The days are going by slowly in the far East, while the difficulties only increase. The spirit of the combatants begins to fade… Everywhere are seen enemy warriors with their bows and scimitars. The city of Jaffa is defended by just 3,000 Christian warriors, while Saladin attacks it with all the strength of his numerous army.
The expected soon happens: after long and arduous battles, Jaffa is taken by the infidels. Most of the Christians perish at the point of the sword. However, just as the few survivors are about to capitulate…
Richard, King of England, appears on the horizon! “With an agile impetus, he leaps fully armed from the ship with his men and […], like a ferocious lion, bringing his sword down to the right and to the left, he boldly launches himself into the midst of the enemy battalion.”1 The sovereign invades the city square, eliminating all the adversaries he encounters and causing those his sword cannot reach to flee in terror. No obstacle can stop him!
A clash of two mentalities
Demonstrations of bravery similar to this often took place during Richard’s battles for the conquest of the Holy Land. Belonging to the Plantagenet lineage and descended from the illustrious William the Conqueror, he was the fourth son of King Henry II of England and Leonor of Aquitaine. Though not at first destined for royalty, he ended up becoming the rightful heir to the throne, crowned in 1189 after the death of his two older brothers.
At that time, the flag of Islam was flying high on the walls of Jerusalem. In the same year as Richard’s coronation, Pope Clement III, carrying out an initiative of his predecessor, Gregory VIII, organized the Third Crusade. He had the help of the most important sovereigns in Europe, including Frederick Barbarossa of Germany and Philip Augustus of France.
England also received the call from the Successor of Peter and Richard promptly joined those who would fight under the banner of the Cross, taking a valiant army with him. Made up of such daring warriors, the Third Crusade had everything it needed to win.
Saladin, the opposing leader, had an army of extraordinary size. His men believed that the greater the number of Christians they buried on the plains, the greater the delights they would enjoy in the afterlife. But what were these delights?
While the Christians were valiantly throwing themselves into battle, ready to raise the fragrant incense of their immolation to the throne of the Most High and thus inherit the true and holy joys of the Heavenly Kingdom, their adversaries sacrificed their lives to conquer a “paradise” of lust where, without rules or restraints, they could satiate the voracity of their animal nature…
Between these two armies, then, would begin not just a territorial dispute, but an unyielding battle between two opposing mentalities and ideals.
God’s hand was upon him
The fighting finally began and the English monarch soon stood out among the commanders of the Crusade for his tremendous valour. In fact, so great was the fame of his heroic exploits that his enemies feared him long before he set foot in the Middle East. This earned him the noble and terrible epithet of Lionheart.
Richard the Lionheart – St. Petroc’s Church, Bodmin (England)
All his valour, however, did not stem from mere human strength; a special assistance from God hovered over him.
It is said that in Jaffa, when he had won victory over a battalion of seventy-two thousand men, he was woken up at dawn by a sentry with the news that Saladin’s soldiers were approaching to avenge their shameful defeat. The king was clothed in his armour and, with only ten mounts at his disposal, set out with nine other soldiers to meet the Saracens, opening the way with spear and sword. Horses and riders were left prostrate where he passed, and those he had not reached fled, stunned with fear, abandoning once again the fight they had begun with such vigour. And – miracle! – no Christian was wounded in the battle, except for one who, fleeing the fight, ended up meeting the very death from which he had fled!…2
Saladin later reproached his emirs for their desertion, to which they replied: “No one can withstand the blows he [King Richard] strikes. His impetuosity is terrible, his sword is deadly, his deeds are beyond human nature.”3
In fact, were it not for the blessing of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Lion of Judah, enhancing the Lionheart’s natural abilities, he would never have been able to perform such stupendous feats. During the battle, it was said that he had been assumed by that Angel with the golden armour who helped in the glorious battles of the Maccabees (cf. 2 Mc 11:8).
“Never has a knight behaved so valiantly”
During another battle, still in Jaffa, the Christian army was surrounded by a powerful Saracen troop. Richard then risked a daring offensive, almost reckless even for him: he launched himself with such impetus into the enormous mass of the enemy that none of his men were able to follow him. Inside that melee, he attacked in all directions without stopping for an instant, whether from fatigue or enemy blows.
