Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) with (Steve Tibble)

Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) with (Steve Tibble)

In this episode of the England’s Kings and Queens Podcast, host Daz is joined by author and historian Dr Steve Tibble to discuss the life of King Richard I

Richard I of England (1157–1199), known as Richard the Lionheart, was King of England from 1189 to 1199. He was the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and was not initially expected to inherit the throne, but became king after the deaths of his elder brothers.

Richard is best known for his military leadership during the Third Crusade (1189–1192), launched after the fall of Jerusalem. He commanded Christian forces in key campaigns across the Holy Land, earning a reputation for exceptional bravery and skill in warfare. His exploits during this campaign ultimately secured him the enduring title of “Richard the Lionheart.”

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

To keep up to date with everything of American Civil War and UK history, head over to our website ACW and UK History.com. And remember, this podcast has a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with the show. So if you would like to see the PowerPoint presentation, then head over to our YouTube channel at American Civil War and UK History. Cheers. This presentation is brought to you by American Civil War and UK History. This is England's Kings and Queens Podcast. Hello everyone, I'm your host, Daz. This presentation is available as a video on our YouTube channel or as a podcast from wherever you get your podcast from. And if you're watching on YouTube, remember to hit the subscribe button and give us a big thumbs up. And check out our website www.acwandukhistory.com where you find podcast blog posts and links to all of our social media pages. The link is also available in the podcast description. And joining me today is author and historian Steve Tibble. Welcome, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Hello, Dad. Lovely to see you again. You're looking fine form this morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, and yourself. Um, so okay, today we are going to um talk about Richard the First. Okay, so we're going to talk first about his early life and uh his acquisition in Aquitaine, if you wouldn't mind, Steve, please.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Yeah, I think um the key thing about all of all of um the life really of Richard is to remember it's kind of a family business. I think we start off quite rightly, you know, because we where you and I live in England, we're looking at English history and we're looking at English kings. But that wasn't you know the way that people looked at it at the time. You know, we Richard was part of the Angevin uh sort of dynasty. He was eventually going to rule over an Angevin empire. You know, an Angevin is uh based around Anjou, uh, huge lands in Normandy and the Limoges. You know, I mean, so we think of everybody as being English and him being an English king, but in reality, A, it was an empire that covered several, several modern states. And we have to remember they didn't really think in those terms, you know, and the reason, one of the reasons why they didn't think in those terms was because these were effectively family businesses. And that's um, you know, for those of us who've watched The Godfather and, you know, things like that, you can kind of get a sense for the machinations of medieval history in a way that can inform quite a lot of what you see with these characters. And and so, for instance, with Richard, you know, the whole of his reign, as you say, particularly you know, the early years, they're characterized by jockeying for power within his family. Uh, you've got, you know, he's given different different rights, he's got his brothers are given different rights, his mother comes, you know, from from um Aquitaine. So you've got this whole jockeying. And although we might think of you know families as being nice and secure and loving and everything, this is one of the most you know shocking instances of dysfunctional family. It makes um, you know, it makes the godfather look uh positively cozy. It looks like Jane Austen compared to this lot, and and that's really where where Richard's life begins. He's born in 1157, uh, he ends up with with many siblings, uh, including uh three brothers, two of whom die before he he becomes king. So, in a sense, Richard is set up in this family, uh, and he's never expected to become king. You know, he does become king because um because Henry the Young King dies. Um but it's it's by no means expected. So every member of the family, as you'd expect in the medieval world, gets their own slice of the action. You know, the king tries to to dominate uh the process, but communications uh power is very dissolved. You know, it's it's devolved around the whole different parts of the empire because medieval states are so diffuse, it's very difficult to, even if you want to be a great central authority, which I suspect most kings did, um, it's actually quite a difficult job to do. You have to kind of delegate so much. And Henry II effectively had to delegate a huge amount to his his family, particularly his sons. And that's pretty much the story of you know the the second half of Henry's reign is is you know reigning in um his his sons while at the same time trying to get them to do good work for him, but at the same time uh you know making sure that their ambitions don't lead them into treachery, which which clearly they do on several occasions.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, and again, Henry II, you know, I mean I live near Dover, so Dover Castle sits up there and it's been there 900 years, and it's down to Henry II. But yeah, what a dysfunctional family, absolutely. I mean, not uh not only that have you got Richard I after that, you've got probably uh, you know, probably one of the worst kings in history, I'll I I might say. There might be people that argue about that, I doubt there is, but King John is gonna follow Richard I, isn't he? But um, okay, so I know what you were talking about, that empire there, and in the next slide, I've got an a picture of you know all the lands that Henry II has pretty much, and I think obviously some of this probably goes back further than Henry II, but has acquired over his uh you know his time, and some of it again has has already been uh acquired by you know, obviously Normandy and stuff like that. But um, what was his life like growing up in in France um as a kid?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think that map that was very good, Daz put that map up because it it kind of summarizes what a lot of the opportunity was, but also what a lot of the problem was. Um, and because what you've got there is a map that sort of approximates to an awful lot of France. You know, that is that's most of France, basically. That's more land than the King of France has. So the King of France is you know like the King of Paris on that map. Um and the character, you know, one of the key characteristics of Henry's reign was the fact that he he never forgot. You know, he didn't actually own all these lands at the same time, or you know, whatever, but he was never going to forget um something that he had a right to, and he was always prepared to fight for that. And that was you know, sort of classic, classic medieval kingship, you know, never never forgive, never forget, and take action to get it back. So you can see for for Richard growing up in this family, if we pulled out from that map, um, you can see the other parts of the empire. I mean, the bit of the empire that's missing there is you know most of most of England. So they've they've got England. And we we because we're Anglocentric, quite rightly, and I I can see Dover Castle from the top of my valley as well, so it's absolutely stunning. And you know, obviously that is my centre of attention. If you go back to the 12th century, you know, you can see from their perspective, if you if you put a kind of compass needle in the center of their empire, it's not even in England. You know, you're talking, you're talking about a balance, uh a kind of centrality of power that's that's uh probably um you know it's south of the English Channel. Um Richard, ironically, I mean, people make a big fuss about, you know, oh Richard was you know French, he wasn't English, and so on. And I I always think, well, those terms are almost meaningless at this point, you know, in in the 12th century. That that wasn't the way people thought about things. But he was actually brought uh born in England and spent his early childhood in England. Um, as far as we know, he didn't speak English or speak English very well, but he he there there are hints that he uh he at least was able to read it and understand it. Um and it was increasing at this time for uh noble families to be expected to at least have some English. So so people sometimes you'd find senior officials would be criticized for not being able to speak English, um, which you may think is a pretty low bar given that they're governing parts of England, but but you know, there were people who didn't do that, but significantly they were criticized for not being able to do it. So I think Richard grew up with uh a lot of his father's ambitions, you know, and and that whole ambition of being this is this is a powerful family, this is effectively an imperial family. When when he was captured on the way back from the Third Crusade and ended up in the hands of the uh you know the Holy Roman Emperor, he he famously um refused to kind of give the kind of obeisance that was expected of him because you know effectively he said, Well, I'm you know, I'm an emperor too. I'm I'm my position puts me in a place where where I don't have to bow and scrape to you because you know we're we're equals. So he really saw himself as uh as an emperor, uh part of whose empire was English, but big parts of it were probably bigger parts were were French as well. It's it's a complex mindset, and it's quite difficult from where we are now to even imagine that. I mean, I guess the other big kind of part of the spectrum that that is difficult to retrofit now is piety, you know, and religiosity. So you and I um I don't know, you know, it doesn't really matter how religious we are, but even if we do both go to mass every week, we're not really as religious as they were. You know, they really, really believed it. They in the 12th century, if you did something wrong, you believed your immortal soul was at stake, you know, and really, really believed it. Whereas uh nowadays you can be you can be a good practicing Catholic like like Richard was, um, but it still doesn't, you know what I mean? It doesn't, we don't share their profound belief. So if you if you think there are these kind of two two axes, really, one is that nationalism isn't what we think it is now, and the other thing is that religiosity isn't what we think it is now, and that really does undercut uh and you continually need to keep re-remembering these things. Um, I think there's a kind of a third, more minor axis. Nowadays we we're more uh obsessed with with ethnicity uh and issues around that, but in the Middle Ages, with a few exceptions, um you struggle to find people being terribly interested in things like that. They're more interested in sectarian issues, you know, so they have they have their um deep prejudices and you know do horrible things. But for instance, on the crusades, you you struggle to find the kind of racism that you might expect to find. You know, people were much more defined by their religious beliefs, you know, whether they were Christian or Muslim or Jewish or or uh none of the above, rather than you know, whether whether you had very dark brown skin or light brown skin or European or whatever, or any combination. Often, you know, when you're looking at Crusader chronicles, you have to keep remembering that the person they're talking about is actually a half-Arab or an Arab, you know, including the Crusader kings. Um, because people the crew the chroniclers don't mention it because it's not important. They just they they say this is a Christian rather than this is an Arab, uh, and so on. So uh it's a very yeah, it's a very different different way of looking at the world. And I think the key thing out of all this with Richard is his the way that he inherits his his father's ambitions. And and in a way, he's he's kind of like you know, even far too ambitious, you know, as a dad, Henry probably would have been, you know, was proud of his sons, you know. Richard was uh he was an attractive guy, he was, you know, red blonde hair, nice complexion, tall, birch, you know, very uh very much the kind of physical, visual um epithet uh what you'd want a medieval king to look like, and ambitious with it. So so his father, you know, I imagine would have been very proud of all that. But uh with all of Henry's sons, they were all terribly ambitious. As and as you say, with with varying degrees of you know plausibility, you know, John being absolutely awful, Richard being pretty good on many levels, but but that very extreme kind of family intercompetitiveness led them into catastrophe after catastrophe, and and it really kind of spoiled the last you know couple of decades of of Henry's Henry's reign because he was continually worrying about what his own sons were doing, you know, who the who they were um cozying up to to fight against him, whether they were going to go into revolt. It was uh you know, Christmas, Christmas around their place, uh was not a fun place to be.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

