RICHARD I., King of England, sur named CCEUR DE LION; third son of King Henry II. and his wife, Eleanor of Aqui taine; born either at Oxford or at Wood stock, Sept. 8, 1157, but was brought up among the knights and troubadours of Poitou, in Aquitaine, with which duchy, his mother's patrimony, he was while still a child invested by his father. In England Richard did not spend in all his life a full year; after he became king he spent only 26 weeks in his kingdom. It may indeed reasonably be doubted whether he could speak English. A fa vorite of his unprincipled mother, he was induced by her to join his brothers Henry and Geoffrey in their rebellion (1173) against their father (see HENRY II.). Henry II. had his eldest son, Prince Henry, crowned king as his suc cessor during his own lifetime; and in 1183 he ordered that his younger broth ers should do homage to him. Richard obeyed with the greatest reluctance; thereupon the ungrateful Prince Henry at once picked a quarrel with him, and marched an army into his duchy of Aquitaine. King Henry hastened to the assistance of the young duke, while the other brother, Geoffrey, sided with the prince. But the sudden sickness and death of the ingrate put an end to the quarrel. In the spring of 1189 Richard was in his turn in arms against his father. Philip of France, the pertina cious foeman of King Henry, mingled in the strife; and eventually Richard joined forces with his father's enemy, did hom age to him, and took the field against the old king. A reconciliation was ren dered more difficult because of Richard's jealousy of John, his father's favorite.
Richard became King of England, Duke of Normandy, and Count of Anjou on July 5, 1189, and was crowned King of England on Sept. 3, following. But lie had already taken the vows of the cru sader; and besides his coronation, he had another object in coming to England; he wanted to raise funds for his crusade. He effected this latter purpose in a brief space of time by selling whatever he could get a purchaser for. About mid summer 1190 he net Philip of France at the rendezvous, Vezelai in France; but from Lyons he made his way by a different route from Philip to Messina in Sicily. Both kings spent the winter in
that city, and their mutual jealousy came within a hair's-breadth of a rup ture. The throne of Sicily had just been seized by the Norman Tancred, an illegitimate .son of King Roger, though the lawful heir was Henry of Hohenstau fen, son of Frederick Barbarossa, and afterward the Emperor Henry VI. More over, Tancred detained in custody Jo hanna, widow of the late king (William the Good) and sister of Richard I., to gether with her very large dowry. but he made his peace with Richard by giv ing up to him his sister and her posses sions, and by betrothing his little daugh ter to the boy Arthur (son of Richard's dead brother Geoffrey), whom Richard now declared to be his heir.
On his way to Palestine in the spring of 1191, part of the fleet of the English king was driven on to the island of Cy prus, and the crews were most inhospit ably treated by the reigning sovereign, Isaac Comnenus, a nephew of the Em peror of Byzantium, who had revolted from his liege lord. Richard sailed back from Rhodes, routed Isaac in battle, de posed him, and gave his crown to Guy of Lusignan. In Cyprus, too, he married Berengaria of Navarre, whom his mother had brought to him at Messina. At last, on June 8, the English king landed near Acre, and shortly afterward that strong hold surrendered, the siege having lasted two years. Richard took his full share of the jealousies, animosities, and dis agreements, though not of the treacher ies, that made the Christian crusading host a hotbed of commotion. The glori ous exploits of Richard the Lion-hearted —his march to Joppa along the seashore, his approach on Jerusalem at Christmas, his capture of the fortresses in the S. of Palestine, his second advance in the summer of 1192 on Jerusalem (the city he never beheld), and his relief of Joppa —made his name ring throughout the East and excited the wonder and admi ration of Christendom, but brought no real advantage to the crusading cause.