Bobbie's Broccoli With Beef Weenies

This is such a pretty one pan meal. The colors will brighten your table. Using the oven to do the cooking will free you to do other things, set the table, sweep the floor, etc.

Ever wonder what to do with those little cocktail weenies? Let them be part of a full meal with fresh broccoli and a touch of red onion.

Ingredients

1 fresh broccoli crown

¾ package of little beef smokies (cocktail weenies)

½ red onion chopped

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

1Tbs Grill Mates Seasonings (or your favorite steak seasonings)

½ tsp parsley flakes

1/4 tsp black pepper (optional)

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

1 tsp lemon juice

Parmesan cheese

Serve on white rice

Instructions

 

 Preheat oven to 400 degrees Spray a foil lined and rimed baking sheet.

Take a fresh broccoli crown and cut florettes into bite size pieces.

Chop red onion and add to a large bowl. Add the cut broccoli and the smokies.

In small bowl of 2 Tbs olive oil, mix in 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbs Grill Mates Seasonings. ¼ tsp of parsley flakes.

If you are using cayenne pepper and black pepper, add it to the bowl. Stir that into the brocolli mixture.

Use two wooden spoons to gently mix all the ingredients together.

Spread it evenly onto a foil lined rimed baking sheet. 

 

Place in the oven for 30 minutes or until the broccoli starts to brown, turning around once.

Remove from the oven.

Drizzle 1 tsp of lemon juice on the veggies and toss gently.

If you wish sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Serve over white rice for a full meal.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g

What an interesting roasted meal for my Master Indy.

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes 

by Dan White

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

 

Robert Cutler

He was the first person appointed as the National Security Advisor to the president of the U.S. He served President Dwight Eisenhower in that role between 1953 and 1955, and again from 1957 to 1958.

Robert Cutler, known as Bobby, was born into a prominent Boston family on June 12, 1895, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of five sons born to George C. and Mary F. Wilson Cutler.

Cutler attended Harvard College and planned on becoming an English teacher and writer. He was class poet, wrote the baccalaureate hymn, and graduated second in his class in 1916. After graduating, he taught at Harvard and Radcliffe College and he authored two novels – Louisburg Square (1917) and The Speckled Bird (1923). During World War I he volunteered with the American Expeditionary Forces. In 1922 he graduated from Harvard Law School.

After graduating from Harvard law school, Cutler went to work for the firm of Herrick, Smith, Donald & Farley. On October 25, 1940, Cutler was appointed corporation counsel for the city of Boston by Mayor Maurice J. Tobin.

On July 28, 1942, Cutler resigned as corporation counsel to join the United States Army. President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Cutler for the position of head occupational analyst of the Army Specialist Corps (ASC) with the rank of colonel. After the ASC was disbanded, Cutler served as chief of the Procurement Division. During the 1944 presidential election, he served as executive officer of the War Ballot Commission.

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in December 1944. In 1945 October he was promoted to brigadier general and was awarded the Legion of Merit for "his foresight and careful planning, consummate tact, unusual ability and vigor" during his service with the Legislative and Liaison Division of the War Department Special Staff. He received his discharge on December 9, 1945. 

 

In 1952, Cutler served as Eisenhower's personal secretary on the campaign train, a position that had him perform several tasks, including speechwriting and advising. U.S. News & World Report described Cutler as "emerging as the right-hand man of the General" and "probably closer to the candidate in a personal sense than Gov. Sherman Adams, who is generally regarded as the top man".

President-elect Eisenhower appointed Cutler as the assistant to the president for national security affairs. In this position, Cutler played a major role in turning the National Security Council into a top policy-making body. He tendered his resignation on March 8, 1955 and was succeeded by Dillon Anderson on April 1. On March 31, 1955, he received the Medal of Freedom for his "outstanding contribution to the security and defense of our nation.

He was also a banker, a poet, a cross-dresser who loved the female roles in amateur theatrical productions and a closeted gay man at the center of a gay White House love triangle.

