Original subtitles

Eleanor's imprisonment was over.

Henry had recognised Richard as his heir and Richard intended Eleanor to rule England.

He had more important things to do... crusade.

Eleanor had been on crusade when she was young as the wife of the King of France.

But also as the leader of her own feudal army... and now the Saracens had reconquered Jerusalem.

"Richard the Romantic" "Richard the Lionheart"...

was a totally fearless warrior whose whole upbringing had been based on Eleanor's idea of chivalry

Poet and swordsman, Christian knight and tournament hero... A handsome and dashing leader of armies.

Richard tried to live out the fantasy life of one of the heroes of Arthurian literature.

from the stories told and sung in the Court of Love.

He came to London for his coronation,

but only so that he could collect the funds to pay for his great crusade to recover Jerusalem from Saladin.

He went off on his crusade declaring that he would sell London if her could find a buyer.

The crusade itself, the "Third Crusade" was a sequence of great heroic and daring actions

that completely failed to conquer Jerusalem...

associated with bursts of extreme brutality!

Saladin quite rightly pointed out that while Richard might be able to get an army into the city...

If he wanted to hold on to it, he would have to spend the rest of his life there

The two men never met, but they fascinated and respected each other.

When Richard was ill, Saladin sent his doctor.

The final truce ensured that Christian pilgrims would be free to visit the Holy City.

But that had actually been Saladin's policy before the crusade even began.

Richard typically decided to make the journey home in 1192 into an adventure.

Travelling alone and in disguise.

That was how he got captured and ended up imprisoned by Duke Leopold of Austria,

a man he'd repeatedly insulted during the crusade.

The King of England had been found in an inn in Vienna, unconvincingly disguised as a kitchen knave.

The ransom Leopold demanded was £100,000, about eight years income to the exchequer.

Richard's recklessness was crippling for the Kingdom... and eventually fatal for him

As a storybook hero, he always seems to have expected a happy ending,

and would sometimes even forget to put on armour

That was how he got killed in the end, taking a stupid chance at an unimportant siege in 1199.

A crossbow bolt wound became infected... While he was dying, the man who'd loosed the shot

was captured and delivered to him and Richard carried on behaving as though he was in a storybook,

making a great gesture of releasing the man and giving him money.

Richard had no heir... He named his brother the 32 year old John as his successor.

Richard aged 41 died in his mother's arms. England's hero King who detested the country

and had spent just six months of his reign there.

And the man who'd killed him was rearrested and flayed alive.