If you try to make a rating of the kings of England, it turns out that the brothers, the sons of Henry II Plantagenet, are claiming the first and last places. The first of them went down in history as a knight king: during his lifetime he became the hero of numerous songs of the trouvers of northern France and the troubadours of southern France, and even a character in Arab fairy tales. The reign of the second is practically officially recognized as one of the most catastrophic in the entire history of this country, and his reputation was such that not only the English, but also the Scottish and French kings subsequently did not call their sons and heirs by the name of John (and his variants). As you may have guessed, this article will focus on Richard the Lionheart and his brother John, who for some reason is often called John in our country.
Henry II and his children
The father of our heroes, Henry II Plantagenet, was not only an English king, but also the Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Normandy, Brittany and Anjou. The brothers' mother is a very remarkable and passionate person: Alienora, Duchess of Aquitaine and Gascony, Countess de Poitiers, Queen of France (1137-1152) and England (1154-1189), and, concurrently, lady of the heart and muse of the famous French poet-troubadour Bernard de Ventadorn. "Aquitaine Lioness" could become the heroine of a full-length article. She herself called herself "Alienora, the wrath of God queen of England" (that is, God punished the refined and proud Aquitaine with the royal throne of wild and barbaric England). It was she who created the code of love relations between a man and a woman, which for the first time showed the world a special relationship of men to their beloved - adoration and chanting. Thanks to her, at the French, and later - at the English royal courts, the "Book of a Civilized Man" appeared - a list of rules of conduct that formed the basis of etiquette. Alienor went down in history as the first woman who took part in the Crusade, in which, in addition to her husband (King Louis VII of France) and the knights of her native Aquitaine, she was accompanied by court ladies (later Richard's sister Joanna and his wife Berengaria would follow her example). Alienora traveled all the way from Paris to the Holy Land on horseback.
Alienora of Aquitaine
And the great-grandfather of the brothers was the famous William the Conqueror.
Henry II is a very extraordinary person on the English throne. Having become king at the age of 21, he spent all his time traveling around Western France (where his main possessions were located) and England, personally checking the state of affairs in the provinces. He was unpretentious in clothing and food, during the journey he could completely calmly spend the night in a peasant hut, or even in a stable. He had no prejudice to people of common origin, and the post of mayor of London under him for 24 years was held by a former cloth maker, Anglo-Saxon (not Norman!) Fitz-Alvin. At the same time, Henry II was an extremely educated person, he knew 6 languages (with the exception of English). In addition, he possessed such a very rare quality at all times as sanity.
The Plantagenet dynasty was dominated by the well-known prophecy of Merlin: "In it, the brother will betray his brother, and the son - the father." The predictions of the great Celtic wizard used to come true every time and half. Contemporaries were very impressed by the behavior of the king in Ireland in 1172. According to the ancient prophecy of Merlin, the English king, who decided to conquer this country, had to die on the Lekhlavar stone, located in the middle of the river, which the conqueror needed to cross. On one side of the river the British troops stood up, on the other the Irish were crowded. Those close to him advised Henry to go around the stone, but he was the first to enter the river, climbed the stone and shouted: "Well, who else believes the fables of this Merlin?" The demoralized Irish retreated.
So, Henry II survived, despite the fact that he conquered Ireland, but his sons, indeed, many times and with great pleasure betrayed both their father and each other. And the tragic denouement of his enmity with Thomas Beckett did not add to this king either popularity or health, and, of course, was used by enemies to discredit the king. King William of Sicily, married to Heinrich's daughter Joanna, ordered a monument to Beckett to be erected. Another daughter of Henry, Alienora of England, who married the King of Castile Alfonso VIII, ordered to depict the murder of Thomas Becket on the wall of a church in the city of Soria. King Louis VII of France declared mourning for the innocently murdered saint throughout the country, and a year later he demonstratively visited the grave of the martyr, donating a golden cup and a large diamond to decorate the tombstone. Henry II did not dare to obstruct this pilgrimage. He did not hide behind the backs of his subordinates and admitted his responsibility. Many years after the assassination of the archbishop, morally broken, betrayed by his children, the king decided to publicly apologize to his former friend. Having interrupted the military campaign in France, he went to Canterbury. Barefoot, dressed in a hair shirt, Henry publicly repented at the grave of the archbishop for the careless words that led to the death of the saint. After that, he demanded that each person close to him inflict five blows with a lash. And each monk is three. It turned out several hundred hits. Covering his bloody back with a cloak, he sat in the cathedral for another day.