Cutler oversaw the drafting of Eisenhower's Executive Order 10450, signed on April 27, 1953, contributing language that identified "sexual perversion" as grounds for exclusion from employment by the federal government. It represented a campaign promise to Senator Joseph McCarthy. The order initiated the years-long purge of gays and lesbians from employment by the federal government, the Lavender Scare component of the Red Scare witch-hunts of the 1950s.

Like many gay men of his time, Cutler struggled to find, recognize and accept his sexual and romantic orientation. And like far too many, he was perfectly willing to promote discrimination against other homosexuals, if it would help deflect suspicion from himself.

Cutler resigned his post in 1955, apparently out of fear that the disclosure of his own secret homosexuality might harm the Eisenhower Administration. His homosexuality was known to some Washington insiders, including the prominent columnist Joseph Alsop, a closeted gay himself, and Charles Bohlen, whose nomination as ambassador to Moscow was threatened by McCarthy's at the time with innuendo about his sexuality.

“A strange climate of paranoia and dishonesty permeated Washington,” biographer Peter Shinkle writes of a city “where vicious hunts for homosexuals were led by men themselves suspected of being gay like McCarthy and Cohn, where people laughed as Joseph Welch and McCarthy sparred maliciously over the words pixie and fairy … and where senators practiced the art of gay blackmail against political foes … Homosexuality was simultaneously everywhere but nowhere, suspected but not proved, concealed but then revealed, loathed and labeled a security risk – but then giggled about.

Robert “Bobby” Cutler, left, and Skip Koons at the pool at the Dumbarton Oaks mansion in Washington, D.C., in July 1957.

Tilghman “Skip” Koons, was a gorgeous 27-year-old Russian-speaker who Cutler recruited for the National Security Council staff. How Koons’s homosexuality failed to prevent his employment is a mystery: He was recommended to Cutler by an ex-lover, Steve Benedict, who Cutler knew from the Eisenhower campaign. Incredibly, at the height of the gay witch-hunt in 1954, Benedict also joined the White House as its security officer.

Cutler was completely besotted with Koons, to whom he wrote wild love letters:

Out of all the concerns in my world, this interest in you and yours predominates. As if some electric current, invisible but sure, pulsed across the sea to communicate between us. I hope this can always be so …

Cutler was a workaholic and Koons was less than half his age. Eventually, the older man presented the younger with a 163,000-word journal about their relationship. Benedict inherited that diary and 600 letters between Cutler and Koons. He gave it all to Peter Shinkle, a research bonanza which made much of his book possible.

All three men lived on a razor’s edge. In 1957, a White House correspondence clerk named George Dame was arrested in the men’s bathroom in the library of George Washington University by a member of the vice squad. Dame named two other gay White House staffers: one of them told the FBI Cutler was gay. Hoover took personal charge of the investigation. Mysteriously, he took no action, possibly because it would have damaged his relationship with the president. Hoover himself had a “spousal” relationship with his deputy Clyde Tolson which according to his biographer Richard Powers was “so close, so enduring, and so affectionate that it took the place of marriage for both bachelors”

Passages from Cutler's diary, are poignant and sometimes painful to read. Cutler wrote after Koons drove him home in his Thunderbird after a night at the movies in 1957, “I took his hand our fingers for a moment interlaced, It was at that moment the greatest adventure of my life began: the best, the purest, the most penetrating moment I ever knew.”

 

Cutler avoided scrutiny. Benedict and Koons, both of whom had left the White House and gone to work for the U.S. Information Agency and had to endure years of investigations. Although they never had their security clearances yanked, ultimately drove them from government service.

Robert Cutler died on May 8, 1974, in Concord, Massachusetts. Never married, Cutler left no immediate survivors, but he was survived by several nieces and nephews.

Dr. Tom Dooley Slow Pork Chops

Here is a great way to do pork chops in the slow cooker. We dedicate this to the memory of a great LGBT hero Dr. Tom Dooley. Read about his short life after this quick recipe.

