Europe had been gripped by crusading（十字军东征） feversince Jerusalem（耶路撒冷）had fallen to Saladin's Muslim forces. The prestige of reclaiming the holy city was irresistiblyappealingto the warlike new king.
Philip of France also vowedto go on crusade. The two kings arranged to meet here, at Vezelay Abbey in Burgundy.
The chronicleof the Third Crusade describes how these hills and valleys were filled with the tents and pavilionsof two vast armies.
(资料图)
It looked like a new city.
Richard and Philip spent 2 days here planning the campaign. They considered their crusade an armed pilgrimage. Their hardships would earn them absolutionfor their sins.
absolution: the act of forgiving someone, especially in the Christian religion, for something bad that they have done or thought
They swore a sacred oath agreeing to divide the spoilsof war equally. The two great pilgrim armies then set out for the holy land.
But on the way, the grand allianceforgedhere turned sour.
sour（此处）: unfriendly or easily annoyed
In Sicily（西西里岛）, Richard caused outrageby renegingon a childhood betrothalto the French king's sister. The old feudbetween the Plantagenets and the French monarchy was reignited.
outrage: a feeling of anger and shock
renege: to fail to keep a promise or an agreement, etc.
betrothal:古时用语，订婚
The armies then made their wayseparately to the holy land.
Philip arrived first and joined a Christian siegeof the strategicallycrucialport of Acre.
The Plantagenet army arrived 7 weeks later.
Richard immediately assumed command and reenergizedthe falteringassault.
Richards already had a reputation for ferocity, and his name struck fear into the Muslims. "The king of England was a very powerful man, " wrote one of saladin's officials, "a man of great spirit and courage. He'd fought many great battles and had a burning passion for war."
ferocity: the state of being frightening and violent
Muslim mothers told their children," Be good, or the King of England will get you."
Within 2 months of his arrival, the city that held outfor 2 years surrendered.
Once again, the French king was humiliatedby a Plantagenet. Announcing his crusade complete, Philip returned to France.
Richard fought on. But his arrogance turned many allies into enemies.
After 18 months, Richard headed home, but en route, was captured and imprisoned by the Duke of Austria, one of the enemies he made in the Holy Land.
en route: （法）在途中
The Plantagenet empire was left in the hands of his mother and his younger brother John.
It had always been difficult to fit the youngest Plantagenet son into the family plans. There had been no territories left to award John and he had been nicknamedLackland.
Henry had finally managed to make him Lord of Ireland. But John wanted the English crown. He began plotting with Philip of France.
In exchange for his backing, John agreed to hand him the strategically vital Vexin region, guarded by this great border fortress of Gisors. Gisors protected the gatewaybetween the lands of the King of France in that direction, which began just beyond the castle walls and Plantagenet Normandy with its capital at Rouen, just a day's ride away in that direction. John was making a terrible mistake, by agreeing to surrender the Vexin, he was leaving Normandy defenceless.
John and Philip did their best to make sure Richard stay in his prison. But Eleanor was doing all she could to free her favorite son.
Eventually, Eleanor managed to raisethe enormous ransom（赎金）, 34 tons of silver, a king's ransom indeed. Philip sent John word - "Beware! The devil is loosed!"
On Richard's return, John was forced to submit. Richard then set about re-conquering what John had lost. In 1197, Richard confronted Philip's army before the walls of Gisors.
Richard is said to have ridden at the French just as a ravinglion starved of food runs on his prey. As they fled, Philip and his knights crowded onto the bridge at Gisors in such numbers that it collapsed. 20 knights drowned. King Philip was dragged out alive, but was said to have "drunk of the river".
raving: complete or extreme, or completely or extremely
savage: extremely violent, wild, or frightening
Richard had Philip on the run.
Richard had survived many savagecampaigns far from home. But in the spring of 1199, his luck ran out.
While laying siege to the castle of a rebellious baron in Aquitaine. He was struck by a crossbow bolt（弩箭）.
Returning to his tent, he broke off the shaft（箭杆）.But the head was too deeply embeddedin his shoulder. The wound festered. Richard wrote the last letter to his mother Eleanor, asking her to come to him, but it was too late.
His body was buried alongside his father in the abbeyof Fontevraud. The heart of the lion, said to be "of great size", was interredin the Norman capital, Rouen.
inter: to bury a dead body
John was now the only surviving son of Henry and Eleanor. His older brother Geoffrey had died in 1186. But just as the English crown seemed in his grasp, he faced another contenderfor the throne.
