Was Richard I the Lionhearted a good king in your opinion?

Question

Was he a hero, tyrant, or somewhere in between, acording to your personal standards.

Answer 1

Probably he ate the heart of lion for breakfast. And thus was known as lion hearted.  Whereas chicken heated means one with a heart as small as that of chicken.

Coming back to lion-hearted have you observed how lion tends for its off springs?

Answer 2

Not really.  Can't really admire a man who said he would sell London if he could find someone to buy it (to finance his Crusade).  He spent less than a year in England, and probably less than half his reign in his own lands.  As mentioned, his Crusades, and then his ransom when he got captured on the way home, was a financial drain.

The best things done in his reign can be attributed mostly to his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine & his government.

Militarily speaking, he was a great warrior & a noble appearing knight, but a lousy diplomat.  Richard Yea or Nay they called him--everything in black & white.  Capable of great cruelty & great kindness--he pardoned the boy who killed him; too bad his men didn't obey & slaughtered the poor boy as soon as Richard died.  

I can't say he was a tyrant, for he was no worse than many other medieval monarchs, and better than some.  But he doesn't fit into my notions of a hero, either.

Answer 3

As a king he was rubbish.

He was supposed to be the King of England yet he was a frenchman who spoke french most of the time and only spent six months in England in his life.

Answer 4

Contrary to popular belief, Richard the Lionheart was a tyrant.

Answer 5

From what I know, not particularly.  He was mostly an absentee monarch, spending most of his reign fighting in the Crusades rather than doing much of anything back in England.

Answer 6

He spent more of his life in his holdings in southern France than he did in England.  This was at a time when the King of England controlled more land in France than the King of France did.  

He was a failure as a crusader.

His wars were an unnecessary financial drain on the kingdom.

Answer 7

I am descended from him and even family loyalty cannot make me say he was a good king. He was never in England and milked the poor country dry for his stupid crusades.

Here Robin Hood and the Merry Men were fighting Prince John (also an embarrassing ancestor of mine) and waiting for Richard to come back to England, I bet a couple of months after he got there, they were pretty disappointed.

The worst thing about having a little royal blood is that when you read history, it's clear most royalty were terrible people.

Answer 8

Is he the one that drowned because he fell off the boat?

Answer 9

He was a romantic ahead of his times.I recall,also "g*y-hearted" before 'gayPrides',but he was royal.Many admirable qualities and foibles

Edit_thinking clearly is right.

The worst of knowing one of those was your gggggfather,is that you are embarrased of their (in)famous way to carry on life.But again,it came with birth right/weight conditioning,and having Power is not the safest ground to keep a balanced mind or Sanity.Glad my own royal ancestor split from the Court and halls of intrigues.As far away from them as you can.

Answer 10

In between. He hated England and didn't even speak English, but he did put up a great fight in the Holy Land.