image 1

Richard the Lionheart, the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born in Oxford in 1157. While still a child, he was granted the duchy of Aquitaine. Encouraged by his mother, in 1173 Richard joined his brothers Henry and Geoffrey in the rebellion against their father.

When Henry II died in 1189, Richard was the eldest surviving son and therefore became king of England, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou. Soon afterwards, Richard took part in the Third Crusade. Considered to be the best military commander in the Christian world, his army managed to defeat Saladin, the Muslim leader, at Arsuf in 1191.

On his way home Richard was captured by Duke Leopold of Austria. While his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was busy raising the £70,000 ransom money, Richard's younger brother John tried to seize the throne. Richard was released in 1194 and he spent the next couple of years winning back the territory he had lost while he had been away.

In 1199, while carrying out a siege on a castle, Richard was killed by a crossbow bolt. Richard did not have any children and before he died he arranged for his younger brother John to inherit the throne.

 

 

 

 

The Three Richards is available from Amazon

 


Google

Educational Websites

Standards Site, BBC History, PBS Online, Open Directory Project, Virtual Library,
Education Forum, History GCSE, Design & Technology, Learn History, Music Teacher Resource,
Freepedia, Teach It, Science Active, Geography IST, Brighton Photographers, Sussex Photo History,
Compton History, Universal Teacher, English Teaching, English Online, History Learning Site,
History on the Net, Black History, Greenfield History, School History,
HistoryWorld, I Love History,
E-HELP, Ed Podesta Blog, Macgregorish History, Historiasiglo20,
Sintermeerten, ICT4LT


News and Search

Guardian Unlimited, Times Online, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, New York Times,
Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Yahoo News, New Scientist, Google News, Channel 4, ZDNet,
Google, Excite, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AOL Search, Hotbot, Metacrawler, Netscape, Ask, Search,
Go, Looksmart, Dogpile, Raging Search, All the Web, Kartoo, Search Engine Watch, About