Geoffery's teenage son, Arthur.
John quickly securedhis coronationat Westminster. But yet again, the French king provokeda Plantagenet family feudby supporting Arthur's claim to the English crown.
Wicked uncles are a common feature of medieval dynastic politics. Like John, they're usually younger brothers. They watch from the sidelinesas an older brother attained the exaltedposition of king. But if that brother dies, it's understandable that they might think, “I could tolerate being subordinateto my older brother, but not to my snotty-nose nephew.” And in this violent world, it's not surprising if the uncle sometimes decides that the nephew must be eliminated.
sideline: a line that shows the position of the side of an area where a sport is played
exalted: An exalted position in an organization is a very important one
In 1202, Arthur led an army into Anjou, hoping to capture his grandmother Eleanor. The great Plantagenet matriarchwas now 80. John rushed to Anjou to free her, and young Arthur was captured.
matriach: a powerful woman in a family
No one is certain what happened to Arthur after that. But a contemporary chroniclerclaims thar Arthur's own jailer told him of the boy's fate. According to him, John at first kept his 16-year-old nephew a prisoner, but then one night after dinner when John was "drunk and full of the devil", he went to Arthur's cell and killed him with his own hands, then tied a huge stone around the corpse and tossed it into the river Seina.
Philip of France refused to make peace withJohn until Arthur was handed over alive. He probably knew this was impossible.
One by one, John lost the Plantagenets' French domains.
In 1204, Philip conquered Plantagenet Normandy. After 300 years, it was now fully part of France once again. Soon, all that remained of the Plantagenets' continental empire was Gascony, a fragment of Eleanor's great Duchy of Aquitaine.
Eleanor spent her final years here in Fontevraud Abbey. She lived to see her only surviving son John lose the great European empire she had founded and fought for. She died as the French king was closing in for his final assaulton Normandy.
She was buried here, alongside Henry, the husband she had betrayed, and Richard, the son she loved the most.
With France lost, John was determined to tighten his grip onEngland. He dispossessedbarons who opposed him and exploitedhis royal powers to accumulate vast personal wealth.
Like his father, John also resentedRome's power in his realm, and in 1206, he refused to accept the pope's latest choice of archbishop. In retaliation, the pope deployedhis most fearsomeweapon.
retaliation: the act of hurting someone or doing something harmful to someone because they have done or said something harmful to you
The kingdom of England was placed under an interdict. This meant that all church services in England was suspended. The churches and cathedrals stood empty. No baptisms（洗礼）or marriages could take place in church, the dead could not be buried in churchyards. No church bells were heard in England. And this lasted 6 years.
interdict: (law) an official instruction from a law court telling someone that they are not allowed to do something
For believers in a so-called "age of faith", this must have been deeply disturbing. But it made John rich.
John hit back, by confiscatingthe clergy's possessions. Here at Lincoln Cathedral, the Bishop received a letter from John, informing him that royal custodianswould seize every thing owned by clergyrefusing to perform their duties.
custodian: a person or organization that is responsible for protecting, caring for, or maintaining something or someone
John had a malicioussense of humor. He ordered that all the priests' mistresses should be locked up and held to ransom. The King and the Pope eventually came to terms. John would accept the pope's nominee as Archbishop, but he would keep all the money that he'd squeezedout of the church.
But John wanted more money. He was determined to fund an army to win back his Plantagenet birthright, the territories he had lost in France.
His English barons didn't share his dynastic ambition, and were not enthusiastic. But John began to squeeze them dry, extracting what he needed through draconiantaxes and by exploiting the royal courts his father had established.
draconian: Draconian laws, government actions, etc. are extremely severe, or go further than what is right or necessary
John soon became richer than any English king before him.
The hostilitythis provoked was compoundedby John's reputation for lechery. He was accused of sleeping with the wives and daughters of his barons and he certainly fathered at least half a dozen illegitimatechildren. "He was too covetousof pretty women," wrote one contemporary, "and brought terrible shame to the great men of the land. For this, he was much hated."
compound: something consisting of two or more different parts
lechery: behaviour, especially by men, that shows a strong sexual interest in someone
covetous: wanting to have something too much, especially something that belongs to someone else
John trusted no-one and made his barons hand over family members as hostagesto guarantee their compliance.
