September 8, 1157
Oxford, England

April 6, 1199
Chaluz, Aquitaine, France

King of England

"Since the beginning of the world we have never heard of such a knight, so brave and so experienced in arms. In every deed at arms he is without rival, first to advance, last to retreat.... His deeds are not human."

—A Muslim leader, quoted in Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade.

Richard I was king of England for a decade at the end of the twelfth century, but in that time this "absent" king spent only six months in the country he ruled. Although he was born in England, he was raised at his mother's court in the French province of Aquitaine, speaking French and...