No, absolutely. He made some fantastic points. I've never really thought about it the way you put it, of saying, you know, um we you know, this identity of nationality. It's it's quite an interesting point, you know. I've never really thought about it like that. Um so yeah, thanks for making that point. But um, as as you've mentioned, obviously, this uh, you know, they're not going to be sitting around a table at Christmas together. Um, but you know, there is a revolt against Henry, um, but by Richard, isn't there? So what what what brings that on and what and what does that entail?

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, I mean, so there was a major revolt in 1173, 1174, um, where where Richard uh and Henry the Young King, who was who was the heir. I mean, we should be talking about uh Henry the Young King. If you know Henry the Young King was supposed to be king. Um and they they both were continually pushing against their father. You know, he wanted to he wanted them to administrate this is a gross simplification, but just for the way I look at it on the helicopter view is he wanted administrators, you know, he he he owned this empire as he saw it, and he wanted his sons uh to do useful things and to administer large parts of it for him. So he would divvy up different parts of his empire and tell them, you know, you can be in charge of this, you can be in charge of that. Um the trouble is because they were such, you know, they'd inherited his genes in terms of ambition. Um so they were they were good administrators in their own way. Henry the Young King seems to be a good guy. Richard was, you know, tough as old boots, less so John. But you know, they they did have their own strengths. The trouble was that because they had this kind of overarching ambition as well, they were continually rubbing up against their father because he wanted them to be effectively his bureaucrats, but he wanted to maintain the purse strings, you know, he wanted the power and the control, he wanted them to do his wishes. And you know, these are super entitled, talented or less talented, but you know, they certainly believed they had huge amounts of talent uh boys, so they are pushing against that the whole time. Then you have this other horrible dynamic which you know makes makes the Christmas dinner even even more excruciating, uh, and that is the you know the the relationship between Henry and Eleanor of Aquitaine, his wife, and she's a very strong character. She's you know previously been married to the King of France, uh that didn't end well, you know. So her and Henry have have their ups and downs. He ends up imprisoning her, she supports her sons against him. You know, I mean you get it's such a a toxic cocktail of of you know family dysfunctionality that you could you could barely make it up. I mean, if you if you if you didn't know the story and you watched a Hollywood version of this, you would think, Karumba, you know, that's that's never gonna happen. That's so unrealistic. But it was all true. I mean, they did. As a family, they were continually fighting and pushing against each other. So yeah, that that led to open revolt uh more than once. And then you get this sort of hum well, the humiliation of the king when his sons and his wife turn against him, then you get the humiliation of the sons when they're forced to come back and kiss his feet and ask for forgiveness. Um, you know, it's it's uh it's not it's not a nice look. You know, it's it's power, betrayal, control, humiliation. It's that whole family cocktail, which means you know, beach holidays are completely out of the question for this lot, you know, they're never, never gonna do that. Um and it's it's one of those points in history where you can see the absolute rubbing up the wrong way between you know families and the kind of dynastic um interests and the interests of the country. Well, I should say countries, really, given that there are so many involved here. You know, because what's what's good for ordinary people and the economy and you know, and just general peace and stability is not what the family are pursuing. You know, there's there's no ideology involved. You know, these are people don't fighting because one's you know socialist and the other one's capitalist or whatever, none of that. It is just pure family bickering for power, and that means that decisions are being made for very selfish reasons, and that includes Richard, but you know, pretty much everybody is playing their own uh pretty dirty game, actually. It's not it's not a good look.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, thanks, Steve. And so I from what I understand, the young Henry's gonna die. Is that right before um so this is gonna put Richard in line to be king? So what is Henry's, you know, like toward Henry II's uh uh you know, the end of his reign, what is it like for him? And is he are him and Richard getting on at this point, or are they still sort of you know way, way apart from each other?