We add a couple cans of soup, soy sauce and some buttermilk to give these chops a fantastic taste.

Ingredients

• 6 bone-in pork chops (about 2 pounds)
• 1 medium onion, sliced (about 1/2 cup)
• 2 cans (10 3/4 ounces)Cream of chicken & mushroom Soup
• 3 Tbs Soy sauce
• Hot cooked white rice
  

Directions

Wipe out and spray your slow cooker. Always do this!
Carefully slice the onion.

Layer the pork and onion with bones to the outside. 
 

Stir the soups in a bowl with the soy sauce. For added flavor add 1 cup of low fat buttermilk! Pour the soup mixture over all. 
 

Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 9 hours* or until the pork is fork-tender.
Serve the pork and sauce with the rice. 
 

Thicken if needed with a slury of 3 Tbs cornstarch and ¼ cup water.

* Or on HIGH for 5 to 6 hours.

Serve with some white rice or quinoa and some roasted vegetables.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD94tZgPuvc

So happy to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

 

Dr. THOMAS DOOLEY III

American physician and humanitarian. (1927 - 1961)

"The brotherhood of man transcends the sovereignty of nations, and service to humanity is the best work of life."

—Tom Dooley 

 

• Served as a physician in the US Navy and afterward became famous for his humanitarian and anti-communist political activities in South East Asia and the United States.

• He was forced to leave the Navy due to the discovery of his sexuality, which the Navy investigated.

• Dooley and three former Navy corpsmen established a hospital near Luang Namtha, Laos.

• He founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) under the auspices of which he built hospitals at Nam Tha, Muong Sing, and Ban Houei Sa, and also a clinic in Vang Vieng.

• He also worked for the CIA, collecting information about the movements of Chinese troops, which embroiled him in controversy.

• Returning to the US for cancer treatment in 1959, his surgery for melanoma was televised on CBS in April of 1960.

Tom was born at St. Ann's Hospital on January 17, 1927, weighing in at a hefty twelve pounds.

Growing up the Dooley boys were required to dress in a jacket and tie for dinner, served promptly at 6:30 PM. The family employed a cook, a maid, and a chauffeur-houseman named Norvell Simpson who tended to their dinner table in a starched white jacket.

In grade school, Tommy Dooley studied French and received instruction in the fine arts.

The Dooleys summered at a former estate on Green Lake in Wisconsin. Home movies from 1936 and 1937 provide the first recorded evidence of Tom Dooley's performing self: Tommy always occupies the center of the frame, blowing kisses in grand gestures to the sky, dangling a big fish from the dock, or beaming from atop a fine-looking horse.

In 1940 Tom Dooley entered Saint Louis University High School, the oldest school west of the Mississippi. Dooley focused his energies on the highly elaborate milieu of St. Louis Catholic society, becoming the male equivalent of a debutante.

To many of his acquaintances, he represented an odd mixture of extrovert and loner, capable of swaggering into a party to immediately commandeer the piano (once he even played from the back of a pickup truck moving down Grand Avenue) and just as suddenly disappear. At his senior prom, held at the exclusive Missouri Athletic Club, Dooley convinced some male friends to ditch their dates and join him for a dip in the club's pool.

The University of Notre Dame not only was the most prestigious Catholic college in America but also offered extensive opportunities to combine military training and service with the pursuit of higher education. Dooley was accepted for admission and enrolled for the 1944 winter semester. 

 

He left without his degree in 1948 after being admitted to the medical school of Saint Louis University; premedical students of that era were often admitted after three years and Dooley's wealth of St. Louis connections may have compensated for an indifferent undergraduate record.

June 1948 Tom Dooley sailed for Paris as a reward from his parents for gaining admission to medical school. Tom had planned to travel with a Notre Dame friend, but "then something came up which was not very nice" and he wound up living alone in a Paris apartment but frequently hosting "numerous other fellows" he had met along the way.

Dooley attended a few lectures at the Sorbonne, but mostly he traveled as a young American socialite. A friend noticed a trait Dooley refined to perfection: an ability to travel in first-class splendor on virtually no money.

