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| Baron Master Sean O'Shaughnessy |
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| Blazon: |
| Gules, a bend dancetty between two shamrocks bendwise argent |
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| Interests: |
| Cooking, eating, fighting, teaching our youth how to participate in combat, chivalry, and service, and serving the game. |
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| Persona: |
| 12th century Irish Bloke |
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| Awards Received: | | Award | Date Received | Anno Societatus | | | Order of the Pelican | 02/01/2003 | AS: XXXVII |  | | Court Baron / Baroness | 05/27/2006 | AS: XLI |  | | Order of the Dragon's Heart | 02/02/2002 | AS: XXXVI |  | | Grant of Arms | 11/10/2007 | AS: XLII | | | Order of the Willow | 07/13/1991 | AS: XXVI |  | | Award of the Purple Fret | 06/04/1988 | AS: XXIII |  | | Award of Arms | 09/19/1987 | AS: XXII | |
| | | | About: |
A story told by Sean O’Shaughnessy
I, Sean O’Shaughnessy, have just returned from the funeral of King Richard the Lionheart. Richard had slain thousands of well trained warriors in battle but he was felled by a young boy who made a lucky shot with his crossbow. Hundreds attended His Majesty’s funeral. Most of those in attendance mourned his passing; some celebrated his life; the rest celebrated his passing. Richard's brain is buried at the abbey of Charroux in Poitou. His heart lies buried at Rouen in Normandy. The rest of his body lies at the feet of his father Henry II at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou. I am here to tell you the story of this infamous crusade.
Much has been said of events leading to the Third Crusade, the mustering of knights for the crusades, the victories and losses of our noble knights, and the unfortunate loss of 2,700 brave Arabian knights who were our prisoners. Some of what has been said is fact, some is legend, and some is pure falsehood. While I cannot sort out the martyrs from the infidels, I can help you understand what led up to the crusades and the unfortunate events that took place. Before I begin, I need to give you some background on me, the crusades and how King Richard came to lead the armies.
First, my story and how I came to know and serve Richard four years before he was crowned as King of England. My parents, Mary Plantagenet and Dougal O’Shaughnessy met and were wed in 1173 shortly after King Henry II landed in Ireland. I was born less than a year later and lived with my family near Dublin, Ireland. We stayed there until my father passed away when I was about 10 years old in 1184. My mother decided to return to her homeland where she raised me in King Henry II’s house. This is where I met and learned the arts martial from Richard. I grew up with Richard, who was 16 years older than me. When he was crowned King of England in 1189, I helped prepare his coronation banquet. When he took up the cross to lead the crusade six months later, I went with him to bear his colours on the battlefield. I got to see His Majesty up close and personal.
Why did we start the crusades?
Mohammad the Prophet founded the Muslin religion in northern Africa. Over the years, the Muslim faith spread to the east and north through Israel to the Black Sea. It also spread west across North Africa before crossing the Straits of Gibraltar and into Spain. The spread of the Muslim faith was deemed to be a threat to both the Church’s hold on the Holy Roman Empire and Christianity itself.
It has long been said that Pope Urban II called for the crusades at the end of the Council of Clermont in 1095. However, the call for a crusade to liberate Jerusalem was made by Pope Gregory VII some 25 years earlier. Pope Gregory may have merely repeated the chanting of Peter the Hermit who called for the liberation of the Holy Lands from the Muslims. The Crusades themselves may not have taken place had it not for a major change in Christian thinking that had been emerging for over 100 years.
In 878, Pope John Paul VIII granted indulgences for sins those fighting the heathen. He said “You have modestly expressed a desire to know whether those who have recently died in war, fighting in defense of the church of God and for the preservation of the Christian religion and of the state, or those who may in the future fall in the same cause, may obtain indulgence for their sins. We confidently reply that those who, out of love to the Christian religion, shall die in battle fighting bravely against pagans or unbelievers shall receive eternal life. For the Lord has said through his prophet: "In whatever hour a sinner shall be converted, I will remember his sins no longer. By the intercession of St. Peter, who has the power of binding and loosing in heaven and on the earth, we absolve, as far as is permissible, all such and commend them by our prayers to the Lord.“
For over 800 years, the Church championed peace and love. Early Christians were martyred for their faith by the Romans passively to defend the Church. Pope John Paul VIII created the justification and promised eternal salvation for those who die while slaying the Church’s enemies.
