1-627-859 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Effigies of King Richard I and Berengaria, from the tomb at Fontevrault Abbey, France. Richard (1157-1199) was King of England from 1189 to 1199. He was known as Richard the Lionheart, or Cœur de Lion, even before his accession because of his military reputation. He spent little of his reign in England, setting out on the Third Crusade in 1190, and from 1194 onwards fighting to regain territories in France. He remains one of the very few Kings of England remembered by reputation, not number. Berengaria (c1164-1230), Queen consort to Richard, has the distinction of being the only Queen of England never to set foot on English soil. From Cassell's Illustrated History of England.