After deciding that he wanted to become a physician, Tom obtained his parents' grudging permission to enlist as a U.S. Navy medical corpsman with only two semesters of college work completed. He was in training at the Great Lakes Naval Station when word arrived that his half-brother Earle had been killed in Germany in 1944, at the battle of Hurtgen Forest.

Tom Dooley began his medical career tending to the broken bodies of servicemen returned from combat to the naval hospital at St. Albans, in Queens, New York, and later the Marine Hospital at San Diego.

The enormously popular chanteuse Hildegarde was rehearsing one afternoon for a performance when she saw a young man wheeling a piano across the stage of the Empire Room in Chicago, comically wiping feigned sweat from his brow.

Dooley was able to appear in Hildegarde's chorus line because, while still in his teens, he had become a highly spirited participant in the homosexual subcultures of the American armed forces, the Catholic Church, and various urban centers including New York and Chicago. Hildegarde was herself a devout Catholic with a large gay following: her campy nightclub act was rife with allusions to "Kinsey's whimseys" (after 1948) and other euphemisms for homosexuals in currency among entertainers of the period. Allan Berube, the chronicler of gay life in World War II, noted that "although nightclub entertainment was never publicly identified as gay, such performers as Hildegarde and Tallulah Bankhead attracted a devoted gay following, sometimes dropping veiled hints or singing lyrics with double meanings directed at their admirers."

From the time that Dooley's homosexuality was first discussed publicly in 1989, it has been widely assumed that he must have suffered terribly for his sexuality. In fact, from his adolescence onward, Tom Dooley made little effort to conceal his sexuality. He made frequent passes at male acquaintances.

Tom had a sexual relationship with a young cleric that was anything but secretive. A gay friend who served with Dooley as a marine corpsman recalled that far from being confused or tormented by his sexuality, Tom confidently exploited his appeal to gay officers to receive choice assignments.

Returning to Notre Dame in 1946 Dooley; he enjoyed boasting about the many circumcision procedures he had performed as a pharmacist's mate.

For his internship, he rejoined the navy. Working in Bethesda, Maryland as a hospital intern in 1952, Dooley was picked up by a German airline steward who took him to the home of one of the leading Washington homosexuals. Dooley quickly became a favorite of the group which included theater people and musicians. Dooley was described within gay circles as "mesmerizing" and "one of the most charming people you would ever want to meet." The topic of Dooley's homosexuality remained hidden from public scrutiny; this was the mid-1950s after all. Another source revealed that Dooley regarded his homosexuality "as a gift," that homosexual relations were, for him, a way to elevate the gray existence of those not so blessed with charm and good looks.

Dooley received his Doctor of Medicine degree from St. Louis University in 1953.

In May 1954 he was assigned as a Medical Officer and worked in the evacuation of Haiphong. There he witnessed the suffering of more than 600,000 refugees from North to South Vietnam. 

 

In August 1954, Dooley transferred to a unit participating in the evacuation of over 600,000 North Vietnamese known as the "Passage to Freedom." Here Dooley served as a French interpreter and medical officer for a Preventative Medicine Unit in Haiphong. Dooley eventually oversaw the building and maintenance of refugee camps in Haiphong until May 1955, when the Viet Minh took over the city. 

 

Dooley returned to the United States later in 1955 and published his first book, a Vietnam memoir, entitled Deliver Us From Evil (1956). The book climbed the best-seller lists and appeared in a condensed form in Reader's Digest, which also reprinted it in eleven languages. He became the youngest United States Navy Medical Corps officer in history to receive the Navy's Legion of Merit. Dooley also received the highest national decoration of the South Vietnamese government.