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Yeah, no, I know. Well, you know, as as a dad, as we were saying, you know, Henry on one level did have a lot to be proud of, you know, he did have these talented sons and so on. Um, but he also had a lot of sadness and disappointment. So his anointed heir, um, Henry the Young King died in 1183. And uh as a crusader, you know, I this is this is when Saladin's attacks on the crusader states are hotting up, and it's actually, you know, one of the last things you need is yet more instability in a country, uh, well, an empire like the Angevin Empire that could actually help the Crusades. Um you Richard's other brother, Jeffrey, um, also died. He died in a tournament. And again, you know, if you if you saw this on Game of Thrones or Hollywood, you'd say, well, well, that's ridiculous, you know, heirs to the throne don't die in tournaments, but but it's absolutely true he did. Um he died in 1186, again, just just at the worst possible moment, really. This whole period though led to yet more um instability. So even after Henry had put down the rebellion of his sons, um still more trouble broke out. So you find Richard was having to go down and you know fight his own lords. You know, the ironically, he had to go and give a good kicking to the people who'd supported him, you know. And as part of the humiliation, yeah, Henry told him to go away and deal with the the rebel barons, and by rebel he meant people who had supported his son, Richard. Um, and then in the last couple of years of his life, um Richard sided with with the French king against his own father, which was again as another double humiliation. Having had his his boys side with his wife against him, uh, at the end of his life, Henry had had Richard siding with the French king. Um, so from 1187 to 1189, he's actually in revolt against his father again. You know, I mean it's shocking stuff, really. And this is at a time when when you do kind of want European unity, the the year 1187 doesn't mean that much in English history, but for but for me as a as a crusader, it's you know, it's the pivotal year. It's when the crusader states have a disastrous battle at Hateen with with the Sultan Saladin, and they just get completely trashed. You know, they're surrounded, they're executed, they're taken slavery into slavery, you know, and the whole kingdom collapses. So this is the time when you want a kind of rapid relief force to come from Europe to help. Um, and it doesn't happen because, you know, partly because the French are doing their thing. Um Henry and and the French king are at uh at loggerheads, but then Richard, rather than helping, is actually supporting the French against his own dad. It it comes to a head. Ironically, they do they do make a piece that. Come together in July 1189. So this is two years after the Battle of Hartin. This is two full years when the our guys out in the Middle East have been crying out for help and not getting it. And he and Henry make their peace. And then Henry bizarrely just dies a couple of days later. He's part of the peace dealers. He makes Richard his heir. So ironically, for the first time, really, it's in it's in black and white that Richard is the heir, because he's obviously spent most of his life in the shadow of his brother Henry the young king until 1183. So we have this kind of strange convergence where you get Henry, you know, is now off the scene, Richard is now king, and he is to become the great crusader. He's the one that we think of. When you think of crusading, particularly to do with England, it's it's all about Richard. He is the pinnacle of crusading for England. And and for and you know, in Europe at that time, when he was most needed. So on one level, it's great because you have this king who it's a bit like Churchill, you know, somebody who's in the right place at the right time with the right attitude for what's needed. So you've got Richard, who's actually a very good, very butch general, um, looks the part and plays the part very well. But equally, from a if you take a step back, you can say, well, he actually hasn't been helping very much. You know, just just when his dad could have been sending help out to the Holy Land. Um, he's had to divert his resources to fight his own son, who's who's helping the French out, uh, which is also sort of delaying the French from going off doing, you know, doing um giving help to the Holy Land. So it's a it's a funny start to the reign, it's a funny start to a crusading reputation. And I think the other thing that it's worth bearing in mind is you know that certainly the Victorians would have looked on Richard with with some justification as the great crusading king. But if you but if you imagine, you know, he's actually spent most of his life fighting Christians, particularly Christian, his own family. You know, he's been spending his time fighting in France, he's been fighting his dad. You know, it's it's ironic that he has this reputation as a great crusader, but most of his fighting was against fellow Christians. In the same way as Saladin, who people tend to think of as the epitome of um you know the the Islamic uh counter-crusader, uh actually spent 90% of his time you know attacking and killing his fellow Muslims. But from a PR perspective, it just looks it looks better if you can say, Oh, well, I'm doing all this so I can fight the infidel. There's there's an element of I think rebalancing that we need to think of in that in that context.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah. And so do you think this is the reason why Richard wants to go and take part in the crusades? Because, you know, like you said, he's rekindled sort of at the end of Henry II's reign. But there's, you know, like you said, they've been waiting for that. And again, you've had the other crusade. So just give us a context of the first two crusades and and and and and what sort of goes on there, and and and what is the mindset of Richard at this point, like you said, you know. Do you think it's because of his, you know, because he hasn't been involved now, he's he's thinking, right, now I want to do something about this.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Yeah, no, that's a very good point, Dallas. Yeah. Um so just to just to take a step back, so we'll go back almost a hundred years. So 1095. Um the the Pope calls for the first crusade. Basically, this is called because we've had um obviously the Middle East used to be uh Christian uh until the Muslim invasions of the 7th century. Um, but the majority of the population in the Holy Land and a significant amount of the population across all of the Middle East are still Christian uh by 1095. The the first crusade has been triggered off by uh a new wave of invaders coming in from the steppes um who are um Turkic. They're not Turkish as we would know now. They are Turkic, so they look kind of like Mongolians. They come from that, think of them like that. Uh, and they they are they are in theory Muslims as well. Um, though in reality, these are not, you know, they're not theologians. These are basically they're they're guys who are a bit, a bit like, you know, they're raiders, uh, very, very good, very um good soldiers. Um they're basically nomads who've been pushed out of their normal areas by climate change, and they've been erupting into the into the Middle East and giving everybody there a good kicking, the local Muslims as well as the local Christians. So the local Christian community and the Byzantine Empire, who are also Christian, but they're Orthodox rather than um Catholics, like as Europe is, um, have asked for help. 1095 the Pope says, Okay, lads, we've got to step up and do our bit. He he calls for um warriors to to do their do their duty and to come and defend the Christian communities of the Middle East. And this I don't I think everybody was surprised at how uh successful the call to arms was. So you get you know tens and tens of thousands of guys coming forward. There's this convergence of a society where where the elite are judged by their ability as warriors. You know, it's sort of so the to be a good knight, you know, is is about weapon skills, uh as well as you know, as well as moral stuff. It is it's around being a hyper um violent soldier and being really good at it. But on the other hand, these guys are also very pious. You know, they genuinely believe that you know, if they die in combat, it'll give them less years in purgatory, uh, they'll get heaven quicker. And the Pope um tries to coordinate the European fight back against the Turkic invasions by offering indulgences. So he actually says to people, you know, you can have spiritual rewards by doing the right thing. So it's a good thing for you to go and help your fellow men, but you will also get personal rewards, you know, because you've you've you've done this trying to defend your co-religionists. So the first crusade goes off, and bizarrely, it does incredibly well. You know, they they lose a lot of guys en route, but they effectively recapture a lot of the Middle East. So they recapture a lot of what we would think of nowadays as um Israel, Palestine, uh, Lebanon, uh, quite a lot of Syria, and so on, bits of Turkey, what we currently call Turkey. So they they create these four um what we now call the Crusader states. So they're kind of mixed communities, lots of lots of Greek Orthodox people, lots of Arabs, lots of Armenians, and and settlers coming in from Europe as well. Second Crusade um starts because these states are under a lot of pressure and the Turkic invasions managed to take out one of the four crusader states that were set up by the First Crusade, this being the County of Edessa. So the County of Edessa is pretty much wiped out. And the second crusade is launched to try and defend the survivors of that and to try and recover Edessa for the uh for the local Christian communities. And and it's a disaster, it's it's complete failure. It ends up um trying to besiege Damascus, it fails, um, and and it's all a bit of a bit of a horror story. So that is the kind of strategic problem. You have these these crusader states, and you've got settlers and you've got large local Arab and Armenian Christian communities there, but they don't have a lot of standing armies, and they don't have a lot of help. So you find guys from from Europe kind of volunteer and they go over uh from time to time, like William Marshall, who was one of Henry the Young King's uh men, um, went off, we'd think, on crusade after the after Henry the Young King died, because Henry had asked him to go and do it for the for the sake of his soul. So hen Henry, um so William Marshall would have taken his small group of guys over there and done whatever military service was was available. Um but by the 1180s it was clear that the Crusader states were really in trouble. You know, the the uh Islamic world was becoming more united. Um they had a new leader called Saladin, who'd managed to give the the um Shiites in in Egypt a good kicking, so he'd taken over Egypt. Uh he managed to give his fellow Sunni Muslims in Syria a good kicking, so he'd taken over most of that. So for the first time, there was a kind of united, almost united, um Western Islamic force set to face off against the Crusaders. And these crusaders just didn't have much of a standing army, they which is why the Pope uh instituted military orders like the hospitals and the Templars to try and help as best they could. But ultimately the guys were always going to be outnumbered, and it's uh, you know, militarily it's a really tough, tough set of engagements. So that the Crusaders got, and the Crusader states pretty much got smashed in 1187. And that's when the word goes out all across Europe, and the Pope tries to galvanize support to get a fight back in place, and and Richard um is a big, big part of that. Um, and in a in the kind of Churchillian sense, he is in the right place at the right time. You find so the French French king is, you know, goes, gathers his troops, goes off on crusade, the Austrians are there, and you know, every you know, a lot of very devout people all over Europe are going into it. He ironically, Richard, as we discussed, had had had distracted his own dad from from organizing a crusade. But Henry II and Richard had both promised that they would go on crusade. They had taken the cross. In fact, Henry II took the cross several times, which um you know may have may have been a little bit cynical. You know, whenever things got tough, he'd say, Oh, I'm gonna go on crusade, so I need all the help I can get. So can the Pope help me out here, please? And um, he'd try and use that as a way of rallying support. But it does mean that by this time, England, through through the death of Henry, and you know, which effectively brought brought the war between him and and Richard to an end, um, was actually able to be in a position to offer help to the Holy Land. And in the in the guise of Richard, they had somebody who was genuinely a good leader, good commander. Um, Henry was was his father was famously uh mean and good with money. So so Richard actually inherited a a very good treasure chest as well, you know, which is which is unusual. It was a convergence, you know. So you've got the cash in the bank, you've got uh a new military commander eager to take over, and and you've got the one thing that we always forget about, which is that everybody is a devout Catholic, you really believe that that you're doing the right thing and that you're gonna have remission of sin. So, you know, however, however tough these guys are, they they're they're equally sure that that their religion and their piety is is the right guiding path for them. And so we find the English part of the Third Crusade is is um you know underway.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yeah. And so is there an actual route that the crusaders would take? Now there's a famous um scene, isn't there, at the end of uh Kingdom of Heaven, where um uh the French uh guy played by Orlando Bloom is back in France and Richards, he goes, Who are you? He goes, Oh, well, I'm the King of England, and off he goes to on his crusades. But was there a route that they particularly took? Because obviously Richard ends up in um Sicily, doesn't he? So is that was that the route that the people normally took?

