Richard I succeeded his father without opposition, as John’s treason—his plot with Philip against Henry—had destroyed his own claim to the throne. Richard, later known as Cœur-de-Lion, was crowned at Westminster, then immediately departed for the Third Crusade in 1190, leaving England in the hands of William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who combined the offices of chancellor, justiciar, and papal legate. Longchamp’s authoritarian rule sparked a baronial revolt, and by autumn 1191 he had been overthrown. Richard’s crusade was marred by rivalry with Philip Augustus and other Christian leaders, and he was captured by Emperor Henry VI in 1192, held for a ransom of 150,000 marks that drained England’s resources and required unprecedented taxation. He was released in 1194, immediately renounced the concessions he had made to Philip during his captivity, and spent his final years fighting to regain his lost continental territories, building the fortress of Château-Gaillard as his masterpiece of military architecture. He died of a crossbow wound in April 1199 while besieging Châlus, his death mourned across Europe as the loss of a great warrior-king.
Richard’s death triggered the rapid collapse of the Angevin empire. His younger brother John succeeded him, but his nephew Arthur of Brittany had a stronger claim under Norman succession law, and Philip Augustus supported Arthur’s claim. John’s coronation with Isabella of Angoulême in October 1200 masked the unraveling of his continental holdings: his 1202 campaign to retake lost territories was a disaster, as Philip swept through Normandy while John dithered aimlessly. The fall of Château-Gaillard in late 1203 was the decisive turning point, opening the way for Philip’s conquest of Normandy, and by 1204–1205 John had lost most of his continental inheritance, launching only half-hearted, aborted campaigns to retake them.
The final chapters of Norgate’s work trace the cultural and institutional legacy of the Angevin period between 1170 and 1206. Becket’s martyrdom reshaped English religious life, sparking a wave of popular piety and monastic reform. The era saw a flourishing of historical writing, including the Brut tradition inherited from Geoffrey of Monmouth, the works of Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis), who campaigned for the independence of the see of St. David’s, and the rise of Cambridge as a rival to Oxford. London’s municipal government gradually gained autonomy, with the establishment of its commune in 1191, while manorial surveys like the Abingdon consuetudinary of 1185 document the gradual transformation of the rural economy. Norgate’s work closes with a comprehensive index covering the period from Becket’s murder in 1170 to John’s death in 1216, documenting the full scope of the Angevin world’s political, ecclesiastical, and cultural history, and the end of the vast continental empire that Henry II had spent a lifetime building.
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