GraceKennedy

THE MOST LOVED ENGLISH KING….

As you know I am a keen student of history, particularly the early periods in the development of Europe. Much of our “history” is relayed to us in films, usually from Hollywood with much poetic license in interpretation. A long time ago I developed the habit of seeing a film and then buying a book about the period or the persons involved to try to understand the truth. However since history is written by the victors, often this is not infallible!

Richard I of England, the “Lion Heart”, was a giant in the age of medieval chivalry. You may have seen him at the end of various Robin Hood or Ivanhoe movies, arriving like the cavalry to save the young lovers.

In real life he was enigmatic, fighting for years with his father Henry II and his brothers. The movie “The Lion in Winter” is very true to part of his life, but is only concerned with family politics.

The final paragraph below will be an enigma for you and make the English even more unfathomable. But please read the story first.

He is famous for his military exploits in the Crusades, the military expeditions to win back the Holy Land for Christendom. He won many battles, leading ferociously and slaying Muslim prisoners without mercy. He could not get on with his allies, the European kings, and is reputed to have refused to look on Jerusalem, the city he could not capture. This is verifiable history.

His place in legend starts on the way home from the Crusade. He is captured and imprisoned in Austria, his villain brother John making payments to keep him locked up, so that he could take over the kingdom. Nobody knew where he was, but his musician, Blondel, rode around Europe, singing his favourite song outside of many castles, until the melody came back from behind the walls of Durrenstein.

Contact was made and another expression entered the English language: “A King’s Ransom”. The amount of money demanded to free Richard was enormous, more than the country’s annual tax income, but the faithful in England, with the help of Jewish money lenders, raised the sum demanded. It is said that many of the poor people of England gave everything they had to free their king.

Richard died, because of greed, chasing a golden chalice, some said was the Holy Grail. An archer in the castle he was besieging, saw him without armour and fatally wounded him. In chivalry you do not kill an anointed king, except in single combat.  Richard on his deathbed forgave him but his followers flayed the archer alive.

Richard is buried in three places, his heart in England his bones in France at the abbey of Fontevrauld and at Poitiers.

There is a magnificent chapel at Fontevrauld, which holds the tombs of Richard, his wife Berengaria his father Henry and his equally legendary mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

The legend says: “For those for whom the world was not enough, the devil’s children, now six feet of ground must suffice”.

The ultimate truth about the man who was the most loved English king is fascinating. He was born in France, did not speak English and only spent a few months of his life in the country he ruled. He was also reputed to be homosexual.