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was one reason why Richard's uh part in the Third Crusade was so important and so successful. Is you know, if you look at things like the First Crusade, the guys did incredibly well, but it was largely because their enemies were so disunited and dispersed. Yeah, they did brilliantly, but um it was kind of against the odds. And the other thing they did was they had to walk round through Europe, down Asia Minor, and then fight their way down into the Holy Land. And you know, we don't have the exact casualty figures, but you know, it was probably only a small percentage of the guys who set out actually made it to Jerusalem. They did make it, a small number, but there was a very high attrition rate, you know, having to having to work your way down there. By the late 1180s, 1190s that we're talking about, Asia Minor has been totally, you know, very largely overrun by by these kind of um Turkic invaders. So it's much more difficult to do that. And the key, one of the key elements that Richard had was that he he was in control of a fleet, and that that fleet could um travel uh in different you know, it gave him a flexibility that most other commanders didn't, and he was actually able to send you know quite a significant group ahead by by ship before he'd managed to get there himself. Because the other the other thing that people forget is you know nowadays you'd imagine a commander-in-chief just presses a button, sends an email, does an Instagram, and you know, and then everything starts happening. Whereas in the medieval world, you know, this is this is a rapid reaction force in response to a battle that took place in July 1187, and it you know, it doesn't end up getting to the Holy Land until 1191. You know, it's about four years. Uh, it's not rapid at all. So you'd find there would always be a lot of chiving, they don't have you know, they've got very limited logistical support and so on. So Richard was a was a good guy in a military sense, and he did planning for this, but nothing is quick. And there is that whole phrase, you know, the concept in Clauschwitz about friction, you know, the friction of war. Um, and a lot of that you can see here, which is you know, you start off with ten men in London, you know, by the time you get to say Paris, you might only have eight. By the time you get down to Sicily, you've got six, and by the time you get to you know Jerusalem, you've got four, or whatever. You know, there's that whole debilitating effect of you know, you start off with your army, but the one that you actually deliver to the battlefield is you know bears no relation to that. So Richard, very conscious of that. And um, yeah, taking taking those routes, different routes actually, but but often largely by ship was was a very, very good thing for him, and it made him more effective.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Yeah. And so one of those places they're gonna stop is also Cyprus, isn't it? And of course, Cyprus is you know very close to the Holy Land, as we know. Um, so tell us about his time in Cyprus, because this is also where he's gonna uh get married, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh as you said before, so you you kind of island hop down the Mediterranean. I mean, travel by sea is is difficult and dangerous. There's certain, and particularly in the eastern Mediterranean, there's only certain times of year you can do it. And even with Richard, with with huge planning, trying to travel at the right times of year, you you find time and again that you know his ships are dispersed, uh, even his sister got got washed up on uh you know, I think on the shore of Cyprus, um, and and was taken prisoner. You know, it's it's just like you there's a a high level of friction at all levels. So they'd they'd gone through Sicily, which was, as you know, was um effectively conquered by Normans um just um you know in the in the preceding years. Um so there were some ironically some semi-family connections there, but you know, nobody really wants two hairy-assed armies of difficult, underemployed, underfed men wandering around. So you're never really going to be welcomed. So the the whole thing with Sicily was was quite difficult. Then they set off and they they landed in Cyprus, where you have the added dimension that this is this is a Byzantine, it's a crit, so it's a Christian state, but it's part of the Byzantine Empire, um, who are Greek Orthodox rather than Catholic. Um, and it's also a time of flux. Um, and there's also again, you know, we keep coming back to this whole thing about families. There is this whole thing, you know, so um Richard's sister is is at sea on the around here at that time and ends up being shipwrecked there and put into captivity by the local um Byzantine authorities. So that all goes that all goes wrong as well. So again, even though it's a Christian territory, the the lot of fighting breaks out and um the English and French troops take over. And Cyprus, the good the good thing about that is you know, under the Byzantine Empire, uh Cyprus was not that helpful to the Crusades, but from a crusader perspective, um, after after Richard and the French took it, that it was able to be a much greater help to the Crusades. Uh, it ended up being given to uh Guy de Lusignor, who was the old king of Jerusalem, who was actually again a relative of Richard the Lionheart, you know. So again, there's a family dimension to this. Um I think he originally gave it to the Templars. And just as a signal of how outnumbered everybody was, the Templars um said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll we'll look after the island, but they could only find the 20 brothers to uh put in charge of it militarily, so they literally just couldn't cope. Um so it ended up being given to Guida Lusignol, and and the under them, under the Lusignols and and their successors, um, Cyprus uh was it was able to hold out as a as a Christian state for uh for several centuries. Um but that gives everybody a chance to kind of recoup, you know, rebuild their armies after the friction of moving from one place to the other. And Cyprus is a great jumping off point. Um the other, as you say, the other key thing that happened in Cyprus was um you know Richard getting married. Um this I think it's an interesting one. Um, you know, Richard's a very attractive uh guy, he's very butch, he's very high profile, and this is um he is already engaged to someone else, but he dumps that it seems as though he did take a take a real um shine to to his his new fiance. Um and this this allowed him to again, it's a family thing. Um his his mother is Eleanor of Aquitaine, and and he gets engaged to the the princess of of Navarre, which is on the on the borders of Aquitaine. So there's again there's a political family element to all this. I I think there is also a thing where, and maybe we come on to this again later, but uh one of the kind of 20th century rumors and and um sort of knocking stories about Richard was that he was in fact gay, um, which I always find um despicable, really, because I mean it's like, well, obviously there's nothing wrong with being gay, so why would that be a reason to knock the guy? Uh but also it's it's just completely spurious. I don't think there's any evidence for it at all. And on the contrary, we do know that Richard had children, he didn't have legitimate children, but we do know he did have children, he does seem to have you know fallen in love with with women, he certainly had you know affairs with women. So um this I I I think is what is one of the many reasons why you should just sort of disbelieve the uh the gay thing, um, because that that doesn't seem to have been his thing, obviously nothing wrong with it at all, but it wasn't it wasn't what he was up to, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

