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"Le 26 mars 1199, Richard assiège le château de Châlus Chabrol16,17 possession du vicomte Adémar V de Limoges, dit Boson. Il est atteint par un carreau d'arbalète tiré par un chevalier de petite noblesse limousine, Pierre Basile. La flèche est retirée mais la gangrène gagne le corps du roi. Richard meurt le 6 avril 1199, onze jours après sa blessure. Son corps est enterré près de celui de son père en l’abbaye de Fontevraud (située non loin de Saumur), son cœur repose dans la cathédrale de Rouen, capitale de la Normandie et ses entrailles en l'église (actuellement ruinée) du château de Châlus Chabrol. Philippe de Cognac, fils illégitime supposé de Richard Cœur de Lion, le vengera en assassinant Adémar18.

Jean succède à Richard sur le trône d’Angleterre. Cependant les territoires continentaux le rejettent, au début, lui préférant leur neveu Arthur de Bretagne, fils de leur frère Geoffroy, dont les droits sont techniquement meilleurs que les siens."

"On March 26 1199, Richard besieged the castle of Chalus Chabrol, possession of Viscount Ademar V of Limoges, nicknamed Boson. He's reached by a crossbow bolt fired by a Limousin knight of minor nobility, Pierre Basile. The arrow is removed but gangrene spread in the king's body. Richard died on April 6, 1199, eleven days after his injury. His body is buried near his father's in Fontevraud Abbey (located near Saumur), his heart rests in the cathedral of Rouen, capital of Normandie, and his bowels in the church (now ruined) of Chalus Chabrol's castle. Philippe de Cognac, supposed illegitimate son of Richard the Lion Heart, would avenge him by murdering Adémar (Viscount Adhémar V of Limoges).

Jean succeeds to Richard on the throne of England. However, the continental territories reject him at the beginning, preferring their nephew Arthur of Bretagne, son of their brother Geoffroy, whose rights are technically better than his."

Source : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ier_d%27Angleterre



"This corpse is not of those to whom one tomb is enough" wrote Matthew Paris. Indeed, Richard Lion Heart, King Knight at the head of the "Plantagenet Empire" was not buried in a unique place.

Dictating his last will, he wished that his body rests in Fontevraud, near the one of his father. His "gisant" (a statue on a tomb) is still there, like the one of his father Henry II and the one of his mother Aliénor of Aquitaine.

He asked that his heart be deposited in the cathedral of Rouen in "Remembrance of his love for Normandie" near his ancestor Rollo. He also considered the Normans as his most faithful subjects.

As for his bowels, according to a later legend, he demised it to this limousine land (Limousin region near Normandie), which would have given him his best comrades (his " faithful Limousin barons") and the language in which he loved to write poems. In fact, he maintained complex and paradoxical relationship with Aquitaine region, where he had acquired by his exactions a reputation of cruelty. And, it is to punish his "faithful barons Limousin " and the Bishop of Limoges, that he found himself with Mercadier in front of Chalus castle. Thus it's wrote that he wished that his bowels rest in Poitou region scornfully for Poitevins who had betrayed him.

In reality, a practical fact is much more prosaic and explains that the earth keeps Richard's bowels in Chalus's land : To be preserved from putrefaction his body was very likely and as usual, embalmed. This requires a gutting. His bowels were therefore left in place and kept in the castle church, Notre-Dame du Haut-Chalus now a ruin. This partition of the body (dilaceratio corporis "division of the body" in heart, guts and bones) with multiple burials is a practice initiated in the middle of the eleventh century by the Knights and rulers of the Kingdom of England and the Holy Roman Empire, who died in crusade or far from their chosen burial place.

The lead box containing the remains of the embalmed heart which was rediscovered with his "gisant" in 1838 by historian Achille Deville, director of the Museum of Antiquities in Rouen during archaeological excavations in the cathedral of Rouen, is studied for the first time in 2012 by an interdisciplinary team led by Philippe Charlier. The embalming of the heart was performed by standard substances (mercury, creosote), but also herbs and spices reserved to the elite, the myrrh and particularly the incense, source of what is called the odor of holiness. Historians of the team hypothesized that the embalmers of Richard made ​​a "Christic reference" by reproducing the ritual described in the Bible."

Source : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mort_de_Richard_C%C5%93ur_de_Lion

Sorry it wasn't the current queen, it was Victoria.

Elizabeth didn't try since Victoria's failure to get the remains of former kings of England are well known in France.

That line has been broken several times

he spoke French everytime and didn't bother learning English.

When I think of the name Hodierna I think of Hodierna and Loveta, so yes in ancestry I think that name is probably French derived. Very obviously she spoke French. But it is unlikely she spoke no English, far from it, and she had in fact according to accounts, more contact with Richard than Eleanor. It is believed widely that he lived with her. Whatever her ancestry, Hodierna was most definitely English. Because she chose to live in England and die in England. The fact that she was buried in England and that she was given a high pension by Richard suggests as much. When she did retire, she moved to West Knoyle in Wiltshire, about 100 miles from London; as a proper Englishwoman would. There she would have found very few, if any, people who spoke French as a first language, suggesting further that she considered herself English enough and that she spoke English.

It must not be forgotten that the whole of Norman populace in England is generally received to have been no more than 10,000. The almost complete retention of Old Eglish place names in England (and the almost complete lack of celtic placenames and or French) is pretty heady evidence.

All that aside, however, there is the much more compelling evidence that Richard was never spoken of as ignorant in any way of the English language by his contemporaries or for centuries after his death. That is a rather recent surmise, from the remove of 900 years. It must be remembered that by the time of Richard's reign, 130 years had passed since the Norman invasion. Or about the same amount of time that had passed from the majority of the "Norse" invasions of France, until the ascension of William the Conqueror to the throne of England.

As I stated earlier, those who did not speak English were regularly "outed" by numerous written sources during, before and after Richard's time. Eleanor most definitely did not speak English, nor did Longchamp. It was also reported that Henry could but understand English. But at the highest level of government this was considered scandalous by the time of Richard's reign.

Richard was not a Norman King. His father, Henry II (who understood but did not speak English) was the first of the Plantagenet line.