The Third Crusade
Originally, we went on the Crusades to liberate Jerusalem. We were victorious in the First Crusade only to lose the captured territories later. We went on the Second Crusade to recapture the Holy Land only to lose it again. The Third Crusade was justified by the emergence of Saladin as the most recent Muslim conqueror of Jerusalem. We did not capture Jerusalem on the Third Crusade but we did extract surrender from Saladin.
Saladin took the Holy Land in the Battle of Hattin in October of 1187. Richard had taken up the cross as a crusader that year when he was still the Count of Poitou. After hearing the news of the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, Richard’s father, King Henry II of England and King Philip II of France, both took up the cross at Gisors in January 1188. Richard became King of England on July 6, 1189 after his father’s death. Having become king, Richard agreed to jointly lead the Third Crusade with King Phillip II of France. Neither King trusted the other to refrain from invading their territories while they were on Crusade so they chose to go on the crusade together.
Richard had a reputation of seducing young men and raping young women. As a champion for the Holy Mother Church, Richard needed to seek and receive forgiveness for his sins. As a result, Richard swore an oath to renounce his past wickedness in order to show he was worthy to take the cross.
Richard raised and equipped a new army. He spent most of his father's treasury (filled with money raised by the Saladin tithe). He raised taxes. He even freed King William I of Scotland from his oath of subservience to Richard in exchange for 10,000 Marks. To raise even more money he sold official positions, rights, and lands to those interested in them. Even those already appointed were asked to pay huge sums to retain their posts. William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and the King's Chancellor, made a show of bidding £3,000 to remain as Chancellor. He was apparently outbid by a certain Reginald the Italian, but Richard so loved the Bishop of Ely that he rejected the higher bid from Reginald. Richard needed money to build his army; he sold everything he could to raise the needed money.
We departed for the Holy Land on board a fleet of ships. Previous Crusades used overland routes to move the armies across Europe, through the Balkans, and on to the Holy Land. It has been said that King Richard and King Phillip chose to use the high seas to move the armies since this was believed to be a faster way of getting to Jerusalem. The sea route made it convenient for Richard to invade Sicily and rescue his sister Joan, the widowed Queen of Sicily when King William II, Richard’s cousin, died. He also needed to set up a base of operations that was not under the direct control of the Saracens so we invaded Cyprus, too.
The Occupation of Sicily
Tancred of Lecce was crowned king of Sicily early in 1190 as King Tancred I after the death of his cousin, King William II. The legal heir to the Sicilian throne was in fact William's aunt Constance, wife of the new Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, not Tancred. Tancred had imprisoned William's widow, Queen Joan. Now please recall that Queen Joan was Richard’s sister. King Tancred refused to give Queen Joan the inheritance money from William's will. In September 1190 we arrived in Sicily. Richard demanded that his sister be released and that she be given her inheritance.
The presence of foreign troops caused a great deal of unrest in Sicily. In October, the people of Messina revolted, demanding that we leave. We attacked Messina, capturing it in less then a month. We stayed there until Tancred agreed to sign a treaty with both Richard and Phillip. The treaty signed on 4 March 1191 had as its main terms:
• Richard’s sister, Joan, was released from prison and received her inheritance and the dowry her father had given to her late husband.
• Richard and Philip recognized Tancred as King of Sicily and vowed to keep the peace between all three of their kingdoms.
• Richard officially proclaimed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, son of Geoffrey, as his heir, and Tancred promised to marry one of his daughters to Arthur when he came of age.
• Richard and Tancred exchanged gifts. Richard gave Tancred a sword which he claimed was Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur.
We left Sicily after signing the treaty with Tancred. The treaty undermined Richard's relationships with the Holy Roman Empire and caused Richard’s brother Prince John to revolt. Although John’s revolt failed in England, he continued to scheme against his brother for the rest of Richard’s life.
A base of operation at Cyprus
In April 1191, we stopped on the Byzantine island of Rhodes to avoid a gale on the high seas. We left Rhodes in May but a new storm drove our fleet to Cyprus We arrived in the port of Lemesos on Cyprus on 6 May 1191, and captured the city. The island’s leader, Isaac Komnenos, arrived too late to stop us, and he retired to Kolossi. Richard called Isaac to negotiations but Isaac demanded our departure. We fought Isaac's army at Tremetusia. The few Cypriot Roman Catholics and those nobles on the island who opposed Isaac's rule joined our army and fought with us against Isaac.