Canterbury, headstone of Thomas Becket
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. In 1173 the king's eldest son, Henry, rebelled against his father and was supported by his mother, brother Richard and the French king Louis VII. The victory went to Henry II, who in 1174 suppressed the uprising and concluded a peace treaty with France, one of the points of which was an agreement on the marriage of his son Richard with Louis' daughter Adelaide (Alice). Ironically, it was this decision, designed to establish peace between England and France, on the one hand, and to strengthen harmony in the Plantagenet family, on the other, that led to a new round of tension between Henry II and Richard. The reason was the scandalous relationship between the father and the son's bride. After the death of Henry the Younger in 1183, Richard became heir to the throne. However, his relationship with his father remained so cool that in 1188 Henry II even instigated an uprising against his son in Aquitaine and Languedoc. Richard won and the next year, in turn, together with the King of France Philip II Augustus, opened hostilities against Henry II. All the French provinces of the Plantagenets supported Richard, even the youngest son of Henry II - the notorious John (John), nicknamed Landless, played a double game, intending to sell his father at a higher price. In June 1189, Henry II was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty with France. After 7 days, he died, and since Richard was his heir, he had to reap the fruits of this shameful agreement.
Now is the time to talk in more detail about Richard and John. And try to find an answer to the question: why is John Plantagenet the worst king? How is his reign worse than the reigns of, for example, Mary Tudor and Henry VII Tudor? And, really, in cruelty he surpassed Henry VIII of the same dynasty? Many believe that the rivalry with his brother, Richard, became fatal for John. Indeed, if there is King Richard recognized by all as "good", then his rival simply must be "bad." It is convenient and “explains everything”. And William Shakespeare can write another play for his theater ("King John"), the title character of which appears as a classic villain: dishonest, greedy, greedy, nephew killer and usurper.
W. Shenston (English poet of the 18th century) writes:
But the treacherous John, having seized the crown, disgraced …
Six long years of boundless tyranny
Our ancestors endured in despair
And obeyed the papal decree, And they were shamelessly robbed by the king himself.
Walter Scott casually informs the reader in Ivanhoe that, they say, everyone in England knows: when King John needed money, he imprisoned a rich Jew and ordered to pull out his teeth every day until he paid a huge ransom.
In general, everyone likes everything, everyone is happy with everything. Of course, insignificant, weak, but cruel and cunning John can in no way be an example to follow and an object of pride for the British. Nobody is going to sing his praises to him. Here is the royal knight Richard - it's a completely different matter! But let's put aside the romantic nonsense, be it novelists or troubadours, and ask ourselves: what good did Richard do for good old England? In which, according to the chroniclers, he spent no more than 9 months of his life.
King Richard, portrait at Windsor Castle
Richard was born in Oxford in 1157 (the year of the death of Yuri Dolgoruky) and was a contemporary of Prince Igor Svyatoslavich, who led the famous campaign against the Polovtsy in 1185, Andrei Bogolyubsky and Genghis Khan. Some sources claim that the mother of the famous English philosopher and theologian Alexander Nekham was for some time the mother of the famous English philosopher and theologian Alexander Nekham: “She fed him with her right breast, and Alexandra with her left breast,” says one of the chronicles of that time. It was Richard who was the beloved son of the frantic Alienora. As a baby, his mother took him away from the rainy backwaters of England, which was on the outskirts of the civilization, to the magical land of troubadours, courteous knights and beauties inaccessible, like distant stars, warmed by the southern sun. (“I do not think that love can be divided, for if it is divided, its name must be changed,” the troubadour Arnaut de Moreil explained this paradox.) This country was called Aquitaine, and Alienora was not just a duchess in it, but almost a goddess and true, recognized by all, the queen - the queen of courtly love.