So if she's from you know, like you said, from France um or from that area, is she travelling with Richard on that leg of the journey then, or does she travel out to Cyprus? And so how do they actually meet each other in the first place? Do you know?

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Yeah, and again, I'm not an expert on that. I think they met at a tournament. Um, so you know, again, like Game of Thrones and yeah, tournaments are playing quite a big part here. Um, I think they met on tournament. Uh my my memory being absolute rubbish. Uh, I think she did go to the Holy Land with him. I think they came back separately. As you know, Richard came back and he was he was taken prisoner. Um, she took a long time coming back as well, but um, they did travel separately.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

It does look like a love match. It looks like, you know, he he chatted her up at the tournament. She really took his took his fancy, and and that was it was politically quite helpful, but I think it it was a real thing too.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Excellent. Okay. Let's talk about the the the Holy Land then and the Third Crusade, because Richard really does, you know, he has a good campaign, doesn't he? Let's be honest. Um he causes a lot of problems, doesn't he? For for Saladin, as you said, uh mentioned a few times. So tell us about his arrival in the Holy Land and and and you know what what's going to happen uh during this campaign.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Well the key thing you know, the the crusader states have almost entirely been lost after after the Battle of Hateen, you know, 90% of the troops in the Holy Land were killed or in or in captivity. So the guys were hanging on by uh by their fingernails. A guy called Conrad of Montferrah had had um been able, luckily happened to be in the right place at the right time, and managed to uh get to the city of Tyre, which was one of the big Christian coastal fortresses and a big town, and and he managed to galvanize the defense so people were able, they were able to use that as a landing spot. So there was a kind of uh so reinforcements from Europe had somewhere to land. If Saladin had been able to take all the coastal cities, it would have been game over because you know the no count no crusades could have been launched realistically. The the old capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which is the big, the big crusader state, uh, had been captured uh by by Saladin. Um and it had a Turkic garrison in it. So they're not local guys, they're they're Turkic and Turkic heritage uh troops, but they've they've taken over the city. Um so the French uh and the Austrians were already there uh besieging Acre to try and get it back into Christian hands. Richard and his guys come along and they totally galvanize the situation. Richard's bringing a lot of men with him, but he's also a very good military commander. So, you know, maybe I'm a bit prejudiced here, but I think he is, you know, he's a pretty first-rate general, and he he does a lot, and uh the siege is successful. You know, interestingly, this is you know, just to show you what a commander Richard was, even when he was quite seriously ill during the siege, and he had his men carry him out to the siege lines, uh, kind of on a stretcher, very, very posh stretcher, I'm sure, with lots of silks and everything, but a stretcher nonetheless. And he used to um act as a sniper with his crossbow. So he wasn't too proud to actually literally get down and dirty in the in the trenches with with the men. And that's one reason why you find his his men fight well for him throughout the campaign, because he's not scared. He's you know, he's not like the first world war, he's not one of the generals in a chateau 40 miles behind the lines. He's actually you know having the rats run over his feet in the trenches while he tries to pick people off with his crossbow. So, yeah, so that's a very good start because that's the that's the positive side. The negative side is Richard is incredibly butch and ambitious, and all those same features that led him into conflict with his family at home lead now lead him into conflict with his allies. So he's got the you know the French king who's sometimes been his ally, but is equally not trustworthy, and they don't really get on, you know, the King Ferb. Um, and you have a big kind of Germano-Austrian contingent under under Leopold, who have been there longer than everybody else, I think. Um and and Richard, rather than trying to you know make ensure there's this um you know good level of compatibility between the allies, he um makes a bold point of of throwing Leopold's standard into into a ditch uh after they capture Acre, because he says, you know, Leopold's not a king like me, so I'm not gonna have his flag up there. So Rich does have an arrogance that doesn't help himself. Um well come back to Leopold later because Leopold, like like most medieval rulers, always always remembered a slight. Uh, and Leopold was the guy who actually captured Richard on his way back from the Holy Land. Um, but by doing that and by being incredibly bulshy, the you know, the French and the you know Austro-Germans, a lot of them just got pissed off. So the King of France went back back to Europe, Leopold went back to Europe, leaving, leaving um Richard in in charge of the campaign, in charge of the crusades. Uh, which was great on one level because he was a good commander, but um, you know, his life would have been a lot easier if he'd been able to bring more troops along with him, you know, these so some of the French troops have been retained. So you've you've got that map there, um, which which shows the famously the strategic situation. Um just how small the crusader states are, and you know, even even at their full full remit, they were they were pretty tiny. Here they're almost non-existent. So the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem is just a little tiny um dot around Tyre. Um Acre is is is recaptured um in 1191. Um and and Richard can now start to rebuild the crusader states. Now, if you look at that map, um you can see that the main thing holding people together is the coast. You know, these are European colonies. Well, they're ruled by European colonists or or mixed ethnicity colonists, even though most of the population are still uh Arab and Armenian Christians. Um, but you can see as further south you go, basically Saladin and his men have rolled up the whole coast. So it's very, very difficult for it for these states to survive. So when I was a kid, I was always I always thought, oh well, Crusades, Jerusalem, you know, that sort of Jerusalem is always the objective, Jerusalem is the strategic key, and so on. As a kid, you kind of assume that. The reality was completely different, actually. Jerusalem is an inland city, it's got it's got religious significance, but militarily it's it's a disaster. You know, it's almost indefensible, it's hard to get provisions there, it's hard to get water there. You know, if you're it's very easy to get surrounded because the the Christian forces are always so outnumbered. So people often look at Richard and declare his campaign and the Third Crusade as a failure because it didn't recapture Jerusalem. I think what Richard was thinking, what what the experts on the ground were thinking was, oh my god, this is a poison chalice. You know, we would love to get it back, but it would just be can be overstretched, because as soon as we capture it, you know, whoever we left there would just be hostage to fortune. You know, that we they could take it, possibly, but they couldn't hold it. So all it was was going to be a disaster waiting to happen. So instead, despite his his piety as a very devout Catholic, you know, he really, really wanted to recapture Jerusalem. But Richard instead marched his army down the coast, as you can see from from Tyre and Acre, and he marched down to to try and retake a lot of the um old Christian cities on the coast, like Daron, and particularly um Arsuf, and and ones like Ascalon. So in in September of 1191, there was um a battle. So so Saladin finally came to battle with Richard properly uh on the march. And and they met at Ar Souf. Hence, hence, oh yeah, you've got that lovely Certsey tile there, haven't you? Chertsey Abbey. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful tiles. I think they're in the British museum now, guys. So anybody, anybody who wants to an excuse for a trip to London.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

