Richard I., king of England, surnamed CŒUR DE LION, was the third son of King Henry II. and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was born on 8th September 1157, either at Oxford or at Woodstock, but was brought up amongst the knights and troubadours of Poitou, in Aquitaine, with which duchy, his mother's patrimony, he was whilst still a child invested by his father. In England Richard did not spend in all his life a full twelvemonth; after he became king he spent only twenty-six weeks in his kingdom, seventeen weeks when he landed to take the crown and to go through the coronation ceremony at Westminster, and nine weeks when he came back from his imprisonment. It may indeed reasonably be doubted whether he could speak English. A favourite 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 successor during his own lifetime; and in 1183 he ordered that his younger brothers 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, whilst 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 pertinacious foe of King Henry, mingled in the strife; and eventually Richard joined forces with his father's enemy, did homage to him, and took the field against the old king. A reconciliation was rendered more difficult because of Richard's jealousy of John, his father's favourite.
Richard became king of England, Duke of Normandy, and Count of Anjou on 5th July 1189, and was crowned king of England on 3d September following. But he had already taken the vows of the crusader; 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 midsummer 1190 he met 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 at that city, and their mutual jealousy came within a hair's-breadth of a rupture. 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 Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick Barbarossa, and afterwards the Emperor Henry VI. Moreover, Tancred detained in custody Johanna, widow of the late king (William the Good) and sister of Richard I., together with her very large dowry. But he made his peace with Richard by giving up to him his sister and her possessions, and by betrothing his little daughter 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 Cyprus, and the crews were most inhospitably treated by the reigning sovereign, Isaac Comnenus, a nephew of the emperor of Byzantium, who had revolted from his liege lord. Richard sailed back from Rhodes, routed Isaac in battle, deposed 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 8th June, the English king landed near Acre, and shortly afterwards that stronghold surrendered, the siege having lasted two years. Richard took his full share of the jealousies, animosities, and disagreements, though not of the treacheries, that made the Christian crusading host a hotbed of commotion. The glorious exploits of Richard the Lion-hearted—his march to Joppa along the seashore, his approach upon Jerusalem at Christmas, his capture of the fortresses in the south 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 admiration of Christendom, but brought no real advantage to the crusading cause. Richard in September concluded a peace with Saladin for three years, three months, and three days, and in his impulsive, impatient way started off home alone, without waiting for his army and fleet. A storm shipwrecked him near the north end of the Adriatic. In disguise he began to make his way through the dominions of his bitter enemy, the Archduke of Austria. He was recognised, seized, and handed over to the Emperor Henry VI. (March 1193). The emperor demanded a heavy ransom for his release, but promised to give him the kingdom of Arles in addition to his liberty. Richard's loyal subjects raised the money; and greatly to the chagrin of Philip of France and Richard's brother John, the captive king returned home (13th March 1194). In England in the meantime Longchamp (q.v.) had made himself so unpopular that Richard had been obliged to supersede him, appointing in his place Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen. It was John, however, who exercised the greatest power in the realm. And although he used his utmost endeavours to prevent Richard's return from his captivity, yet Richard generously forgave him. After distributing judicious rewards and punishments, raising what money he could, making arrangements for the governance of the kingdom, and being crowned again—the emperor is said to have forced his captive to resign his crown and take it back as a fief of the empire—Richard proceeded to France, and spent the rest of his life there, warring against Philip. England was governed in his absence by Hubert Walter, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, who by the measures he took to raise the vast sums demanded by his master trained the English people in habits of self-government. The most important constitutional advances made under Hubert's rule were the formulation of the methods for electing the county grand juries and an arrangement for keeping the pleas of the crown by officers who may be regarded as the forerunners of the modern coroner. Richard was shot, on 7th April 1199, by an archer of the Viscount of Limoges, whilst besieging that nobleman's castle of Chalus-Chabrol, and was buried in the abbey church of Fontevraud.
Richard cannot be called a good king; his only thought of his subjects was how to get money from them. He was not a faithful husband; he was an unfaithful son. Yet, on the other hand, he treated his perfidious brother John in the most forgiving spirit, and was not incapable of noble and generous acts. His impulsive, hot-headed temperament made him at times cruel, but never vindictive. He was an adventurer, with a passionate love for contention and strife; he fought for warlike glory, not for victory or real advantage; he had all the personal courage and self-confidence of the born warrior; and a very large share of that careless indifference or magnanimity that is frequently associated with a bold and self-reliant character. In matters of dress and ceremony he loved magnificence, and was both ostentatious and extravagant. In person he was tall and ruddy, very skilful in the use of his weapons, and possessed of great personal strength. A fair scholar, he also had the knack of writing verses, and has been called a poet.
See BLONDEL; Stubbs' Constitutional History (vol. i.) and The Early Plantagenets (1876). Richard is the hero of Scott's Talisman, and figures also largely in Ivanhoe.