Dooley's Navy career came to an end on March 28, 1956. Under investigation for homosexual activity by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), he was forced to resign. Reports of his homosexuality had been circulating since the summer of 1954; it was rumored that he had seduced the son of an admiral during a stay at Yokosuka, Japan, just before shipping out to Vietnam. The ONI probe began in January 1956. By March of that year, they had compiled a convincing dossier on Dooley, including sex acts with informants, and were about to proceed against him when he abruptly resigned. Randy Shilts, who outed Dooley in a book in 1989 on homosexuals in the military, believed that Dooley led a deliberately closeted life because he adhered strictly to the teachings of the Church. Yet it has been reported that Dooley was an extraordinarily active gay man who was considered one of the great sex symbols of his era — a figure well-known in sophisticated gay circles as far-flung as Hollywood, Washington, D.C., and the capitals of Southeast Asia.

In 1956, Dooley resigned from the Navy and persuaded the International Rescue Committee to sponsor bush hospitals in Southeast Asia. Donating the royalties from Deliver Us From Evil, Dooley and three former Navy corpsmen, established a hospital at Nam Tha, a village five miles south of the China border in Laos. Dooley said they chose Laos because the country, with 3,000,000 people, had only one "bonafide" doctor. St. Patrick's hospital in Nam Tha consisted of a surgical ward with 15 beds, a medical ward with mats for 30 people, an operating room, and an out-patient clinic. The hospital had no electricity, x-ray equipment, plumbing, or air-conditioning. Dooley treated about 100 patients a day for such diseases as tuberculosis, malnutrition, diphtheria, dysentery, pneumonia, small-pox, and burns.

In October 1957, Dooley and his staff turned St. Patrick's over to the government of Laos, to be run by Dooley-trained Laotians. During his stay in Nam Tha, Dooley wrote a second book, The Edge of Tomorrow. 

 

 

That year, Dooley started the Medical International Cooperation Organization or MEDICO. A non-sectarian group, it wanted to build, stock, supply, and train staff for small hospitals along the Iron and Bamboo curtains. The organization received hundreds of thousands of dollars in medicine and supplies from pharmaceutical houses throughout the United States. 

Early in 1958, Dooley established his second hospital in Laos at Muong Sing near the China border.

In August 1959, Dooley underwent chest surgery for melanoma, a rapidly spreading form of cancer. Dooley announced afterward, "I am not going to quit. I will continue to guide and lead my hospitals until my back, my brain, my blood, and my bones collapse." Dooley returned to the lecture circuit in October, raising one million dollars for MEDICO. 

 In 1960, Dooley published his third book, The Night They Burned the Mountain (1960). In June 1960, Dooley received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Notre Dame University. Seven months later, Dooley flew back to New York Memorial Hospital. Cancer had spread to his lungs, liver, spleen, heart, and brain. Dr. Tom Dooley died January 18, 1961, one day after his thirty-fourth birthday.

Men and women of all faiths have followed his dedicated example to humanity by offering their services in various areas of spiritual and material needs. The heroic and virtuous example of this young doctor, his services to mankind, and more especially acceptance of suffering, sickness, and death have served as a great inspiration to many.

Aquitaine Chicken Stew

A recipe like this chicken stew is a meal unto itself… full of protein, healthy carbs and veggies. It unique taste comes from using different vegetables. Be creative. It is named for A famous LGBT King of England Richard the Lionheart. Read about him after the recipe.

California style mix of vegetables, chicken thighs, onions celery and potatoes all blend together to give a French Countryside taste. It will be hearty enough for Your King!

Ingredients

8 chicken thighs about 1 1/2 pounds, diced

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion

2 stalks celery diced

5 tablespoons flour divided

½ tsp Parsley flakes

¼ tsp sage

salt and pepper to taste

1½ cups red potatoes roughly cut

¼ cup white wine

5 cups chicken broth or chicken stock low sodium * divided

thawed bag of California style vegetables

½ cup half and half (non fat)

dumplings

Directions: 

 

To start, do your cutting: chop the onion, celery, red potatoes and chicken.

In a large pot or dutch oven, brown chicken in 1 tablespoon olive oil (it doesn't have to be cooked through). Remove from pot and set aside. 

