Tags
Assessment, King Richard I of England, Kings and Queens of England, Richard the Lion Heart, Richard the Lionheart, The Crusades
Around the middle of the 13th century, various legends developed that, after Richard’s capture, his minstrel Blondel travelled Europe from castle to castle, loudly singing a song known only to the two of them (they had composed it together). Eventually, he came to the place where Richard was being held, and Richard heard the song and answered with the appropriate refrain, thus revealing where the King was incarcerated.
The story was the basis of André Ernest Modeste Grétry’s opera Richard Cœur-de-Lion and seems to be the inspiration for the opening to Richard Thorpe’s film version of Ivanhoe. It seems unconnected to the real Jean ‘Blondel’ de Nesle, an aristocratic trouvère. It also does not correspond to the historical reality, since the King’s jailers did not hide the fact; on the contrary, they publicised it. An early account of this legend is to be found in Claude Fauchet’s Recueil de l’origine de la langue et poesie françoise (1581).
At some time around the 16th century, tales of Robin Hood started to mention him as a contemporary and supporter of King Richard the Lionheart, Robin being driven to outlawry, during the misrule of Richard’s evil brother John, while Richard was away at the Third Crusade.
Richard’s reputation over the years has “fluctuated wildly”, according to historian John Gillingham. While contemporary sources emphasize his stern and unforgiving nature and his excessive cruelty, his image had already been romanticized a few decades after his death, with the new views on Richard depicting him as generous-hearted preux chevalier.
Richard left an indelible imprint on the imagination extending to the present, in large part because of his military exploits, and his popular image tended to be dominated by the positive qualities of chivalry and military competence. This is reflected in Steven Runciman’s final verdict of Richard I: “he was a bad son, a bad husband, and a bad king, but a gallant and splendid soldier” (“History of the Crusades” Vol. III). Meanwhile, Muslim writers during the Crusades period and after wrote of him: “Never have we had to face a bolder or more subtle opponent”.
Victorian England was divided on Richard: many admired him as a crusader and man of God, erecting an heroic statue to him outside the Houses of Parliament. The late-Victorian scholar William Stubbs, on the other hand, thought him “a bad son, a bad husband, a selfish ruler, and a vicious man”. During his ten years’ reign, he was in England for no more than six months, and was totally absent for the last five years. Stubbs argued that:
He was a bad king: his great exploits, his military skill, his splendour and extravagance, his poetical tastes, his adventurous spirit, do not serve to cloak his entire want of sympathy, or even consideration, for his people. He was no Englishman, but it does not follow that he gave to Normandy, Anjou, or Aquitaine the love or care that he denied to his kingdom. His ambition was that of a mere warrior: he would fight for anything whatever, but he would sell everything that was worth fighting for. The glory that he sought was that of victory rather than conquest.
In World War I, when British troops commanded by General Edmund Allenby captured Jerusalem, the British press printed cartoons of Richard looking down from the heavens with the caption reading, “At last my dream has come true”. General Allenby protested against his campaign being presented as a latter-day Crusade, however, stating “The importance of Jerusalem lay in its strategic importance, there was no religious impulse in this campaign”.
European Royal History 