Aquitaine, territory of the XII century on the map of France
Richard's maternal great-grandfather, Guillaume IX of Aquitaine, was considered the ancestor of the minnesang genre ("love songs"). Richard continued the family tradition, writing quite good songs in French and Provencal (Occitan) languages. The beautiful golden-haired prince, who came to this World from the most secret girlish dreams, spent wonderful time far from the shores of foggy Albion: he fell in love and broke hearts, wrote poetry, entered into conspiracies, but most of all he liked to fight. But on July 6, 1189, the father, betrayed by the Prince Charming, died (abandoned by all and robbed by the servants) in the empty hall of Chinon Castle. Richard became king, and was surprised to find that the treasury was empty, and in the French possessions of the Plantagenets, ravaged by civil war, it was very bad with a hard coin. And money was needed - for the Crusade, of course. That's when Richard finally decided to visit distant and boring London. Here, on the advice of William de Longchamp, he announced that all positions in the kingdom should be bought. With a sense of humor, Richard had no problems, and the phrase "from the old bishop I made a young earl" (he said after the sale of Norghampton County to Durham bishop) went down in history. When the British aborigines, somewhat shocked by such a scale, asked for an explanation, Richard replied with an exceptionally cynical phrase: "Find me a buyer, and I will sell him London."Nobody wanted to buy London, but there were those who wanted to buy Scotland. This country fell into dependence on England in 1174 after the defeat at the Battle of Alnica (Henry II then managed to capture the king). And already in 1189 Richard actually sold it to the future Scottish king William. The price of Scottish independence was not too high - only 10,000 silver marks. For Richard himself, a ransom of 150,000 was later paid. Participation in the Crusade was declared compulsory, but it was possible to pay off. Almost all the rich barons of England were declared deviators, regardless of their wishes and intentions. There was no shortage of "cannon fodder" in the face of poor younger sons, bastards, bankrupt farmers, vagabonds and simply fugitive criminals in Europe, but there was always not enough money. In general, we must assume that the British accompanied Richard to the Crusade with great pleasure and sincere wishes never to return from it. In the Holy Land, Richard performed many feats, became an idol of the Crusaders and quarreled with his allies. He also received several eloquent nicknames. The Arabs called him Melek-Richard, and Melek is "one who knows how to possess kingdoms, make conquests and give gifts." Salah ad-Din called him "the great boy" and said that Richard could have become a wonderful king if he had not rushed headlong forward and considered his actions. The famous troubadour Bertrand de Born, for impermanence and changeability, in one of his poems, called him "my Knight Yes and No" (N Oc-e-No - Occitan).
King Richard. Monument in London
But let's not rush: the character did not allow Richard to avoid adventures on the road to Accra and in September 1190, taking advantage of the property claims of his sister Joanna to the King of Sicily Tancred, he laid siege to Messina. Some chroniclers say that Richard, accompanied by a knight, entered the night city through an underground passage and opened the fortress gates. Then he captured the island of Cyprus, which belonged to the pirate Isaac Comnenus. The emperor of the island made an unforgivable mistake: he not only detained the ship on which Richard's sister Joanna and his bride, the Navarre princess Berengaria (with whom Richard was truly in love), were sailing, but also dared to demand a ransom. The only favor that Komnenos managed to bargain with the winner was light silver chains, put on him instead of heavy iron ones. In Cyprus, Richard finally found time to marry Berengaria. Oddly enough, these brilliant feats had very sad consequences. His longtime friend (their youthful friendship was so close that they slept in the same bed) and rival Philip II, in pursuance of a previously concluded agreement, began to demand for himself half of the booty received in Sicily and half of the island of Cyprus. Richard indignantly rejected these claims, and relations between the former allies were completely and irrevocably damaged. "A lot of stupid and insulting words have been said here," writes the chronicler Ambroise on this matter.
Meanwhile, the position of the crusaders in the Holy Land was getting worse and worse every day. June 10, 1190 Frederick Barbarossa drowned while crossing the Salef River in Asia Minor. The death of the emperor completely demoralized the German army: the crusaders decided that Providence itself did not want the victory of Christians over the infidels. Chroniclers report mass suicides of the Germans and even cases of conversion to Islam. As a result, the German army lost control and suffered huge losses. The city of Accra, which had been besieged by the Crusaders for a long time and unsuccessfully, came not a great army, before whose might not long ago the whole of Europe trembled, but an unorganized crowd of exhausted and mortally tired people.