Cook onion and celery in remaining olive oil for about 3 minutes or until onion is slightly softened. Stir in 3 tablespoons of flour, seasonings and salt & pepper to taste. Cook over medium heat about 2 minutes.

 
Add potatoes, white wine, browned chicken and 3 cups broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 30 minutes.

Remove lid and stir in vegetables and half & half. Thicken if desired (below) and simmer add the dumpling noodles and cook for an additional 10 minutes uncovered.


To thicken: In a mason jar combine remaining 2 tablespoons flour and 1 cup broth. Shake very well (ensure there are no lumps) and add a little at a time to boiling stew to reach desired consistency.

Nutrition Information

Calories: 611, Fat: 39g, Saturated Fat: 12g, Cholesterol: 179mg, Sodium: 403mg, Potassium: 1010mg, Carbohydrates: 30g, Fiber: 4g, Sugar: 6g, Protein: 32g, Vitamin A: 9020%, Vitamin C: 24.8%, Calcium: 77%, Iron: 3.8%

What a wonderful meal in a bowl. Add a bread if you wish.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Jzl_bx3fI

Happy to be Master Indy's slave.

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White 

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

==========================================

King Richard the Lionheart 
 

Richard I (1157– 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was the overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period.

He was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Was he gay or bisexual? Since those terms and concepts were not used at that time it is hard to know over 800 years later. Richard Plantagenet is often depicted as having been the favorite son of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. His father was Angevin-Norman and great-grandson of William the Conqueror.

Although he was born in Oxford and brought up in England up to his eighth year, it is not known to what extent he used or understood English; he was an educated man who composed songs, poetry, and wrote in Limousin (a language of southern France and northern Italy) and also in French.

Richard was said to be very attractive; his hair was between red and blond, and he was light-eyed with a pale complexion. According to accounts, he was 6 feet 5inches, though that is unverifiable since his remains have been lost since at least the French Revolution.

In 1171, at the age of fourteen, Richard left for Aquitaine with his mother, and Henry II gave him the duchy of Aquitaine at the request of Eleanor. He often took his mother along on his trips. In June 1172 Richard was formally recognized as the Duke of Aquitaine; the ceremony took place in Poitiers and was repeated in Limoges, where he wore the ring of St Valerie, who was the personification of Aquitaine.

On the advice of his mother and the king of France, Richard joined his brothers in a revolt against his father Henry II. They were defeated. While Richard escaped, Henry took Eleanor as captive back to England. Not long after Richard came to his father's court begging forgiveness. It was granted, however, Henry kept Eleanor prisoner until his death, partly as insurance for Richard's good behavior. Henry II and Louis VII signed a truce in 1174.

The process of pacifying the provinces that had rebelled against Henry II began. In January 1175 Richard was dispatched to Aquitaine to punish the barons who had fought for him. It was during this campaign, Richard acquired the name "the Lion" or "the Lionheart" due to his noble, brave and fierce leadership.

Around this time, Richard began a relationship with 22-year-old Philip II, who was now King of France. This gave Henry II great political concern. It has been cited as proof of Richard being gay. There was an official record announcing that, as a symbol of unity between the two countries, the kings of England and France slept in the same bed.

Richard promised to concede to Philip his rights to both Normandy and Anjou. Richard paid homage to Philip in November 1187. Richard was 30 years old and Philip, 22.

In 1189, After Richard became king, he and Philip agreed to go on Crusade together. This was not only to remain close but also to keep an eye on each other. Richard swore an oath to renounce his past wickedness to show himself worthy to take the cross. It has been said that one of these transgressions was the sin of sex with Philip, but who knows.

1190 Richard and Philip arrived in Sicily. The citizens rebelled and Richard quickly put it down. At this time there was tension between Richard and Philip. The two kings finally cleared the air and reached an agreement, including the end of Richard's betrothal to Philip's sister Alys (who had supposedly been the mistress of Richard's father Henry II). 

 

Before leaving their next stop, Cyprus, Richard, married Berengaria of Navarre. Now, this was forced on him by his mother, Eleanor. She wanted the Kingdom of Navarre as a fief. It was written that Richard did not even attend the ceremony, but instead sent his sword as a stand-in! It was a childless marriage.

