Here’s another story I like. It has revenge in it and, like yesterday’s entry, more flaying. I don’t have any particular interest in flaying. It just keeps coming up.

Richard I (you may know him as Richard the Lionhearted) only lived to be 41 years old. If he really did everything they say he did—and by ‘they’ I mean Wikipedia—then he had a busy 41 years. He managed to put down revolts against his father, King Henry II. He had a major role in the third crusade, engineered by his father and Philip II of France. Somewhere in all this, Robin Hood was running around making mischief in Sherwood Forest, and pioneering the use of green tights.

But that’s not the fun part. No, the fun part comes in 1199, after he returns to Europe. Richard I is running around and fighting with the French (who, by his later years, weren’t getting along anymore with the English). Laying siege to one castle in particular, he notices a boy defending the walls of the castle with a frying pan and a crossbow. Continue reading →