For a long time he disappeared from sight and they even thought he was dead, when he reappeared at full gallop, bristling with arrows, covered in blood and dust, having decimated a large number of his enemies…
About this feat, one author went so far as to say: “Never, not even in Roncesvalles, had a knight behaved so valiantly as he did in Jaffa, when he defeated the Saracens almost single-handedly.”4
Saved by a knight’s admiration
Nor did Richard lack the virtue of grandeur, just as there was no shortage of noble souls who admired him for it.
One day, while on a hunting expedition in the Sharon forest, he stopped to rest and fell asleep under a tree. He was suddenly awoken by the shouts of his companions, who announced the arrival of enemies. In an instant he mounted his horse and took up the defence; however, he soon found himself surrounded on all sides and was about to be struck when William of Pratelle, a French knight, exclaimed in the local language: “I am the king, save my life!” On hearing this exclamation – a true display of heroism – the horde rushed upon William and dragged him away as a prisoner, leaving the real king free.
The deed, praiseworthy in itself, is made all the more so by the fact that the French and the English were constantly at odds. And instead of taking the opportunity to rid himself of a rival, William gave his life to save the great Lionheart.
Against all expectations, infidelity
However… at the height of his glory, Richard’s trajectory suddenly changed. After so many magnificent exploits, just as he was on the verge of conquering the Holy City, he decided to abandon the offensive line – for reasons unknown to this day – signing an inglorious peace agreement with those he had been insatiably pursuing until then. The Lionheart, who had shown so much courage that he had become a symbol of divine sovereignty for his followers, suddenly made a decision that must have greatly disappointed the reader, as it has all the generations who have known his story.
How was such a defection possible on the part of someone who had shown such great heroism? Would he have not conquered the holy places, had he remained in the East? Would history not have taken a different course, had Richard the Lionheart liberated Jerusalem? Did he fear a victory whose magnitude would relegate him to the role of a mere instrument of Heaven? Everything suggests that his heart clung to personal glory and preferred it to the glory of God…
Against all expectations, the English sovereign sailed back to his homeland. His ship, however, was hit by a fierce storm that forced him to dock between Aquileia and Venice. Perhaps this first tragedy was a divine warning for the infidelity he had just committed!
Ruins of Pilgrim Castle, a former crusaders’ fortress, Atlit (Israel)
Although fearful of persecution from some of his rivals who held high positions in Europe, he decided to continue travelling through Austria. After some controversies, however, in December 1192 he was discovered and taken prisoner by Duke Leopold, who harboured deep resentments towards him. Many months later, he was handed over to Emperor Henry IV, who had him imprisoned in the castle of Trifels. Despite the Supreme Pontiff’s insistence that he be released, Richard remained a captive until mid-March 1194, when the English crown ransomed him for a large sum.
“The lion was killed by the ant”
Lent of 1199. For some, just one of many more to come; Richard, however, would never again hear the Alleluias of the Resurrection resound. He was taking part in the siege of a castle in Aquitaine. On a day when he went out into the field without armour, protected only by a helmet and shield, he was hit in the left shoulder by a crossbow arrow. The wound, aggravated by poor medical care, gangrened and soon caused the monarch’s death. It was April 6.
The man who had been the terror of the Church’s enemies and had extricated himself from the worst situations in their midst, met this mediocre end, struck by a single arrow on a day when he was not wearing his armour, while fighting those who ought to have been his companions in the war against the infidels… It was rightly said of him that “the lion by the ant was slain.”
The Holy Church needs new lions!
King Richard’s nickname truly defined his vocation: to have a heart burning with love for the Holy Church and willing to confront her opponents like a lion. However, a soul only has real value when it is motivated purely by a holy ideal and pulses in unison with the call received from Heaven. Any deviations caused by pride and self-love render it dishonourable in the eyes of God and man. The question, therefore, centres on a single point: for what does the heart beat?
Let us Catholics of the 21st century be horrified at the gap left in history by a soul that has failed to be what it should, and let us not follow the same path. Let us be authentic “lion hearts”, free from selfish ties and willing to make every sacrifice in defence of the Holy Church, who is more than ever awaiting lions to defend her! ◊
Notes
1 RADULPHI DE COGGESHALL. Chronicon anglicanum. London: Longman; Trübner, 1875, p.43.
2 Cf. FLORI, Jean. Ricardo Corazón de León. El rey cruzado. Barcelona: Edhasa, 2002, p.411.
3 MICHAUD, Joseph-François. História das Cruzadas. São Paulo: Editora das Américas, 1956, v.III, p.168.
4 FLORI, op. cit., p.509.