So I I believe one of them is obviously Richard, the other's Saladin. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 52:41

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you can see actually, and you can see from a kind of cultural perspective, there's there's mutual respect here, even though this is a a Christian English tile, you know, Saladin isn't isn't portrayed as some kind of monster. It's like it's two um equal adversaries, two honorable adversaries fighting each other. And it has a beautiful work of art there. So yeah, it's um I whenever I'm in the British Museum, I like I like to think of that. And I obviously I go to the Sun and Who stuff as well, but uh as a good medievalist. But uh yeah, it's beautiful. But it does also show you the way that people saw Richard. One of again, one of the big problems I think nowadays is that people look back and say, well, this is kind of revisionist view to say, well, Richard was never in the country, and you know, he was he spent a lot of money, and people obviously didn't want to pay their taxes, and he was he was an absentee king. And the and what that forgets is that's not how people saw it at the time. I mean, Richard, the evidence we have is that you know, people were incredibly proud of what he was doing. Everybody was pious, they were super proud of what he was doing, and they were very proud of the fact that he was a great military commander. For them, that was huge kudos for for England and you know, for for like our team is doing really well. So basically, the first big battle that Richard fought um was this one of at um Arsuf. And it was a really interesting battle because it goes to show what a clever commander Richard was as well, you know, because he's not just one of these brutal guys who launches a big charge and then hopes it goes right. He actually engineered a kind of very incredibly intricate uh mobile formation for the entire army. So the entire army forms this kind of open box and marches down the coast. Um, and Richard gets the English fleet to come sail alongside so it can reprovision them. By medieval standards, this is hugely sophisticated. And you have the horses and the knights protected inside this box, and then you know, crossbowmen on the edges, keeping the enemy at bay, and so on. And um, yeah, so Richard won that battle. Um the knights and the you know, the knights broke out of the box, they managed to trample Saladin's infantry, Saladin's cavalry ran away, and so on. And on that basis, um, you know, the Christians were able to recover a lot of the coastline. A few months months later, um uh in August 1192, um Saladin had done a lot of maneuvering, pushback, and he'd recaptured um the city of Jaffa, which was a port. And you have another fabulous battle there, where where basically Richard manages to bring in by you know, the land the land route is is completely blocked by by overwhelming numbers of Muslim cavalry. But Richard manages to bring in a tiny number of troops, just a couple of thousand troops by sea, and re by the use of surprise, manages to retake the town, and then forms um an incredibly sophisticated battle array. He's actually only got, I think it's about ten knights with him, or twelve. You know, he hasn't got any horses because they couldn't bring horses on the troop ships because they were it was such short notice. But they managed to find about 10 or 12 stray horses and a donkey. So he has Richard and 11 of his mates are mounted, and they've sort of tried to protect the flanks on the beach, and and the rest of the troops there are infantry, so this is one of the really rare medieval battles where you can see um the infantry dominate. Now, normally it's is the crew, you know, in the crusades, it's all about knights and you know, celebrities and so on. But this these are ordinary blokes doing a great job. And you find that the the crusading troops form this thin line, like a thin red line, crossbowmen and spearmen sort of helping each other. You know, one holds a big shield, crossbowman um shoots and and reloads, and they they face off against Saladin's troops, and the Saladin's guys charge you know bravely, time after time, and they and get repulsed. And Saladin is so pissed off because he outnumbers the crusaders so much, but he can't break them, and he's so pissed off with his own commanders that he's he storms off in a sulk. He actually leaves his own troops behind and and you know tells them that they can uh they can steal on it themselves. Um, and they eventually eventually his troops apologize and try and reconcile with them and so on. But it does show what a great commander Richard was. You know, even with with very limited resources, he's still able to motivate his troops, and he's he's greatly clearly greatly admired by his guys. There's one tiny incident there in the middle of this battle, which was which is fabulous because we've got it's one of those incidents where the the local Muslim sources write about it and the local Christian sources do, and they corroborate each other. So it's not just propaganda, it is genuinely true. Richard, on his own, rode up and down in between the two armies and dared people to come and fight him. You know, he was saying, Come and meet me one-on-one, and we'll see who's the better soldier here. And and um the Soladins guys refused to do that, but they really admired him for it. They they thought this was really cool. And and finally, Richard, as a moment of theatre, really, got a bit bored with doing it, and he got off his horse and started having his lunch. So he had a picnic on his own in the middle of two armies, kind of taunting um the the enemy to come and uh you know have a go at him if they felt they were hard enough. And uh again, that was part of the thing that that made Salden so pissed off and why he he he flipped went away from the field um with his with his men, um, leaving his men behind.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Yeah, and so you know, um the nickname the Lion Heart, is that is that because of the Crusades? Is that where that comes from? How did he acquire that nickname?