Siege of Accra
The situation near Accra was a stalemate: the Christian troops that besieged the city were themselves surrounded by the army of Salah ad-Din (Saladin) and neither side had the strength for a decisive offensive. Famine, typhus, scurvy and dysentery reigned in the crusader camp; even the son of Frederick Barbarossa, Duke Frederick of Swabia, and Philip, Count of Flanders, died of scurvy. All the hopes of the Crusaders were connected with the armies of Philip II and Richard the Lionheart, who were already sailing to the Holy Land. With the arrival of Richard in Accra, the balance of power changed in favor of the Christians. The last assault lasted several days, and it was clear to everyone that the city was doomed. All this time, Richard was in the forefront of the crusaders, noticeably distinguished by his height and blond hair, but he was not even wounded. Fearing the strengthening of the authority of his main rival, Philip II entered into secret negotiations with the commandant of the fortress and agreed to surrender the city, which came as a complete surprise to both Richard and Salah ad-Din. Richard considered himself deceived. Entering the city, he gave vent to his irritation, expelling the Austrian Duke Leopold from the quarter where he was going to deploy his detachment, and even threw his banner into the mud. Leopold became Richard's worst enemy, and later this insult cost the king of the English dearly. In the meantime, he bathed in glory and did not notice the clouds gathering over his head. Philip II, whom Richard actually removed from the leadership of the hostilities, went to France, where, despite his public oath, he invaded Richard's French possessions, at the same time persuading Prince John to seize the English throne and declare himself king. Meanwhile, Salah ad-Din was in no hurry to fulfill the terms of the agreement concluded without his knowledge. He refused to pay the indemnity and dragged out negotiations on the ransom of the captured Muslims, whose number reached 2,700 people (including women and children). Enraged, Richard ordered the execution of the prisoners. The terrible massacre lasted half a day, it horrified the entire Muslim world and strengthened the position of Salah ad-Din, who for the first time in two years received help from his neighbors. It was after these events that the crusaders began to say that Richard had a lion's heart (the lion personified not only strength and courage, but also cruelty). The Arabs also called Richard's heart stone. This act allowed Richard to once again demonstrate both cynicism and wit. In response to a murmur that arose, he said: they say, what did you expect from me, "are we (Plantagenets) not the children of the devil"? Richard was referring to the legend of the fairy Melusine (half-woman, half-snake). Fulk V, Count of Anjou, father of the first of the Plantagenets, allegedly brought from Jerusalem the beautiful daughter of King Baldwin II, who, being taken by surprise by her husband, turned into a half-snake, and later, being forcibly taken to Sunday Mass, disappeared from the church without a trace. Fulk of Anjou, indeed, was married to a girl from Jerusalem - but not to the daughter of Baldwin II, but to his niece, and her name was not Melusine, but Melisande. Now these stories about the transformations of Count Fulk's wife sound ridiculous and look like a perfect fairy tale, but the people of that time took this legend seriously and did not question it:
“They went out of the devil and they will come to the devil,” wrote a certain Bernard about the Plantagenets, later canonized.
“They come from the devil and will go to him,” - these are the words of Thomas Becket.
In the summer of 1191, the Crusader army finally broke into strategic space. At the city of Arsuf, she met with the numerically superior troops of Salah ad-Din. Richard, as always, fought in the forefront in the most dangerous areas and was able to hold the front even after the retreat of the French detachment. Chronicles tell in detail about the exploits of the fearless king-knight. For example, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers Garnier de Nap addresses him: "Sovereign, shame and misfortune, we are overcome!"
“Patience, Master! You can’t be everywhere at once”, - Richard answers him and,“without waiting any longer, he gave his spurs to the horse and rushed as quickly as possible to support the first rows … Around him, in front and behind, a wide path was opened, covered with dead Saracens”.
As a result of this victory, the crusaders captured Jaffa. While the crusaders fortified the walls of the dilapidated city, Richard, in frequent skirmishes and vanguard battles, "sought the most sophisticated dangers." During the battle for Jaffa, Richard rode out on horseback in front of the formation and challenged the entire Muslim army, but not a single warrior from the enemy camp decided to fight him. And here is how one of Richard's fights is described in The Chronicle of Ambroise: “Richard gave his spurs to the horse and rushed, as quickly as he could, to support the front ranks. Flying rather like arrows on his horse Fauvelle, which has no equal in the world, he attacked a mass of enemies with such force that they were completely shot down, and our riders threw them out of the saddle. The brave king, prickly, like a hedgehog, from the arrows stuck into his shell, pursued them, and around him, in front and behind, a wide path was opened, strewn with dead Saracens. The Turks fled like a herd of cattle."
In early 1192, the crusaders finally marched on Jerusalem. But when the army was at a distance of literally one day's march from the goal of the expedition, "wise Templars, valiant hospitallers and pulans, people of the earth" said that further advance is fraught with many dangers. They reasonably feared that the Saracens would occupy the paths between the sea and the mountains, and then the advancing army would be trapped. In addition, they had lived in Palestine for a long time and understood that without constant outside help, they would still not be able to hold Jerusalem. The coastal cities of the Eastern Mediterranean were of prime interest to the local barons. Therefore, the crusaders turned towards Ascalon. In the retreating army "there were a mass of sick people whose movement was slowed down by an illness, and they would have been abandoned on the way, had it not been for the English king who made them look for them," Ambroise writes. In Ascalon, Richard's last quarrel with Leopold of Austria, who refused to participate in the restoration of the walls of this city, took place. True to his character, Richard hit the Archduke, after which he took his detachment to Europe. In the summer of 1192, Richard made a final attempt to capture Jerusalem. The crusaders reached Bethlehem, but the French detachment led by the Duke of Burgundy left their positions without permission and headed west. Richard had to retreat. One of the knights invited him to climb a mountain from which one could see Jerusalem.
