WI : Richard Lionheart dies in Cyprus

[LSCatilina]

Pretty much what is says on the tin : what would have happened if Richard I found an early demise while fighting Isaac Komnenos in 1191? How far reaching the consequences would be?

At this point, I wouldn't really expect Richard's army to really fail to defeat Isaac, the conflict merely provides a mean to create the Point of Divergence. However, would it be possible that the crusading army would simply give up on continuing to Syria (at least as a relatively unified host) and that several nobles would find opportune to divide the island 1204-style? How firm would that even be, and who would lead either in Cyprus or trying to move onto the Holy Land?

In this regard, how would Leopold V and Philipp II would react and have their priorities change ITTL, maybe attempting to divert part of Richard's armies to their benefit? I'd see Conrad claims to the hierosolymite kingdom being pretty much ensured there, but how much of the crusader state would even be maintained? Would an equivalent course to IOTL Third Crusade be plausible or would we see Philip returning quickly in France to (probably successfully) reap the benefit of Richard's death?

Eventually, what would an earlier accession of John as king would mean for English history, and more broadly, medieval western Europe?

 

[heraclius]

If Richard is killed in a skirmish in Cyprus or has the same sort of fate as in OTL, ie shot by a crossbow bolt during the siege of some castle or town, then presumably John has no real challenger as his late elder brother Geoffrey (k 1186)'s posthumous son, Arthur, Duke of Brittany, is only five - but Richard named Arthur as his heir in a recent treaty of alliance with King Tancred of Sicily which he signed after a mini-war with him en route to the Crusade so A does have a legal claim once he is old enough to fight. His mother Duchess Constance, the ruler of Brittany (Geoffrey was only her consort legally, though in practice he ruled with her as insisted on by his father Henry II when he forced Constance to marry him), and her - soon estranged - second husband, Earl Ranulf of Chester, will be defending A's rights and may go to the French royal court to lodge a claim once King Philip Augustus gets back from the Crusade. But if PA did name Arthur as legal heir to England, Normandy, and Anjou very few if any barons would be willing to fight for a child rather than John who by this time would have secured the crown of England and the resources of E, Normandy, Anjou - and Aquitaine too provided that his mother Eleanor , its Duchess, backs him against Arthur as better able to ensure stability. (All backed John in the succession dispute in April 1199 when Richard died in OTL though Arthur was by then 12 and so arguably old enough to rule with help.)

At best Philip, who had constantly backed dissident Angevin relatives against the then King of England since his accession in 1180 (Henry the Young King and Richard against Henry II and then John against Richard) would receive a disgruntled Arthur's envoys at his court as overlord of Anjou and Normandy and either try to blackmail John into giving him important border areas of Normandy in return for recognition of his claim (he grabbed the Vexin from Richard in 1193 when he was in prison in Germany in OTL) or recognise A but not be able to do anything about it. A border war would follow until a truce was patched up - and once A was adult, Philip would use him to start a new civil war in Anjou and Normandy.

What he could grab would depend on how many nobles the irrepressible, sexually voracious, tax-greedy John had alienated by then - John seems to have been unable to help himself in his sporadic predations and lack of an ability to keep his elite happy long term as he kept on making unnecessary enemies in OTL, though if the crown had fallen into his lap in 1192 he would not have had the bad reputation he did in OTL for treachery to Richard in 1193-4 or have lost much of his lands in France to Philip and so needed to raise a new army by extortionate taxation as he did after 1204 in OTL. (He already had a dubious reputation, though - for deserting his dying father to seek Richard's goodwill in 1189 and for messing up his first major role in his expedition to Ireland in 1185, neglecting military and political 'work' there and insulting the locals.) And if a predatory or arrogant John had made enough enemies to lose parts or all of Anjou or Normandy to Philip and Arthur in an attack c. 1200-1205 (A could attack from the West in Brittany so J would have to fight on 2 fronts) then he would be short of cash and military strength and raising this by harsh extortion as in the OTL later 1200s. He might still end up facing a Magna Carta revolt unless he had managed to capture Arthur by his occasionally brilliant generalship - and if he did he was capable of killing him despite the repercussions as he did in real life. John possibly killed A in a rage , but other killings of his - eg starving the ex-rebel De Braoses to death in prison in 1210 - were calculated spite and terror, and so he was likely to end up with fearful enemies deciding to strike first.

Other thoughts - if there is no Richard to put Henry of Champagne (his half-sister's son) on the throne of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1192 when Conrad was killed by the Assassins - I do not think it likely that R was responsible for hiring the killers, though Philip claimed this, and Conrad had local enemies too in Syria - then Henry is unlikely to get the throne. So who gets married to Isabella, the heiress / Queen since her half-sister Sibylla died at the siege of Acre? Possibly her competent next husband after Henry in real life , Amalric of Lusignan - the younger brother of Guy of L, Sibylla's incompetent husband and the man who lost the Kingdom to Saladin in 1187. Guy is hated too much to get his throne back - and if there is no Richard to march South and take Jaffa and improve the size of the Kingdom , the Crusade will end once Acre has fallen as Philip was keen to get home.

