? Europe had?been gripped by crusading（十字軍東征） fever since Jerusalem（耶路撒冷） had fallen to Saladin's?Muslim forces. The prestige of reclaiming the holy city was irresistibly appealing to the warlike new king.?

? Philip of?France also vowed to go on crusade. The two kings arranged to meet here, at Vezelay Abbey in Burgundy.

? The chronicle of the?Third Crusade describes how these hills and valleys were filled with the tents and pavilions of two vast armies.

? 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 absolution for 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 spoils of war equally. The two great pilgrim armies then set out for the holy land.

? But on the way, the grand alliance forged here turned sour.

sour（此處）: unfriendly or easily annoyed

? In Sicily（西西里島）, Richard caused outrage by reneging on a childhood betrothal to the French king's sister. The old feud between 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:古時(shí)用語，訂婚

? The armies?then made their way separately to the holy land.

? Philip arrived first and joined a Christian siege of the strategically crucial port of Acre.

? The Plantagenet army arrived?7 weeks later.

Richard immediately assumed command and reenergized the faltering assault.

? 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 out for 2 years surrendered.

? Once again, the French king was humiliated by 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 nicknamed Lackland.

? 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 gateway between 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 raise the enormous ransom（贖金）, 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 raving lion 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 savage campaigns 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（箭桿）.But the head was too deeply embedded in 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 abbey of Fontevraud. The heart of the lion, said to be "of great size", was interred in 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 contender for the throne.

? Geoffery's teenage son,?Arthur.

? John quickly secured his coronation at Westminster. But yet again, the French king provoked a Plantagenet family feud by 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 sidelines as an older brother attained the exalted position of king. But if that brother dies, it's understandable that they might think,?“I could tolerate being subordinate to 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 matriarch was 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 chronicler claims 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 with John 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 assault on 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 on England. He dispossessed barons who opposed him and exploited his royal powers to accumulate vast personal wealth.?

? Like his father, John also resented Rome's power in his realm, and in 1206, he refused to accept the pope's latest choice of archbishop. In retaliation, the pope deployed his most fearsome weapon.

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（洗禮） 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 confiscating the clergy's possessions. Here at Lincoln Cathedral, the?Bishop received a letter from John, informing him that royal custodians would seize every thing owned by clergy refusing to perform their duties.

custodian: a person or organization that is responsible for protecting, caring for, or maintaining something or someone

? John had a malicious sense 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 squeezed out 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 draconian taxes 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 hostility this provoked was compounded by 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 illegitimate children. "He was too covetous of 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 hostages to 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 foully murdered 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 ravenous mother. Plantagenet cruelty had sunk to new depths.

ravenous:?extremely?hungry

? John's invasion of France failed. And in May 1215, many English barons renounced?their allegiance to him and occupied London. They demanded a settlement, liberating the 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（憲章） sealed at Runnymede.

? Magna Carta（大憲章） - the great charter - is one of the most famous documents in English history. Only 4 copies of the original issue are known to survive, including this one, held at?Lincoln Castle.

? To secure the Plantagenets on the throne, HenryⅡ 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 clauses seem quite mundane, like the one fixing the level of death duties（遺產(chǎn)稅）. But this was a royal power that John had exploited for financial gain. Other clauses have a more ringing tone.

mundane:?very?ordinary?and?therefore?not?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,?enshrined in?Magna Carta as the law of the land.?The most important thing was, that it bound both 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 emblem of 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 annulled it.

? Once again, the?Plantagenets plunged England 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' perennial enemy,?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 contracted dysenter（痢疾）, but refused to rest.

contract(v. 此處)： to catch or become ill with a disease

? In October, John took a shortcut here, across the marshes of The Wash.

? The wagons carrying 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 ruthlessly was 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 plunged the 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 resurgent Plantagenets fight to expand their dominion across wales and Scotland. They attempt to win back France.

? And parliament is born in a Plantagenet golden age of pageants and chivalr（騎士精神）.

pageant: a show, usually performed outside, that consists of people wearing traditional clothing and acting out historical events