Lionheart and Lackland, by Frank McLynn
17th Nov 2006, 01:55 GMT
Richard I was a hairy king with a Lion's Heart; he went roaring around the desert making ferocious attacks on the Saladins and Paladins and was thus a very romantic king. John was an Awful King, who flung himself on the rushes foaming at the mouth during his frequent temper tantrums and lost the Crown in the wash. Sellar and Yeatman's inimitable 1066 and All That nicely sums up all most of us know about the two brothers who succeeded their father Henry II to the throne of the Angevin Empire in the last decades of the 12th century, give or take a few fantasies about Blondel, Robin Hood and Magna Carta.
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