he wants to and
he returns, which, of course Richard has too much self
(12:18):
respect for such a deal. Yeah. Well, and Philip and
John are trying to bargain with Henry the Six during
all this too, who is of course the one holding
Richard prisoner. They're saying, maybe you could turn him over
to us and will get care of him exactly. Um,
Henry the Six doesn't have any of that. He lets
Richard go February four and at this point fill it on.
(12:42):
It's on. So Richard raises money. We know he's good
at that already, and he has himself recrowned and he
heads tom. Yeah, hit home that point that I am back,
I'm king. So John comes pleading to his brother to
to forgive him. Richard says, you are a child. You
can just imagine the condescension way they do make up later,
(13:03):
we should mention that. But Richard and Philip fight up
and down Normandy. They fight through Turin and Aquitaine and
the Loire Valley, and they almost come to a piece
at the Droi Inven. But Philip is still working against
Richard even as these negotiations are going on, and Richard
figures it out. He's just no, we're calling the whole
(13:24):
thing off. So the two returned to fighting. You're going
to fight for pretty much the rest of your at.
In eleven ninety six, Richard manages to cut off philips
supply lines, which results in a temporary truth, but very temporary. Indeed,
they fight until January, and at that point they finally
come to some sort of terms. All well, Richard is
(13:45):
standing on a boat on the sun and he's yelling
at Philip, who's up on the banks. It's pretty ridiculous
for guys who have been fighting for years and years
to work it out like this, but a plus for him.
During this time, Richard built his beloved Chateau Guillard, which
cost eleven thousand, five pounds sterling at the time, an
astronomical sum of money. We decided that he and Ludvig
(14:07):
should hang out and have dinner, and it was also
the strongest castle of its time. But soon after this
we have the very murky ending of Richard's life. Yeah,
this is pretty confusing. We know how he died, but
the events leading up to it are completely confusing and
frankly bizarre. So he attacks the Lord of Challou in
(14:29):
March eleven ninety nine. Why does they do it? There
are two opinions on this one. It's possible he thought
that a vast cash of buried treasure had been discovered
and he had not gotten his share. Um in my
outline I wrote seriously in parentheses, but I don't know
any more about that. The second option is that maybe
(14:51):
he just wanted to destroy the holdings of the Count
of Limos. I like to think it's a big chest
full of China smashing this place. But either way, after
he's attacked this lightly guarded place, he's shot with a crossbow,
and the story is strange, again, really really weird. A
man fires at Richard, and supposedly Richard is impressed by
(15:16):
his bravery. Oh you you know you're shooting at me?
Richard lionheart, and he ducked but too late and was
shot in the shoulder and the doctor couldn't get it
out properly, and the wound turned gangrenous, and Richard forgave
his killer, whoever it was, but his men did not,
and after Richard died, the man was flayed to death.
(15:38):
And again we still don't really know what happened there.
But John was named his successor, and he just wasn't
the man that Richard was. Now he he appears in
a book I have called Histories and Monsters, so we
might have to talk about him a little later. But
Philip wore him down and accomplished what he set out
to do in the first place. He broke the Ingabant
(15:58):
Empire into many little pieces. So with John's reign leaving
much to be desired, a lot of people are left
longing for this the days of the Lion Heart. Yeah,
Richard seems like the perfect example of a night and
some historians agree and some don't. There's this ongoing fight,
for one about his sexuality. Oh right, my favorite excerpt
(16:22):
I was reading so that he was and I quote,
accused of homosexuality. We would like to point out, for
all your history writers, we do not accuse people of
sexual orientation not the Oscar wild trial there. But they
all agree on one thing that militarily Richard was brilliant.
That's why he is the lion Heart. And if you
care to go over each and every one of his battles,
(16:45):
both during the Crusade and with Philip, I didn't that
would have taken us quite a long time. In this
podcast you'll see multiple examples of how smart his strategy was.
He was undoubtedly very talented, but was he what England
needed at the time and is his reputation deserved? That's
your choice. But just to give you a little bizarro
(17:06):
world follow up some postscripts. So remember how we've been
talking recently about Napoleon and his invasion of Egypt and
all of these Mama Lukes and the warrior slave cast
that rule Egypt. Tire is taken by the mom Luke's
in twelve nine one, So it's a small world after all.
(17:29):
On a podcast reverse order podcast here, And another note
on one of the cities we've talked about in this podcast.
The Old city of Aker is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
And as for Sladin our Eastern Night, he died as
his seventeen sons fought bitterly over his estate, so sad circumstances,
and he was a really interesting man. So I'm considering
(17:50):
a podcast on him and get entering a few podcasts
out of this one. So let us know what you
think about that suggestion. You can email us at History
Podcast at House of Works dot com. But that brings
us to a very special listener mail, and this addition
of listener mail is a present listener Maal. Christmas and
(18:12):
August always very exciting from Melinda. We received two really
awesome shirts and one is handprinted specially for the podcast
based on our Lilya Kolani Lack Queen of Kawaie episode
and it says team Lilia Kolani and if you'll remember,
we are your big fans the queen. We stand with
her as far as that goes. And the other one
(18:35):
says the Lusitania is an inside job. You can't buy
the Lolyoa Kolani T shirts those are just for us,
but you can get the Lusitania one. I think she
gave us her website. Yeah, it's Austin Apparel. So thank
you very much, Melinda. We have been wearing our T
shirts proudly and thank you for the podcast support and
all of your kind words. We're going to put up
(18:56):
some pictures of these awesome shirts on our Facebook fan page,
so you should to come join us, and also on
our Twitter feed at Myston History. And if you'd like
to read some more great history articles, you should come
to our homepage and search for them at www dot
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com
(19:18):
and be sure to check out the stuff you missed
in History Glass blog on the how stuff works dot
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