On This Day: December 20

Statue of Richard the Lionheart outside of the Palace of
Westminster, where the Houses of Parliament are located.

     In 1192, Richard I of England (the Lionheart) was captured and imprisoned near Vienna by Duke Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England following the Third Crusade. He had recently signed a treaty with Saladin - the Sultan of Egypt and Syria - which ended the Crusade that had been led by Richard. Duke Leopold accused Richard of arranging the murder of his cousin, Conrad of Montferrat, and he had been offended when Richard rejected his standard (flag used by a monarch) from the walls of Acre in the Holy Land.

     Richard was held at Dürnstein Castle, where he wrote Ja nus hons pris ("No man who is imprisoned") to express his feelings of abandonment by his people and his half-sister, Marie de Champagne (which was caused by uncertainty of Richard's location for several weeks). In 1193, he was turned over to Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, who had his own grudge with Richard and the Plantagenet family for supporting Henry the Lion (husband of Richard's sister, Matilda) against Emperor Henry and his family during the struggle for power in the duchies of Saxony and Bavaria. He was also aggrieved at Richard's recognition of Tancred as King of Sicily, which was part of a larger peace treaty between Tancred, Richard, and Philip II of France. Richard was imprisoned at Trifels Castle, and held for a ransom of 150,000 marks (or 65,000 pounds of silver), which Henry VI needed to raise an army and asset his claims in southern Italy. Such an amount was 2-3 times the amount of annual Crown revenue in England and Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, worked to raise the necessary funds through increased taxation and confiscation of gold and silver from churches.

     In 1194, the ransom money was transferred to Germany and on February 4, 1194, Richard was finally released from captivity. 

HRH The Duke of Kent

      In 1902, Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund, Duke of Kent was born at York Cottage on the royal family's private estate of Sandringham. He was the fourth son and fifth child of King George V and Queen Mary, as well as a younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI.

     At the age of 13, following the tradition of his brothers, he was sent to naval college, first at Osborne and later at Dartmouth. George went on to have a successful career in the Royal Navy, in which he was trained in intelligence and served on the HMS Iron Duke and HMS Nelson. He leaving active service in 1929 to take up a job at the Foreign Office and later at the Home Office, becoming first member of the royal family to work as a civil servant. He became a factory inspector and expressed his concern of a Bolshevik revolution if working conditions were not improved. George was also the first member of the royal family to cross the Atlantic by air, and earned his pilot's license in 1929.

     In October 1934, he was granted the titles Duke of Kent, Earl of St. Andrews, and Baron Downpatrick in the lead-up to his marriage to his second cousin, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, which took place on November 29, 1934 at Westminster Abbey. The couple would have three children: Edward, Alexandra, and Michael.

     The Duke of Kent was commissioned into the Royal Air Force as a group captain in 1937, and was also given the honorary rank of Air Commodore of the No. 500 (County of Kent) Squadron Auxiliary Air Force. A year later, he was appointed Governor-General of Australia, but this did not become effective due to the outbreak of World War II, during which was reactivated into military service as an officer in the Intelligence Division of the Admiralty, before being transferred to the RAF as a Staff Officer at RAF Training Command. He temporarily relinquished his position as Air Vice-Marshal so that he would not be superior to more experienced officers, and as an air commodore in the Welfare Section of the RAF Inspector General's Staff, a traveled to RAF bases to boost wartime morale.

     On August 25, 1942, George and 14 others were traveling to Iceland on official business when their plane crashed into a hillside near Dunbeath, Caithness, in Scotland. Everyone on board the RAF Short Sunderland flying boat W4026 died, including Prince George at the age of 39, becoming the first member of the royal family to be killed in active military service for 500 years.  He was buried at the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore, Windsor, and his titles were passed to his eldest son, Edward. 

Queen Elizabeth attending a 2007 state dinner hosted by
President George W. Bush at the White House.

     In 2007, Elizabeth II became the oldest monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days. If the Queen is still living and reigning through September 11, 2015, she will surpass Victoria as Britain's longest reigning monarch and the longest-reigning female monarch in history.

Photo Credit: Jitze Couperus via Flickr cc