Source C John Gillingham, professor of medieval history, writing in the academic book Richard I (1999).

It might be argued that if Richard could not recapture Jerusalem, none the less he conquered Cyprus … Whenever possible he chose options—the conquest of Cyprus, the recovery of the coastal cities of Palestine, a campaign against Egypt—which made strategic sense and which brought substantial and lasting gain for the shattered Christian presence in the Middle East. To a remarkable degree most, though not all, contemporaries and near contemporaries adopted non-religious criteria in assessing his conduct of the crusade. Even monks recognized and admired his prowess [skill] and his conquests … Yet it is unlikely that anyone ever went on crusade in more extraordinary circumstances than Richard did, when the wiser thing would have been to stay at home. His problem was that he came to the throne in 1189 having been betrothed [engaged] for the last twenty years to Alice, a sister of the reigning king of France, Philip Augustus. Alice had been in the custody of Richard’s father, Henry II, who had not been able to resist the temptation to seduce her. Richard decided that this made it impossible for him to marry her. But to send her back to her brother after twenty years would be an enormous insult to the honour of the French royal house.

[Source: Adapted from Gillingham, J., 1999. Richard I. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, pp. 4–5.]

Source D Jean Flori, an historian specializing in the Crusades, writing in the academic book Richard the Lionheart: King and Knight (2006).

So, if we are to believe him [Richard I], it was to avoid the dishonour of a defeat for the whole army that Richard refused to lead the crusader army to the walls of Jerusalem. Instead, he proposed an expedition against Egypt. The matter was put before the council of barons, which consisted of twenty men. To the immense despair of the majority of crusaders, the council opted for the overland expedition to Egypt, supported by a fleet stationed off the coast. The advice of the local lords had been taken, which confirmed the strategic logic of Richard’s choice in their eyes. But it was profoundly shocking to many of the crusaders and, once again, the French went their own way. Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, seized the opportunity to spread defamatory [offensive] stories about the King of England and songs accusing him of cowardice … The army was deeply divided and, in these circumstances, all idea of taking Jerusalem had to be abandoned. It was a failure both for the crusaders and for Richard, whose prestige was badly damaged. Worse, he must have wondered whether he had lost out on both fronts: by agreeing to remain in the Holy Land until the following Easter, he had seriously endangered the future of his empire in the West, leaving the field clear for his brother John, without the compensation of the successes he had counted on in the East.

[Source: Jean Flori, Richard the Lionheart. Copyright © 2006 by Edinburgh Univerity Press Ltd. Reproduced with
permission of the Licensor through PLSclear.]