Even though Isaac and his men fought bravely, our army was bigger and better equipped, assuring our victory. We also received military assistance from the King of Jerusalem and Guy of Lusignan. Isaac resisted from the castles of Pentadactylos but after the siege of Kantara Castle, he finally surrendered.
Once Isaac had been captured, Richard had him confined with silver chains, because he had promised that he would not place him in irons. Isaac's young daughter was kept in the household of Berengaria and Joan. Richard had our army loot the island and put to the sword those who were trying to resist us. Most of our army left Cyprus for the Holy Land in early June, having gained for the Crusade a supply base that was not under immediate threat from the Turks as was the case in Tyre.
Richard's Marriage to Berengaria
Richard had his future wife, Berengaria meet us on Cyprus. He had met his fiancée Berengaria only once and that was years before their wedding. He had asked his mother to represent him in negotiations and convince her father, King Sancho VI of Navarre to the wedding and to bring the bride to him. Before leaving Cyprus, Richard married Berengaria. The wedding was held in Limassol on 12 May 1191, one week after arriving in Cyprus at the Chapel of St. George. It was attended by Richard’s sister Joan, whom Richard had brought from Sicily. Now when Richard married Berengaria he was still officially betrothed to Alys. Richard had pushed for the match with Berengaria to obtain Navarre as a fief like Aquitaine. Eleanor Aquitaine championed the match, as Navarre bordered on Aquitaine, thereby securing her ancestral lands' borders to the south. Richard took his new bride with him briefly on the crusade. However, Richard sent Berengaria home for safety from the hazards of war.
Richard had to be ordered by the Church to reunite with and show fidelity to Berengaria in the future, being told to "remember the destruction of Sodom and abstain from illicit acts." This has been presented as evidence that Richard engaged in trysts with men, although Richard argued that "the sin of Sodom" could be interpreted more broadly. Richard had already been accused of raping women. It is rumored that Berengaria's own brother, the future Sancho VII, was one of Richard's early lovers. Nevertheless, when Richard died in 1199, Berengaria was greatly distressed, apparently having loved her husband very much even though he saw her almost as seldom his native England.
Richard in the Holy Land
We landed at Acre on 8 June 1191, one month after the King’s marriage. Richard gave his support to his Poitevin vassal Guy of Lusignan, who had brought troops to help us in Cyprus. Guy was the widower of his father's cousin Sibylla of Jerusalem, and was trying to retain the kingship of Jerusalem, despite his wife's death during the siege of Acre the previous year. Guy's claim was challenged by Conrad of Montferrat, second husband of Sibylla's half-sister, Isabella:
Conrad, whose defense of Tyre had saved the kingdom in 1187, was supported by King Philip of France and by Phillip’s cousin, Duke Leopold V of Austria. Richard also allied with Humphrey IV of Toron, Isabella's first husband, from whom she had been forcibly divorced in 1190. Humphrey was loyal to Guy, and spoke Arabic fluently, so Richard used him as a translator and negotiator. Richard led our forces and aided in the capture of Acre, despite the King's serious illness. At one point, while sick from scurvy and carried on a stretcher, Richard picked off guards on the walls with a crossbow.
Eventually, Conrad of Montferrat concluded the surrender negotiations with Saladin, and raised the banners of the kings in the city. Richard quarreled with Leopold V of Austria over the deposition of Isaac Komnenos (related to Leopold's Byzantine mother) and his position within the Crusade. Leopold's banner had been raised alongside the English and French standards. This was interpreted as arrogance by both Richard and Philip, as Leopold was a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor. Richard's men tore the flag down and threw it in the moat of Acre. Leopold left the Crusade immediately. King Philip also left soon afterwards, in poor health and after further disputes with King Richard over the status of Cyprus. Philip demanded half the island and the kingship of Jerusalem for himself. We suddenly found ourselves without allies in a foreign land. Richard would live to regret not relying on the forces led by Duke Leopold V of Austria as we tried to return to England.
