A History of Britain (episode3/15 part6/6)

[Tossphate]

Personally I'd much rather have excalibur than magna carta...

[PrUnEJuIcEtHeThIrD]

Will. This. Narrator. Please. Stop. Shaking. And. Nodding. His. Head. Thank. You.

[davrothelegend]

Comparing history to movies is a watse of time. Movies are for entertainment nothing else.

[Bullettube]

I wish I could find a really good biography on King Richards life. Every book I have found so far do not delve into what kind of person he really was. Was he a tyrant at heart or just a man of his times? Was he intellectually curious, did he understand his place in history or was he just along for the ride?

[EraserKneaded]

@Bullettube The account of British history I enjoyed the most was "A History of the English Speaking Peoples" by Winston Churchill. The first volume is "The Birth of Britain", covering the arrival of the Romans to King John, Richard's brother and the Magna Carta. It's out of print, I'm sure, but who knows, if you keep your eyes open you might be lucky. Churchill does a great job of delivering the history and bringing out the personalities at the same time.

[EraserKneaded]

@EraserKneaded Yikes, I think I posted twice, sorry. One more thing, Richard knew his place in world. He adopted the motto "Dieu et mon droit." It means "God and my right" and it says that as ar as Richard was concerned, he rule with God's permission and nobody stood between God and him. The motto is still part of the British emblem. The idea became known as Divine Right, the holy right of Kings to rule, and it was the bare beginning of England's separation from the Pope and Catholic Church.

[EraserKneaded]

@Bullettube Maybe my comments sounded like I was negative about Richard, but I just wanted to add some real background because the entertainment industry has done such a good job of making a fictional wonderboy of him and most people aren't aware of it. I don't think he was better or worse than any other ruler of his time. They had to be ready and willing to be bloody nasty just to survive. They were all muderous buggers. :-)

[Bullettube]

@EraserKneaded Yes, like the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner in which Sean Connery played king Richard! You would have gotten the impression that Richard was the wisest and best king in the world and John was the evilest. But face it, historical facts rarely make for an exciting movie, and if the facts get in the way of a good action scene then the facts get the axe.

[EraserKneaded]

@Bullettube Yeah. Another error in modern stories is that medievil rulers probably didn't think in terms of nationhood as in "Mother England" and "good ol' France. They probably thought in terms of their personal holdings and their personal military and political security. I think to them family was the nation, the political unit. Loyalty and allegiance was based on the family. Marriages were the treaties and political alignments. Their sections of turf were sources of income and soldiers.

[EraserKneaded]

@Bullettube I don't think Richard was better or worse than any other ruler of the time. They had to be ready willing and able to be bloody nasty just to survive. They were all murdeous buggers. :-) He was an intellectual, he wrote poetry in Norman French and another language, I forget which. The fact that he could write is significant. He was nasty, the word "holocaust" first appears in connection with him, for his masacre of Jews in England.

[Bullettube]

After watching "Robin Hood", starring Russel Crowe, I watched this episode over to better understand what the historical backstory really was. The movie compressed the time frame quite a bit, but overall got the emotions and importance right.

[EraserKneaded]

@Bullettube

Richard Lionheart was a bisexual Frenchman. Spent his youth hiding behind his mother's skirts, plotting to kill his father. King of England for several years, spent six months on English soil, never learned the language, hated the place. Wanted to auction it to raise money for war. Spent his adult years waging war for wealth and power. King of France was his cousin, when they weren't rolling around in bed, they were trying to kill each other.

[EraserKneaded]

@Bullettube

In the Holyland Richard was told the Saracens hid jewelry by making people swallow it, so he had all his priisoners, men, women and children gutted looking for wealth. Probably a psychotic by today's standards, but that's what it took to be King.

[EraserKneaded]

@Bullettube

Richard was disappointed that he found no jewelry inside his prisoners because once their guts had been ripped out he couldn't sell them as slaves. Poor man, what's a Movie Hero supposed to do when he's given bad advice? On his way home from the Holyland he was captured, held for ransom. England paid the price, but he went to France to do more battle. England was too cold, wet and muddy for hist taste. Historical background.

[PoliticalPars]

A wonderful gift, you posting this series. It is absorbing and educational.

[CatAtomic99]

This is a fantastic series. I wish there were like this on American TV. The History Channel is full of a lot of overwrought, overdramatized crap-- usually about Hitler.