SPEAKER_02 59:09

Yeah, I mean it's it's it's a general thing about him being brave. I mean, he was, you know, physically very brave, and that I think goes a long way with soldiers, you know, knowing that your commander is, particularly in those days where you don't have communications, you don't have chateau 50 miles away, you know, knowing that your your commander is sharing your danger and your commitment um is very important for the troops. And and Richard wasn't a saint by any means, and you know, he was a very difficult man in many ways, but he was you know brave, he was courageous, he was a good military commander, and and in that place and that time that was those were very necessary and respected qualities.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Yeah, excellent. So, how would you sum up his his crusade and and uh or you know, uh when it comes to success, successful uh crusade, you know, uh campaign in a way, how would you sum it all up um in general?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I I I would say it was a success. Within the bounds of what was possible. I mean, I have to say, when I was a kid, you know, when I was at school and you read about it, you think, oh my god, he didn't even get Jerusalem back. I I think Jerusalem was militarily a red herring, you know, it's just a literally a poison chalice. Um, if you if you take Jerusalem, you've just bought yourself a problem. What he did, what Richard found when he got to the Holy Land was the Crusader states on the verge of extinction. And what he managed to achieve was rebuilding the kind of coastal links back to Europe. And the Crusader states weren't ever as strong as they had been, but they struggled on for another year, uh, sorry, another hundred years. Um, so you find the Crusaders were out there for 200 years, and the second of those hundred years was was pretty much due to Richard pulling the iron out of the fire. The you know, he in sat in the form of Saladin, he was facing an enormously powerful opponent who severely outnumbered him. And Saladin also knew that at some point Richard was going to have to go home. You know, he had had an empire of his own to govern. So Richard had the problems of being outnumbered, playing in a way match, and you know, having his opponent know that the clock was ticking the whole time. So he had a fairly weak hand to play, but he played it incredibly well, and he I think he managed to um to do much more than you might have expected. So cute does to him, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

And uh from what I understand, uh although, like you said, he didn't take Jerusalem, he did negotiate a treaty allowing Christian pilgrims safe access to the city, so that was something as well, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

Very much so, yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Okay, let's talk about his capture on the way home then, and uh his captivity. Like you said, uh Ms. uh the Duke of Leopold is not gonna forget um what happened. So, how does that go down? And and and you know, so he's obviously going through uh Vienna at the time, um, or Austria, sorry. Um, so so how does he get captured and um um tell us all about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Yeah, I mean it really comes back to what we were saying earlier about the dangers of travelling by sea round round the Mediterranean. It's it's almost impossible to travel on foot round the Mediterranean. So ships are the least bad option, but they're incredibly dangerous. So Richard heads off for Europe. He's um he's disguised as a Templar brother, so he's not traveling with a huge amount of men. It's what it's sort of like Lord of the Rings, you know, where where a small band might get through where an army would be destroyed. So he he couldn't bring his whole army and it wouldn't have worked that way. So he tried to get through in secret, um, but he got rumbled and and captured and held in uh captivity. The the Pope went bonkers at this point because the whole point of going on crusade is you have papal security, that you will be well treated and your lands will be safe while you're away. You know, the Pope really tried to guarantee people's safety so that they could go off on campaign with a clear mind and not worry about their families being intimidated by people who were left behind. Um so Leopold eventually was kind of forced into letting Richard go, but um, because he he'd been excommunicated by the Pope, um, but he uh sadly he just handed him over to the um Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI. Um and Henry VI had a was a much more powerful guy and had a fairly fractious relationship with the Pope. So the Pope didn't feel strong enough to excommunicate him. He just kind of was trying to negotiate to get Richard's freedom. Eventually, Richard was was freed um for a huge ransom, you know, multiple years revenue was being put into this, uh, and he eventually got home. And he spent he spent a lot of his time in in prison, um, some of which was comfortable, some of which was much less so, um, writing poetry and um you know, generally trying to be a chivalrous and and good, good, you know, sort of pro chevalier. Um, but yeah, so he he kind of honed up his non-military skills while he was uh sort of hors de combat.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

But those military skills are gonna come back into use again, isn't it? Uh is uh isn't that right, Steve? So obviously, you know, he's gonna go to war against um Prince Philip of France uh Prince Philip, sorry, King Philip of France. So um, and of course, this is where um you know you're gonna see his demise um eventually. Um but yeah, so just quickly tell us about why Richard goes to war against um you know the French king.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Yeah, um basically while while he's been in prison, um as you know, as we as we said earlier, Philip took Umbridge because Richard was not the most diplomatic of of companions. But also Philip, you know, Philip's a difficult man as well. Um so he goes back to France. Uh he thinks, wow, this is a great opportunity. You know, Richard's Richard's away, I can really start to roll back uh the borders of France again, you know, and this whole seesaw between uh what's what belongs to the Angevins and what belongs to the King of France can can be redressed again. So Phillips takes takes advantage. Um King John's not sorry, not King John, Prince John as he is at this point, isn't helpful either, and he's Sort of starting to get kind of uh betraying people Richard, you know, very much in the family tradition, as as Richard himself had done to his father. Um so Richard, when he comes back, just finds he goes straight from one war into another. Uh so instead of trying to defend the Holy Land, he's trying to defend the Angevin um estates and and count and counties and so on in what is now modern day France. Um and that he's very good at it. You know, he is a good commander. So so, in a from a logical perspective, Richard was right, yeah, that was the perfect time. Get try and achieve a few things while Richard's away, because when he comes back, um things are going to change. And that and he did. So Richard started rolling things up, spent a huge amount of money um building castles and and sending his troops to recover lands, and particularly there was one massive castle called Chateau Gaillard, which which he which he built, um, which is you know like huge uh aircraft carrier, really just massive. Um, and then ironically, while all this is going on, uh one of Richard's own people goes into revolt in Limoges, um, and Richard ends up besieging this insignificant, fairly small castle in a place called Chalus Chabrol. Um and Richard being Richard, he's he's in the front line. And while he's in the front line in the trenches, being being a hands-on soldier, he gets shot by a crossbow bolt uh in the shoulder, um, fired by one of one of his opponents. And in the the story goes that the the young guy who who killed him ended up killing him, was um a lot of his family had been killed by Richard's man in the fighting. So it's it's one of these sad, pointless things. Um so Richard was shot in the shoulder, gangrene set in. Richard, in fairness to him, uh, had the guy brought to him, the guy that shot him, and and forgave him and um gave him some money to go away. Which, you know, because he he knew it's not really personal, it's just soldiers fighting. Um supposedly um the young man uh didn't get away with it because when Richard died, um some of his people um flayed the the young kid alive and then hung him for good measure. So yeah, pretty pretty grim ending. And sadly, a very it just feels like a kind of pointless ending. So so Richard, if you look at his reign, I mean people are absolutely right to say he spent most of his time away from England, but that that wasn't you know an unpopular thing. That was what a brave king at the time of the crusades might well you know be respected for doing. And then but as soon as he came back from that, he then went off into more wars. So you can see if you're a military guy, you've done really well. I mean, he was a he was a good commander when you know when he went into battle, people were worried to be on the other side. As a taxpayer, you'd probably have problems with that. Um, you know, and he did spend a lot of time abroad, but I don't think people were too fussed about that. I mean, I think they're probably more worried about well, where their money was going, but that but he was a good team leader at a time when you know the people of England and other parts of the Empire, the Angevin Empire, were you know would have looked up to him as a as a good, brave, solid king.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:38