Richard had succeeded in getting promises of surrender from Saladin and the return of the True Cross. However, as time went on, our hopes for a sustained peace and return of the True cross waned. Richard kept 2,700 Muslim prisoners as hostages against Saladin fulfilling all the terms of the surrender of the lands around Acre. Richard was afraid that our forces would be bottled up in Acre. He believed his campaign could not advance with the prisoners in chains and in tow behind our troops. Releasing the prisoners would have just swelled the ranks of Saladin’s army. Richard ordered that all the prisoners be killed.
We moved the army south, defeated Saladin's forces at the Battle of Arsuf on September 7, 1191. Richard attempted to negotiate with Saladin, offering his widowed sister, Joan of Sicily, as a bride for Saladin's brother Al-Adil, but this was unsuccessful. In the first half of 1192, he and his troops refortified Ascalon. Saladin wanted to avenge the loss of 2,700 brave Arabian knights slain by Richard’s word.
An election forced Richard to accept Conrad of Montferrat as King of Jerusalem, and he sold Cyprus to his defeated protégé, Guy. However, only days later, on April 28, 1192, Conrad was stabbed to death by assassins before he could be crowned. Eight days later, Richard's own nephew, Henry II of Champagne was married to the widowed Isabella, although she was carrying Conrad's child. The murder has never been solved but Richard's enemies suspect his involvement.
Realizing that we had no hope of holding Jerusalem even if we took it, Richard ordered a retreat. There were a series of minor skirmishes with Saladin's forces while Richard and Saladin negotiated a settlement to the conflict, as both realized that their respective positions were growing untenable. Richard knew that both King Philip II of France and Richard’s own brother Prince John were starting to plot against him. However, Saladin insisted on the razing of Ascalon's fortifications, which Richard's men had rebuilt. Richard made one last attempt to strengthen his bargaining position by attempting to invade Egypt — Saladin's chief supply-base — but we failed. In the end, time ran out for us. Richard realized that our return to England could be postponed no longer, since both Philip and John were taking advantage of his absence. He and Saladin finally came to a settlement on September 2, 1192. This included the destruction of Ascalon's wall as well as an agreement allowing Christian access to and presence in Jerusalem. It also included a three-year truce.
Richard’s captivity and return
We left the Holy Land on board our ships. However, bad weather forced us to put in at Corfu, in the lands of the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos, who objected to Richard's annexation of Cyprus which was formerly Byzantine territory.
Disguised as a Knight Templar, Richard sailed from Corfu with four of us acting as attendants. As we sailed up the coast, we were lured to shore by the “wreckers” – those thieves who put lights on shore at night in the hopes of luring boats to seek anchor on shore only to find themselves on the rocks near shore. However, our ship was wrecked near Aquileia, forcing us into a dangerous land route through central Europe. We made our way as quietly as possible, stopping to help other travelers, and extracting food and favors from the lords and ladies we met along the way.
On our way to the territory ruled by Henry of Saxony, Richard was captured just before Christmas 1192, near Vienna, by Duke Leopold V of Austria. Leopold accused Richard of arranging for the murder of his cousin Conrad of Montferrat. The rest of us had been travelling in disguise as low-ranking pilgrims, but Richard was identified either because he was wearing an expensive ring, or because of his insistence on eating roast chicken, a delicacy reserved for royalty.
The Duke handed Richard over as a prisoner to Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor after being held captive at Dürnstein. It was here that Richard wrote Ja nus hons pris or Ja nuls om pres, a song in French, expressing his feelings of abandonment by his people. The conditions of his captivity were not severe. Richard declared to the emperor, "I am born of a rank which recognizes no superior but God".
We talked to Richard’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and she worked to raise the ransom of 150,000 Marks (2-3 times the annual income for the English Crown under Richard) demanded by Henry VI. Both clergy and laymen were taxed for a quarter of the value of their property, the gold and silver treasures of the churches were confiscated, and money was raised from the scutage and the carucage taxes. The emperor demanded that 100,000 marks be delivered to him before he would release the king, the same amount raised by the Saladin tithe only a few years earlier.
At the same time, John, Richard's brother, and King Philip of France offered 80,000 marks for the Emperor to hold Richard prisoner until Michaelmas 1194. The emperor turned down the offer. The money to rescue the King was transferred to Germany by the emperor's ambassadors, but had it been lost along the way, Richard would have been held responsible. Finally, on 4 February 1194 Richard was released. King Philip sent a message to Richard’s brother, John, "Look to yourself; the devil is loose."