A smaller Kingdom will exist, stopping short at Acre and Mount Carmel, and will be easier prey for the Ayyubids in later decades - and not last until the Mamelukes take over as in real life, unless the remaining lords in the coastal strip N to Beirut can get European help to expand. (Possible if the Fourth Crusade does not go to Constantinople - ie if Theobald of Champagne does not die early so he is in command as originally planned.) Unless Richard's army can take Cyprus in revenge after R dies or he dies of a wound after the fall of Nicosia, Isaac Comnenus keeps Cyprus - but he has no son and the Greek mini-state is in rebellion against the Byz Empire so either Isaac II reconquers it c. 1194-5 (instead of continuing his Bulgarian war so he does not mess up the latter and get deposed by his brother?) or it survives until either the Venetians or refugee Crusader lords from Acre grab it. I can see the Crusaders thinking Cyprus a useful refuge, full of rich lands to rule, and safe from Moslem attack so taking it over c. 1200 to 1210.


Finally, if John is king in 1192 not 1199 does he still divorce his wife Isabella of Gloucester, who was his cousin so the Church was trying to invalidate the marriage as illegal and allegedly J did not have sexual relations with her so declaring it void was easier - they had no children. If John remarried at this date , his OTL second wife Isabella of Angouleme (b either c. 1185 or c. 1188) is too young so they do not marry - and her ex-fiance's family, the Lusignans led by Amalric's nephew, do not defect to Arthur and Philip in revenge and make their task of seizing Poitou/ N Aquitaine easier. If John remarries and has a son, this person may be adult or at least a teenager by the time that the English barons have enough of John and his taxes and murders - so do they try to put him on the throne in the 1215-16 revolt , not ask Philip's son to lead them?

 

[heraclius]

You can also do a 'What If' with huge butterflies based on the premise that either the King of Jerusalem Amalric I, father to Sibylla and (by a different, Byzantine wife) to Isabella, does not die as in OTL in 1174 - when he was aged under 40 and had had a vigorous and militarily competent reign. As a Byzantine ally he had even invaded Egypt with a Crusader/ Byzantine expedition a few years previously in an attempt to stop Saladin and his uncle Shirkuh, as the Kurdish senior generals of the (Sunni Moslem) emir Nur ed Din of Syria (ruler of modern day Syria and Jordan minus the Crusader-occupied Syrian coast, and based at Damascus), taking over Egypt for their boss and so uniting Egypt and Syria/ Jordan in one state - the ultimate fear of both the Crusader kingdom in the C12th and the Israeli state when Nasser united both Syria and Egypt in 1958-61.

Amalric over-stretched his small realm's manpower in this war and arguably a Crusader-Byzantine Christian takeover of Egypt was always unviable, even if they had allied with the local Christian Copts or the elite of the previous Moslem regime in Egypt (Shi'a not Sunni, and headed by the anti-Sunni Fatimid dynasty , from 969 to 1171) had preferred rule by a neutral Christian regime that tolerated their sect to a Sunni regime based in Syria. But he was competent and a close Byz ally, and if he had lived to his 50s or 60s as earlier C12th rulers of Jerusalem did he could outlive his leper son Baldwin IV (very capable but weakened by illness, as seen in a modern film - 'Kingdom of Heaven', and died aged 24 in 1185) and pass the throne to Sibylla or even her son Baldwin V (b 1183). If Sibylla's first husband, Baldwin V's father William of Montferrat, does not die young too - the elite of the Kingdom seem to have been vulnerable to the climate and had more primitive medical facilities than the local Byzantines and Moslems as they usually lived in a manner resembling Western barons - then she does not marry her second husband, Guy of Lusignan, and so Guy is never in charge of the Kingdom and does not lose any major war to Saladin. Or Baldwin IV might avoid leprosy and rule as a strong adult king for decades , pushing back the fall of Jerusalem well into the C13th unless Saladin or his brother Al Adil (r 1199 to 1218) can muster enough troops and get a lucky break to overwhelm them in open war.

Barring this sort of war, a succession of good rulers in the later C12th means that the Kingdom does not fall in 1187 and there is no Third Crusade - so Richard never goes out to the Middle East, or gets captured and ransomed on the way back , though he could still die in some minor war in France so John still becomes King. That way R's reputation and glamour is much reduced. If there is no 3rd Crusade and the Kingdom still stands into the C13th holding its capital, barring vigorous Pope Innocent III setting up a new expedition to knock out the Ayyubids after Saladin's death there is no 4th Crusade either - and so no break up of the Byzantine state in 1203-4, though the weak and incompetent Angelus dynasty could still fall to an internal coup and probable breakaway regimes by autonomist lords will emerge in Greece as the Empire weakens.