Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/150

. The same impulse of sudden repentance coloured the later years of his life. As a brother his relations to John were something more than generous. He pardoned the treachery of 1193–4 almost at once, and very soon after restored the forfeited estates. There is no reason to suppose that Richard, as a husband, was any better than most of his contemporaries; but the vague charges of infidelity brought against him by the writer of the ‘Gesta Henrici’ find no support in the contemporary Aquitanian chronicler Geoffrey of Vigeois. To his mother, Richard seems to have been a dutiful son. As a king he certainly subordinated the interests of England to those of his Norman possessions; but, under the circumstances, he could hardly act otherwise; and there is no evidence that he ever tried to extend his French possessions by means palpably unjust. He was a stern ruler, and, when he was in Sicily, men contrasted his firmness with Philip's laxity. Even in pressing Tancred he was only claiming what he thought his rights; and the conquest of Sicily was the result of Isaac Comnenus's offence of pillaging pilgrims—an offence peculiarly hateful to Richard. He cannot have been an ally easy to work with; but, where his rights were not questioned, he was generous to a fault. He lent Philip ships, and Hugh of Burgundy money. He pensioned the fugitives that flocked to Sicily after the fall of Jerusalem, and forgave Guy de Lusignan the purchase-money of Cyprus. In warfare he seems to have combined dash and prudence to a remarkable degree. As a general he was a stern disciplinarian; though, where not responsible for the safety of others, he was the very type of a reckless knight-errant. Through his military career one feature is prominent—a tendency to rely upon mercenary troops; in other words, a standing army. As a statesman he may, at least for the last seven years of his reign, be credited with a judicious choice of ministers. It is true that he drained England of her treasure for objects in which she was not primarily interested; but he did not spend the money thus gathered ignobly, and if he took of his people's wealth he at least did not force them to shed their blood in a foreign quarrel. He was sincere in his desire to free the holy sepulchre, though his energy in this direction was doubtless strengthened by the lust of military fame and the passion for adventure. He left behind him a reputation unique among English kings; and French writers of the next century tell how even in their days his name was used by Saracen mothers to still a crying child, and by Saracen riders to check a startled horse. The name of ‘Richard of the Lion's Heart’ must have been given in Richard's lifetime; but the legend which professes to account for the title—the story of Richard's seizure of the lion's heart out of the breast of the living lion—comes from an English fourteenth-century romance, which, in its turn, is probably based on a French romance of the thirteenth. Knighton (fl. 1395) worked this legend up into sober English history.

Richard was a poet too, and bandied verses with the Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin of Auvergne. He was first the enemy, and afterwards the friend, of Bertrand de Born; and, if we may trust the thirteenth-century ‘Vies des Troubadours,’ he was the patron of Gaucelm Faidit and Arnauld Daniel, the peerless poet of Dante's admiration. He was a man of many accomplishments, and seems to have spoken better Latin than his archbishop, Hubert Walter. Shortly after, or possibly before, his death he became the hero of a long historic poem, and somewhat later of a long romance.

The Blondel legend, which bears some resemblance to one concerning Ferry III of Lorraine, first appears in the ‘Récit d'un Ménestrel de Reims’ (1260?), and secondly in the ‘Anciennes Chroniques de Flandre’ (1450?). Fauchet, the French antiquary, who derived his details from another source (not identified), referred to the story in his ‘Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et Poesie Françaises’ (1581), and suggested the identity of the legendary Blondel with the famous trouvère Blondel de Nesle. Mlle. de Villaudon wrote a popular account of it in 1705, and thence Michel-Jean Sedaine borrowed his famous opera ‘Richard Cœur de Lion,’ with music by Grétry (produced 21 April 1784). Goldsmith was the first historian to give the tale popular currency (1771). Michaud accepted it with some reserves in his ‘Croisades,’ 4th edit. ii. § 31 (cf. Comte de Puymaigre, in Revue des Questions Historiques, January 1876).

[Of other romantic stories connected with Richard I that of his capture in the disguise of a turnspit or cook is distinctly alluded to by Peter d'Ebulo (ll. 1047–52) in 1195–6 in a poem addressed to Richard's captor, the Emperor Henry VI. The contemporary English historians naturally avoid this incident, which Philip Augustus's laureate, William le Breton (fl. 1219 A.D.), gloats over. Fuller details are given by Otto de S. Blasio (fl. 1209 A.D.) and Ernoul (1229), whence the story passed into the popular Continuations of William of Tyre. The story of Richard's ring is given in fullest detail by Ralph of Coggeshall (fl. 1220), who had the tale straight from the lips of Anselm, Richard's own chaplain and companion in the adventure.