Richard’s later years
During Richard’s absence, John had come close to seizing the English throne several times. Richard forgave him when they met, and, bowing to political necessity, named him as his heir in place of Arthur, whose mother Constance of Brittany was perhaps already open to the overtures of Philip II. Richard came into conflict with Philip. When Phillip attacked Richard's fortress, Chateau-Gaillard ('The Saucy Castle'), he boasted that "if its walls were iron, yet would I take it," to which Richard replied, "If these walls were butter, yet would I hold them!"
Richard was passionate in his zeal to resist King Philip II's designs on English lands. He poured all his military expertise and resources into war on the French. He constructed alliances against Philip, including Baldwin IX of Flanders, Renaud, Count of Boulogne, and his father-in-law King Sancho VI of Navarre, who raided Philip's lands from the south. Partly as a result of these and other intrigues, Richard won several victories over Philip. At Freteval in 1194, just after Richard's return from captivity and money-raising in England to France, Philip fled, leaving his entire archive of financial audits and documents to be captured by Richard. At the battle of Gisors in 1198 Richard took "God and my Right" as his motto, echoing his earlier boast to the Emperor Henry that his rank acknowledged no superior but God.
Richard’s Death and Legacy
In the early evening of the March 25, 1199, Richard was walking around the castle without his chainmail, investigating the progress of sappers on the castle walls. Arrows were occasionally shot from the castle walls, but these were given little attention. One defender in particular was of great amusement to the King. A man was standing on the walls with a crossbow in one hand and a frying pan in the other. This defender had been using the frying pan all day as a shield to beat off missiles. He deliberately aimed an arrow at the King, which the King applauded. However, another arrow struck King Richard in the left shoulder near the neck. He tried to remove the arrow himself in the privacy of his tent, but failed. A surgeon removed it, carelessly mangling the King's arm in the process. The wound became gangrenous. Accordingly, Richard asked to have the crossbowman brought before him. The man proved a boy named Pierre Basile.
This boy claimed that Richard had slain his father and two brothers, and that he had slain Richard in vengeance. The boy expected to be slain. Richard, as a last act of mercy, forgave the boy his crime, saying, "Live on, and by my bounty behold the light of day," before ordering the boy to be freed and sent away with 100 shillings. Richard then set his affairs in order, bequeathing all his territory to his brother John. Richard bequeathed his jewels to his nephew Otto. Richard died three weeks later on Tuesday, April 6, 1199 in the arms of his mother. Richard’s last act of chivalry proved pointless. As soon as Richard died, his captain Mercadier had the boy flayed alive and then hanged.
Richard's legacy
• First, Richard captured Cyprus, which proved immensely valuable in keeping the Frankish kingdoms in the Holy Land viable for another century.
• Second, his absence from the English political landscape meant that the highly efficient government created by his father was allowed to entrench itself, though King John would later abuse it to the breaking point.
• Lastly, Richard's legacy was romantic and literary. No matter the facts of his reign, he left an indelible impact on the imagination of bards everywhere largely due to his military exploits.
It may be said of Richard that was a bad son, a bad husband, a bad king, a careless politician but a gallant and splendid soldier. The crusades were started, supposedly, to liberate Jerusalem and to secure the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusades became a great source for greed, hatred and grief. They did little to liberate Jerusalem, even temporarily.
As a young man, I thought bravery wore chain mail and rode a horse. In the Holy Land, I learned that there is a greater bravery. A lone man, fighting to protect his home and family, shows more bravery than any group of knights anywhere in the world.
References used:
1. In Migne, Patrologia Latina, 148:329 trans. Oliver J. Thatcher, and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., A Source Book for Medieval History, (New York: Scribners, 1905), 512-13
2. Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, 1, pp. 382 f., trans in Oliver J. Thatcher, and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., A Source Book for Medieval History, (New York: Scribners, 1905), 513-17
3. Medieval Sourcebook: Leo IV (847-855) - Forgiveness of Sins for Those Who Dies in Battle With the Heathen Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864) II, 9-29 (pp. 150-83), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 166-74
4. Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864) III, 1, 5, 13, 17-18 (pp. 210-11, 214-17, 224-26, 231-34), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 175-81
5. Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864) VI, 27-28 (pp. 427-30), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 185-86
6. Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864) IV, 2, 4 (pp. 240-41, 243), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 183-84
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