Yeah, absolutely. And uh so um obviously, and the thing is as well, he's only 41 years old, so um, or around about that age. So you know, he's been through a lot just for 40 odd years of his, you know, he's could done a lot of stuff, hasn't he? And uh yeah, what an amazing amazing uh life. Um but of course as you know, he he's gonna be succeeded by King John, and and that's a whole episode on itself, um, or or a couple of episodes probably, or I have done an episode about the Baron Wars, so please go and watch that and check that out. But anyway, let's talk about um Richard um again. So his legacy, how should we judge you know Richard? How should we judge him? And and and his legacy, you know, as far as that identity of nationality is concerned as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:31

Yeah. I I I think these are we can't help but do it. I do it the whole time, but but these you know, words like judge and legacy are quite difficult, you know, it's quite difficult with our wearing the kind of spectacles that we wear. You know, nowadays, you know, if you look at the people who are respected for doing good things, you know, they'd be human rights lawyers and social workers and things like that. If you if you use that kind of prism to look at Richard the Lionheart, you're going to be sorely disappointed. You know, he was he was a guy who was very clear about what the right thing to do was, and he was brave and he was butch. And if it required bloodshed, he wasn't scared to do that. Um, and if it required him fighting against his own family, he wasn't scared to do that. So he was he was a very bold and you know violent man at a time when, you know, and we look at it from a perspective where bold, violent men are disapproved of. In the in the 12th century, which was you know the only way that his own people judged him, it was that was seen as being a strong leader. And he was certainly a strong and effective military commander. So I I when you talk about image, I you know probably the more important thing from his perspective is how do his own people view him rather than people, you know, whatever it is, you know, 900 years in the future or 800 years in the future, you know. Um, so I th I think it's very hard for us to judge him properly. We're not as religious as as his people, you know, England, France, they were devout Catholic countries, he was a devout Catholic, he knew what was right for his soul. And, you know, even though he wasn't always good to the church, he was, you know, there there are those kind of religious fundamentals that we can no longer share. There are these kind of fundamentals around strength and military leadership that we no longer share. Um, so if you judge him by the standards of his time, I think he it's there's no surprise that he has come through history as being a good king. Um if you were to start from scratch now, many um people would would find a lot of what he did quite difficult to to cope with. So um I prefer not to judge. I'd prefer I always prefer to think about how his own people saw him. They know a lot more than we do, and they and they're the only real judges, I think. Um and I think his legacy is almost to be seen in the same way. You know, the leg the legacy of heroism and bravery and devotion and piety that he showed, particularly on the Third Crusade, stayed with England for a long time, even 60 years after his death. If anybody did something good on the Crusades from a Christian perspective, um, and they were English, you know, people in England were saying, brilliant, we've got another Richard the Lionheart here. You know, that was that was the kind of ultimate accolade. Um whereas, and I think from a crusaders perspective, he he saved the remnants of the crusader states um and did as well as he could under trying circumstances. But on the other hand, if you know, if you're if you're living in the 21st century and you admire social workers and you know you don't care about the Christian communities in the 12th century and in the Latin East and the Crusades, then obviously you'd have a much more negative judgment about what he did. But I think you have to judge people from their period, really, rather than make uh very comfortable judgments from our from our sofas nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:17

Absolutely, and uh you know that's with every part of history, you know, it's exactly the same. We should never judge it from the 21st century because we're living in a very different world. Yeah, well, Steve, thanks for talking about um Richard the First, but let's talk about you for uh for a couple of minutes because obviously, you know, you've uh written some amazing books. Um, you're really into the um Templars side of things and you know, obviously Crusades as well. Now, guys, go and check out Steve's website uh stevetibble.com. Um your latest book, I believe, is Assassins and Templars, is that right? A Battle in Myth and Blood. Is that your latest book, Steve?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

Yes, it is, yeah, absolutely. And I loved writing it. It's basically the back history of the the fabulous video game, uh Assassin's Creed, which obviously it's a fantasy game, so you know it's not a history lesson, but I was astonished to see how much of it was actually based on historical fact, and the assassins were you know a political and military force in the Crusades, and they bumped up against um uh the Templars, huge amounts of time, including one of Richard the Lionheart's um great mates, Robert Sable, who was the Templar commander, the master at the time. And Robert de Sable is in is in the video game, he's in the book, but he's also in you know, right at the heart of Richard the Lionheart's Third Crusade. He was one of his closest figures and a key key player in the in the Angevin Empire. So yeah, I've I've had huge fun doing that. But I've I've written a lot about the crusader states, and more recently, I did a book about the the role of the Templars in England, um, called Templars the Knights Who Made Britain, which is basically looks at their role in Britain, um, and how they put resources into the Middle East and how they were fabulous warriors. You know, so I've traced the activities of the the English warriors in the Templars over in the Holy Land. But also, weirdly, they were kind of elite professional services guys as well, you know, with the best lawyers, best diplomats, uh, best investment bankers. So it's this weird combination, but of high achieving elite guys who are half of half of whom are warriors and the other half of whom are um you know sort of um like from Goldman Sachs or whatever. So it's uh yeah, it's a crazy book, and I totally true, obviously, because I'm a historian, but uh really loved loved writing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:50

Yeah, fantastic. And also, Steve, you do a weekly podcast, don't you, where you discuss uh the temp the Templars and Assassin Creed type thing, don't you? And also you've done stuff with history uh here, haven't you? So this tell us about that quickly.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

Oh yeah, yeah, no, I love I love doing that because I love well, I love working with you know nice people like you, and this is a lovely way of getting communicating to a wider audience. You know, back in the day you'd do a talk and there'd be 30 or 40 people there, which would be nice. But if you you know, like me talking to you, or if I do a a podcast, so I have this um sort of video cast with with my friend Tony McMahon, which is on YouTube called Talking Templars. You know, if we do a uh a nice, a nice, interesting podcast there, you know, I we did one on the Holy Grail a couple of months back, got 40,000 people to watch it so far, and it'll you know grows over time. It's just a lovely way of reaching out to people, and it's a much more relaxed way as well. Because I think nobody wants to be lecture that. It's much nicer if you can sit down and see see two guys having a proper chat, engaging with each other, engaging with the topics that people are really interested in, rather than you know, talking about crop rotation or you know, all of the stuff that historians have to have to understand, but but they don't necessarily, you know, to most people it's pretty dull stuff. So, no, I really enjoyed doing all that. I've been doing a lot of festivals as well, doing a festival in in Italy in a couple of months. I'll be back at Chalk Valley. Chalk chalk is a fabulous um festival. I know you're that you were there last year, Darren. That was all good. I certainly was, yes. I think I'm doing two days there this year, which would be be lovely. Yeah, no, I think I'm really blessed. It is lovely. This is the perfect age to be a historian because you do have the scope to do you know good work in the library, but then hopefully take that good work out and meet people and communicate stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:52

Yeah, and share it with other people, exactly. Yeah, and so yeah, no, fantastic. And uh the links to Steve's um website and the the the podcast that he mentioned there will be in the podcast description. But at this point, Steve, all that is left to say, my friend, is cheers. Thank you so much for giving up your time and coming to talk to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:12

Yeah, thanks, Daz. It's been brilliant. I really, really enjoyed that. Absolutely. Thank you, my friend. Cheers.