Jerusalem: The Biography

* On his way home, Richard was captured and handed over to the German emperor Henry VI, who imprisoned him for over a year, until England had paid a large ransom. He returned to fighting the French king, bringing home some Saracen soldiers and the secret of the Greek Fire. In 1199, besieging a minor French castle, he was killed by an archer’s bolt. ‘He was’, writes Steven Runciman, ‘a bad son, a bad husband and a bad king but a gallant and splendid soldier.’