“Unworthy to conquer the holy city, unworthy to look at it,” the king answered sadly.
For some time he still tried to fight and even returned Jaffa, again captured by the Saracens. But the allies categorically and invariably refused to go with him inland, and to enter Jerusalem alone was beyond his strength. In 1192, frustrated and tired, Richard decided to return to England. He did not know that next year his great adversary, Salah ad-Din, would die.
Victorious Saladin. Gustave Dore
Mourning the death of Richard, the troubadour Goselm Feldi wrote in 1199 that some people were afraid of him, others loved him, but no one was indifferent to him. The rank and file crusaders were among those who loved Richard. On October 9, 1192, they saw off their idol "with tears and groans, many entered the water, stretching out their hands after his ship." Richard stood in the stern with his hands up and was also crying. Ahead of him were those who feared and hated. The king had to decide which way to return to his homeland. By his rash actions, he himself drove himself into a trap: in France, the longtime enemy of England, King Philip II, was impatiently awaiting him in the Mediterranean ports of Aquitaine and Languedoc - one of the leaders of the uprising of 1188 Raymond of Toulouse, in Austria - Duke Leopold, mortally insulted by him. And even the coast of England, which was controlled by his brother John, was not safe. Sending his wife on a journey through Italy and France, Richard cruised the sea aimlessly until his ship was wrecked off the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Disguised as a pilgrim, accompanied by a knight, he went to Austria, from where he intended to get into the possession of his friend Henry the Lion, in order to ask for help for landing in England. Unrecognized, he reached Vienna and disappeared there without a trace. Stopping in Rome, Berengaria saw a sword sling belonging to Richard in the market. The frightened merchant could not say anything to the queen, and she decided that her husband had died in a shipwreck. However, very soon rumors spread throughout Europe that the last hero of the Crusaders was imprisoned in one of the Austrian castles. The 13th century Reims Chronicle tells a very beautiful and romantic story of how the troubadour Blondel de Nel traveled all over Germany in search of his king. In front of each castle, he sang a romance that he and Richard once composed line by line. And one day, from the windows of one of the castles in the mountains of Bohemia, a voice was heard, continuing a familiar song. After that, Leopold hastened to hand over the inconvenient prisoner to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry VI. For two years the emperor hesitated, and then gathered the princes of the state subject to him for an unprecedented trial over the king of a sovereign country. The crusader's favorite was accused of conspiracy with Salah ad-Din, an alliance with the powerful Muslim order of assassin assassins, an attempt to poison Philip II, and even cowardice. In turn, Richard accused his opponents of repeatedly fleeing the battlefield and betraying the interests of Christians in Palestine. It was difficult to object to these charges, and therefore Richard was acquitted. But this did not mean the immediate release of the hero. A ransom of 150,000 silver marks was assigned for him. To ransom the unlucky king, new taxes were introduced in England. Returning, Richard shook out some more money from the British, and immediately rushed to reclaim land in France: because what interest is there in being the king of rude Anglo-Saxon men who do not write songs in the genre of Minenzang in French or Occitan, but, on the contrary, strive to let an arrow into some hated Norman back? This war lasted from 1194 to 1199. and ended with the complete victory of the English king. But a few weeks later he died during the siege of the castle of one of his subjects - the Limoges Viscount Ademar V, who was suspected of hiding the found treasure.
"Richard, together with Mercadier, walked around the walls … a simple crossbowman named Bertrand de Gudrun shot an arrow from the castle and, piercing the king's hand, wounded him with an incurable wound."
“The ant killed the lion,” contemporaries wrote about this.
When the castle was taken, Richard ordered all his defenders to be hanged, but ordered the crossbowman to be released, giving him 100 solidi. However, "Unbeknownst to him, Mercadier again captured Bertrand, detained him, and after Richard's death hung him up, peeling off his skin."
Richard bequeathed to bury himself in three different places. You probably already guessed that England was not included in this list: the body of the king went to the Abbey of Fontevraud at the junction of three French provinces - Touraine, Anjou and Poitou, the brain and internal organs - to the small town of Chalus near Limoges, and the heart - to the Cathedral of Rouen …
Sarcophagus with the heart of King Richard. Rouen Cathedral
Sarcophagus with the body of King Richard in the Abbey of Fontevraud
“I leave my avarice to the Cistercian monks, my pride to the Templars, my luxury to the orders of mendicant monks,” the dying Richard joked for the last time. He bequeathed the kingdom of England and the loyalty of the vassals to his brother John.