During much of his campaigns in the Holy Land, Richard was sick from scurvy. Philip also left soon afterward, in poor health and after further disputes with Richard over the status of Cyprus (Philip demanded half the island) and the kingship of Jerusalem. 

 

  

Now alone, Richard then moved south, defeating Saladin's forces at the Battle of Arsuf. However, his attacks on Jerusalem had failed twice. Richard knew that both Philip and his own brother John were starting to plot against him, and the morale of Saladin's army had been badly eroded by repeated defeats.

In the end, time ran out for Richard.

He realized that his return home could not be postponed. Both Philip and John were taking advantage of his absence. He and Saladin finally came to a settlement in 1192. Richard, being ill with scurvy, left for England on October 9.

He set sail, but his ship was wrecked near Aquileia, forcing Richard and his party into a dangerous land route through central Europe. On his way, Richard was captured near Vienna by Leopold V, Duke of Austria. In March Richard was handed over to Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, who imprisoned him in Trifels Castle. The emperor demanded that 100,000 pounds of silver be delivered to him before he would release the king.

A famous bit of folklore states that after Richard's capture, his minstrel, Blondel, traveled Europe from castle to castle, loudly singing a song known only to the two of them (they had composed it together). Eventually, he came to the place where Richard was being held, and Richard heard the song and answered with the appropriate refrain, thus revealing where the king was incarcerated. The story was the basis of André Ernest Modeste Grétry's opera Richard Cœur-de-Lion.

The money to rescue the King was raised and transferred to Germany. Finally, in February 1194, Richard was released. Philip sent a message to John: "Look to yourself; the devil is loose".

In Richard's absence, his brother John revolted with the aid of Philip; amongst Philip's conquests was Normandy. At Winchester, on 11 March 1194, Richard was crowned a second time to nullify the shame of his captivity.

He then began his reconquest of Normandy. The two kings came to terms with the Treaty of Louviers.

Richard decided to build fortifications to protect Normandy. The work at Château Gaillard was some of the most expensive of its time and cost an estimated £15,000 to £20,000 between 1196 and 1198. Unprecedented in its speed of construction, the castle was mostly complete in two years when most construction would have taken the best part of a decade. 

 

Military historian Allen Brown has suggested that Richard himself was the overall architect.

Château Gaillard was ahead of its time, featuring innovations that would be adopted in castle architecture nearly a century later. Allen Brown described Château Gaillard as "one of the finest castles in Europe", and military historian Sir Charles Oman wrote that it was considered "the masterpiece of its time. The reputation of its builder, Cœur de Lion, as a great military engineer might stand firm on this single structure. He was no mere copyist of the models he had seen in the East, but introduced many original details of his own invention into the stronghold".

In March 1199, Richard was suppressing a revolt by Viscount Aimar V of Limoges. Richard was walking around without his chainmail one night and a crossbowman struck the king in the left shoulder near the neck. He tried to pull this out but failed; a surgeon called a "butcher" removed it, "carelessly mangling" the King's arm in the process. The wound swiftly became gangrenous.

The King pardoned the bowman in his last act of mercy. Richard then set his affairs in order, bequeathing all his territory to his brother John and his jewels to his nephew Otto. Richard died on 6 April 1199 in the arms of his mother, and thus "ended his earthly day".

Richard's heart was buried at Rouen in Normandy, his entrails in Châlus (where he died), and the rest of his body at the feet of his father at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou.

Richard is credited with having originated the English crest of a lion statant. The coat of three lions continues to represent England on several coins of the pound sterling, forms the basis of several emblems of English national sports teams, and endures as one of the most recognizable national symbols of England.

Muslim writers during the Crusades period and after wrote of him: "Never have we had to face a bolder or more subtle opponent".

Contemporaries considered Richard as both a king and “a knight famed for personal sexual prowess.” He was considered prone to the sins of lust!