Duet for a Captive King
Legend tells how Richard the Lionheart’s favourite singer found where Leopold of Austria had stowed him.
1192
King Richard I 1189-1199
Legend tells how Richard the Lionheart’s favourite singer found where Leopold of Austria had stowed him.
1192
King Richard I 1189-1199
In December 1192, Richard I was arrested in Vienna and imprisoned at Dürnstein in lower Austria near the Danube, on the orders of his former ally in the Third Crusade, Leopold of Austria. According to legend, his place of captivity was a closely guarded secret but one man was determined to uncover it.
IT was no part of Richard’s character to be, like his rival Philip, a hater of music or minstrelsy. On the contrary, he often practised the arts of song and music himself.
Blondel de Nesle,* a favourite minstrel, who had attended his person, devoted himself to discover the place of his confinement. He wandered in vain, from castle to palace, till he learned that a strong and almost inaccessible fortress, upon the Danube, was watched with peculiar strictness, as containing some state prisoner of distinction.*
The minstrel took his harp, and approaching as near the castle as he durst, came so nigh the walls as to hear the melancholy captive soothing his imprisonment with music.* Blondel touched his harp; the prisoner heard and was silent: upon this the minstrel played the first part of a tune, or lay, known to the captive, who instantly played the second part; and thus the faithful servant obtained the certainty that the inmate of the castle was no other than his royal master.
Either Jean I of Nesle (?1155–1202) or his son, Jean II of Nesle (?-1241). Identifying him with the father, who was Lord of Nesle from 1180 to 1202 and went on the Third Crusade as Richard did, fits in better with the legend.
Richard is known to have composed a song during his captivity, Ja nuns hons pris, which can be heard below.
De Nesle found Richard at Leopold of Austria’s castle in Dürnstein, Austria, where he was kept following capture in December 1192. Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, then had Richard moved to Trifels in Germany at the end of March 1193. By this time secrecy was a thing of the past: Richard was tried for various alleged crimes, and an exorbitant ransom demand of 100,000 marks was made.
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Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
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How did Richard differ from King Philip II of France, according to Scott?