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Today's Featured Biography
Richard I., King of England
 Richard I., King of England, surnamed Coeur de Lion, was the third son of Henry II. and his queen, Eleanor, and was born at Oxford, in the king's manor house there, afterward the monastery of the White Friars, in September, 1157. By the treaty of Montmirail, concluded on January 6, 1169, between Henry and Louis VII. of France, it was stipulated that the duchy of Aquitaine should be made over to Richard, who should do homage and fealty for it to Louis, and should espouse Adelais, or Alice, that king's youngest daughter; and in 1170 King Henry, being taken ill at Domfront, in Maine, made a will, by which he confirmed this arrangement. In 1173 Richard, with his younger brother, Geoffrey, and their mother, joined their eldest brother, Henry, in his first rebellion against their father. On the submission of the rebels, in September, 1174, Richard received two castles in Poitou, with half the revenue of that earldom, and, along with Geoffrey, did homage and swore fealty to their father.
Nevertheless Richard continued from this time to hold the government of the whole of Aquitaine, and to be usually styled, as before, Duke of Aquitaine, or Duke of Poitou (which were considered as the same title), although it appears that King Henry now looked upon the arrangements made at the treaty of Montmirail as annulled, and that dukedom to have actually reverted to himself. In 1183 Richard refused, when commanded by his father, to do homage for Aquitaine to his elder brother, Henry; on whi...
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