When one of his nobles, William de Braose, prepared to give up his sons, his wife remembered how the king had treated his own nephew.
William de Braos was the baron who had served as Arthur's jailer. His wife shouted at him, "I will not hand over my boys to your lord, King John, because he foullymurdered his nephew Arthur when he should have kept him in honourable captivity."
The king's reaction was savage.
De Braose managed to escape to France, but John captured his wife and son and imprisoned them. He commanded that their food be stopped.
After 11 days, they were found starved to death.
The son's cheeks had been eaten away by his ravenousmother. Plantagenet cruelty had sunk to new depths.
ravenous: extremely hungry
John's invasion of France failed. And in May 1215, many English barons renouncedtheir allegianceto him and occupied London. They demanded a settlement, liberatingthe nobility from absolute royal power.
renounce: to say formally or publicly that you no longer own, support, believe in, or have a connection with somethingallegiance: loyalty and support for a ruler, country, group, or belief
settlement: an official agreement that finishes an argument
In desperation, John agreed to accept the demands they made.
The agreement was issued in a charter（宪章）sealed at Runnymede.
Magna Carta（大宪章）- the great charter - is one of the most famous documents in English history. Only 4 copies of the original issueare known to survive, including this one, held at Lincoln Castle.
To secure the Plantagenets on the throne, Henry② had concentrated power in the hands of the monarch. John's abuse of that power showed the dangers of leaving it unchecked. Magna Carta was the barons' response. Some of its clausesseem quite mundane, like the one fixing the level of death duties（遗产税）. But this was a royal power that John had exploited for financial gain. Other clauses have a more ringing tone.
mundane: very ordinaryand thereforenot interesting:
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land. To no-one will we sell, to no-one deny or delay right and justice.
All the clauses are based on the idea that there is a right way of doing things, enshrinedin Magna Carta as the law of the land. The most important thing was, that it boundboth king and subject.
enshrine: to contain or keep something as if in a holy place
Plantagenet dynastic ambition have provoked a new settlement between the monarchs and those they ruled.
Magna Carta has become an emblemof liberty. But at the time it was a complete failure.
emblem: an object that is used to represent a particular person, group, or idea, or a picture of the object
The Pope called it,
Not only shameful and demeaning, but also illegal and unjust.
demean: to cause someone to become less respected
At John's request, he annulledit.
Once again, the Plantagenets plungedEngland into civil war. Many barons decided they would rather be ruled by the French than by John.
plunge: to (cause someone or something to) move or fall suddenly and often a long way forward, down, or into something
The rebels offered the English throne to Prince Louis. Son of the Plantagenets' perennialenemy, King Philip of France. In 1216, Louis landed on the English coast and was warmly welcomed by the rebels. Some celebrated his arrival as liberation from Plantagenet tyranny. The madness of slavery is over. Days of liberty have arrived. Happy days at last, after so many evils.
perennial: lasting a very long time, or happening repeatedly or all the time
In his 17-year reign, John had lost most of the Plantagenet empire. Now, the English crown was at stake.
John let his mercenary army on a rampage, attacking rebel-held areas across southern England.
rampage: violent and usually wild behaviour
In Kings' Lynn, he contracteddysenter（痢疾）, but refused to rest.
contract(v. 此处)： to catch or become ill with a disease
In October, Johntook a shortcuthere, across the marshesof The Wash.
The wagonscarrying his vast, accumulated treasures were cut off by the incoming tide.
wagon: a vehicle with four wheels, usually pulled by horses or oxen, used for transporting heavy goods, especially in the past
As the king looked on helplessly, men, horses and the treasure he'd acquired so ruthlesslywas swallowed up by the quicksands（流沙）. Exhausted and broken, John died 3 days later.
In medieval Europe, the destinies of nations were determined by the lives and the deaths of their ruling dynasties. And John's death plungedthe Plantagenets into crisis.
His son and heir, Henry was a 9-year-old boy. Half the kingdom that he'd inherited, was in the hands of the French prince who was holding court in london.
The future of the Plantagenet dynasty had never looked so bleak.
bleak: If a place is bleak, it is empty, and not welcoming or attractive
In the next program, the English empire,
the resurgentPlantagenets fight to expand their dominionacross wales and Scotland. They attempt to win back France.
And parliamentis born in a Plantagenet golden ageof pageantsand chivalr（骑士精神）.
pageant: a show, usually performed outside, that consists of people wearing traditional clothing and acting out historical events
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