By the Grace of God, King of the English and Duke of the Normans and Aquitanians and Count of the Angevins.
Come closer, my dear subject, and know me.
I, King Richard I, the Lion-hearted, of the Royal House of Plantagenet, was born September the 8th, 1157 at Beaumont Palace, Oxford. I had two older brothers, Henry and William that died, and two younger brothers, Geoffrey and John. Unfortunately they lived. I also had three lovely sisters, Matilda, Leonora, and Joan.
I spent much of my youth in my mother Queen Eleanore's court at Poitiers due to the seperation of my parents. I always seemed to care much more for the continental possessions of mother than for England. I also cared much more for mother than for father. You all know my father King Henry II? He was famous for causing his best friend, Thomas Becket, to become Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, assuming that having his best friend take the reigns of the church in England would vex him much less than the former Bishop or his underlings. He was wrong, the two fueded for years, and papa had the Arch-Bishop slain in his own cathedral. He subsequently became a saint. This caused father to become more vexed than usual.
Family considerations always influenced much of my life: I fought on the side of my brothers Prince Henry and Geoffrey in their rebellion of 1173-4 against my father; I fought for Henry against my brothers when they supported an 1183 revolt in Aquitane; and I joined Philip II of France against father in 1188, defeating him soundly in 1189.
My coronation took place July 6, 1189 with much fanfare. Much has been written of the fact that I spent but six months of my ten-year reign in England. But I acted upon a promise to my father to join the Third Crusade and departed for the Holy Land in 1190, accompanied by my 'friend' Philip II of France.
In 1191, I conquered Cyprus en route to Jerusalem and performed more than admirably against Saladin, nearly taking the holy city twice. Philip, in the meantime, returned to France and schemed with my walking pustule of a brother John. The Crusade failed in its primary objective of liberating the Holy Land from Moslem Turks, but did have a positive result - easier access to the region for Christian pilgrims through a truce I negotiated with Saladin.
Shortly thereafter I received word of John's treachery and decided to return home; But on the way to stop my traitorous brother, I was captured by Leopold V of Austria, sold to and imprisoned by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. My ransom was 100,000 pounds sterling.
Renewed by my restored freedom, I quickly crushed a coup attempt by John and regained my lands in Normandy that Philip stole during my absence in Germany. I energetically battled with Philip sporadically until I vanquished the French near Gisors in 1198.
Unfortunately I died April 6, 1199, from an arrow fired at me by Pierre Basile at the castle of Chalus in the Limousin. On my deathbed, I reconciled my position with father, as chronicled by Sir Richard Baker in A Chronicle of the Kings of England: "The remorse for his undutifulness towards his father, was living in him till he died; for at his death he remembered it with bewailing, and desired to be buried as near him as might be, perhaps as thinking they should meet the sooner, that he might ask him forgiveness in another world."
My prowess and courage in battle earned me the nickname Coeur De Lion ("heart of the lion"), but I was an educated man as well, able to compose poetry in French and Occitan, I even composed during my german captivity:
"No one will tell me the cause of my sorrow. Why they have made me a prisoner here. Wherefore with dolour I now make my moan; Friends had I many but help have I none. Shameful it is that they leave me to ransom, To languish here two winters long."
For some reason my bowels were buried at the foot of the tower from which I was shot with the arrow that took my life, my heart was buried at Rouen, while the rest of my remains were buried next to father at Fontevraud Abbey near Chinon and Saumur, France.
The Jerusalem Cross! One of our banners during the Crusades!
The Brave Crusaders!
