Richard the Lionheart is an iconic figure in English history. The red cross of St George that he popularised on the Third Crusade is today a ubiquitous symbol of our brave new England, patriotically adorning car registration plates, painted on the faces of football fans, and tattooed across the spreading jelly bellies of those modern crusaders who carry fire and sword to the bars of Ibiza rather than the gates of Jerusalem. And wasn’t it in Richard’s cause that the archetypal English rogue Robin Hood – loveable, loyal and brave – took to the woods of Sherwood in defiance of bad brother John and his repressive, duplicitous tyranny?

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