ard shares only his undoubted fighting prowess and some talent as a troubadour with the Richard of popular legend. Of the ten years he reigned as King of England, he spent only about six months in that country. His native tongue was French, and it is most unlikely that he could understand or speak a word of English.2 He certainly made no effort whatsoever to bring Normans and Saxons to amity, nor to restore right and justice to the realm of England. On the contrary, he taxed England heavily to raise funds for his wars abroad. The most colorful way historians have expressed his role historical as King of England is to say that he treated it as the "milch cow" of the Third Crusade.
Nor was he particularly the embodiment of chivalry, at least as we commonly imagine chivalry today. He was certainly a magnificent fighter and capable general, who won the respect of his enemies Muslim and Christian (and he fought Christians more often than he fought Muslims). He could at times be magnanimous. He is said to have ordered the crossbowman who dealt him the wound from which he died to be brought before him on his deathbed. He forgave the man and ordered him released. (After his death, however, the unfortunate man was flayed alive.)
On the other hand, after the fall of Acre Richard ordered as many as four thousand Muslim prisoners of war, who had surrendered on honorable terms, to be massacred in cold blood. For generations afterwards, Muslims in Syria mentioned his name with fear, a popular reputation in striking contrast to the enduring reputation of Saladin among his Christian enemies.
Nor did Richard the Lion Hearted participate in any substantial way in the more softening and civilizing features of chivalric life. His mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was one of the principal creaters of the cult of courtly love, which sought to elevate plain old soldierly lust into a knight's quasi worship of his lady. Ri...