s 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 as King of England is to say that he treated England as the "milch cow" of his enterprises.3
For all his splendid popular reputation, historians have tended to regard him as one of the worst Kings of England in the Middle Ages, a man who took much out of the country in terms of men and treasure, and returned nothing of substance.4 Yet there was plainly something in his character and qualities of zzleadership that left a lasting impression, and an impression of a sort that could ultimately ripen into the legendary achievements for which he is still remembered. As we shall also see, the criticism of his role as King of England, and of the military emphasis of his governance elsewhere in his domains, may miss the mark in two respects. There is strong reason to believe that Richard thought of himself first and foremost as Duke of Aquitaine, and Aquitaine rather than England was thus the focus of his active interest and of his career. Moreover, conditions in Aquitaine (and elsewhere in his French domains) were such that the principal demands on a ruler were military rather than administrative.
Richard's father, Henry II, was one of the greatest and most formidable of medieval English kings, yet he is overshadowed in many ways by his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In an age when female subjection to male authority was unquestioned in Western Christendom, she married and was divorced by one king (Louis VIIof France), married and was imprisoned for sixteen years by another (Henry II), and was the mother of two more (Richard and John of England). She accompanied her first husband on the Second Crusade, reputedly leading a band of armed ladies.5 While in Syria she was rumored to have carried on an affair with...