Reputation and Criticism

my name's Dr Hugh Dougherty.

I'm a lecturer in mediaeval history here at the

School of History at the University of East Anglia.

And today I'd like to talk about Richard, the first king

of the English, Duke of the Normans

and the Aquitaine, Ian's and Counter the and Evans, who was king

in the last decade of the 12th century.

Richard the first, is always been treated as a romantic figure, a soldier,

a warrior, a crusader.

He's featured in

novels in films

and cast as this heroic figure,

at least until relatively recently.

Despite this romantic reputation, he's been treated

rather

unkindly,

rather indeed unfairly, um, by historians in the 19th and the 20th centuries.

They've dismissed him as a hothead, Uh, no more than a soldier, Uh,

not half the king that his father was.

Um this criticism was levelled at Richard for really two reasons.

One was that he wasn't a truly English king. He didn't spend enough time in England.

Uh,

this is a view that is particularly enunciated in

the 19th and early part of the 20th century,

and to some extent in certain books, um, in certain quarters still is, uh,

he was a king who was happier,

uh, overseas.

You know, in our post Brexit period,

we want our kings to be truly English based here in England.

The second criticism is that he goes on crusade,

and, uh, a real English king doesn't follow the orders, Uh,

of the pope doesn't leave his, uh, his kingdom to fight

holy war.

And together these two criticisms have been levelled at Richard.

And he's been seen as a king who has wasted the resources of his kingdom, whose, uh,

failed the inheritance of his father, his formidable father Henry the second.

And in the late 20th century, uh, there was a new level of criticism.

We see this particularly in the wonderful play in film The Lion in Winter,

in which a young Anthony Hopkins I believe his

first cinematic role was cast as Richard the first

and which the first is

depicted in the play. And then in the film

as a psychopath

and as gay.

Uh, and the two together are showing Richard as as a figure who is, um,

not not the sort of king that his father was,

um, and will return to these three charges.

Um, the case of his sexuality is neither here nor there.

Uh, even if he was gay, Um,

it politically it the only real implication it has is his failure to produce an heir.

Um, the evidence for his sexuality is actually, uh,

difficult to interpret. So it's difficult to say what his sexuality was.

This makes a

This makes the charred These this, uh,

this presentation of a king who failed in

his duty to produce a son Rather groundless.

He does marry, um,

and it maybe he's simply unlucky that he's killed before he has a chance

to

to give birth to a son to an air. A successor.

Um,

more importantly, are the two the two charges about his absence and his crusading.

Now Richard is not, and we might call a classic late, mediaeval English king.

His inheritance incorporated large parts of, um,

modern France, as well as the kingdom of the English.

His French territory stretched from the channel

all the way to the Pyrenees and included Normandy, formerly Brittany or Zhu,

Poitou, and Gascony and Aquitaine.

And all this territory had been inherited from his father.

This was his inheritance, as well as

the kingdom of the English,

uh, this charge that he departed,

he left England that he's only here in the English Kingdom for a brief window

is never one articulated by a contemporary.

Contemporaries understood that Richard needed to defend his inheritance,

and his inheritance was most at threat in France, not in England

in throughout his reign, England is relatively secure, is

managed well, is run well

by a body, a series of effective officials.

So Richard has a duty to defend his inheritance,

and his inheritance is most vulnerable from the challenge posed by his rival,

the French king, the king of Franks Philip, the second

Philip Augustus in France.

So that's why Richard spent so much time

in his French territory because he has such

an extensive frontier to defend against the aggression

of King Philip.

When it comes to crusading

again. No contemporary

charges Richard with departing his kingdom on this ignoble cause.

In fact, quite the opposite. Contemporaries are full of praise

for Richard's embracing the call to arms. The call to holy war. They're impressed.

They're full of pride that an English king leads armies,

rescues the city of Acre and fights his way down the

Palestinian coast to get close to the city of Jerusalem.

So both of these criticisms of his absence in

France and his crusading can simply be dismissed.

Um,

I think we want to think about Richard more in terms of contemporary

values and contemporary assessments of kingship

and leadership in the 12th century.