Richard’s short and much-romanticized reign was spent mostly away from England, first as leader of the Third Crusade and then on other campaigns on the Continent. When he came to the throne, at the age of thirty-two, the Roman Catholic Church was again calling for a crusade to free the Holy Land from the Infidel. After a period of years as a Latin kingdom, Jerusalem had been captured by Saladin, a Kurdish general who had also made himself sultan of Egypt.
Richard started out on the campaign with Frederick Barbarossa of Germany (who was drowned en route) and Philip Augustus of France, and he succeeded in capturing Acre in 1191. But months of fierce fighting, with legendary heroics on both sides but especially on Richard’s part, failed to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from Saladin’s grasp. Eventually Richard made a truce with his enemy and in 1192 set out for home, only to be captured and held for ransom by Leopold, Duke of Austria. He finally reached English soil in 1194 but soon was engaged in war with his former comrade, Philip Augustus. He died in Normandy from an arrow which pierced his helmet, shot at a hazard by a sentry who failed to recognize him. Richard is often portrayed as England’s ideal Christian knight and crusader.