Editing Richard I of England (section)

===War against Philip of France===
In Richard's absence, his brother John revolted with the aid of Philip; amongst Philip's conquests in the period of Richard's imprisonment was a part of Normandy<ref>{{Harvnb|Gillingham|2004}}.</ref> called [[Norman Vexin]] facing [[French Vexin]]. Richard forgave John when they met again and named him as his heir in place of their nephew Arthur. At Winchester, on 11 March 1194, Richard was crowned a second time to nullify the shame of his captivity.{{Sfn|Barrow|1967|p=184}}

Richard began his reconquest of the lost lands in Normandy. The fall of the [[Château de Gisors]] to the French in 1193 opened a gap in the Norman defences. The search began for a fresh site for a new castle to defend the duchy of Normandy and act as a base from which Richard could launch his campaign to take back Vexin from French control.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gillingham|2002|pp=303–305.}}</ref> A naturally defensible position was identified, perched high above the River [[Seine]], an important transport route, in the manor of [[Les Andelys|Andeli]]. Under the terms of the [[Treaty of Louviers]] (December 1195) between Richard and Philip II, neither king was allowed to fortify the site; despite this, Richard intended to build the vast [[Château Gaillard]].<ref name="Gillingham 301">{{Harvnb|Gillingham|2002|p=301.}}</ref> Richard tried to obtain the manor through negotiation. [[Walter de Coutances]], [[Archbishop of Rouen]], was reluctant to sell the manor, as it was one of the diocese's most profitable, and other lands belonging to the diocese had recently been damaged by war.<ref name="Gillingham 301"/> When Philip besieged Aumale in Normandy, Richard grew tired of waiting and seized the manor,<ref name="Gillingham 301"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Turner|1997|p=10.}}</ref> although the act was opposed by the Catholic Church.<ref>{{Harvnb|Packard|1922|p=20.}}</ref> The archbishop issued an [[interdict]] against performing church services in the duchy of Normandy; Roger of Howden detailed "unburied bodies of the dead lying in the streets and square of the cities of Normandy". The interdict was still in force when work began on the castle, but Pope Celestine III repealed it in April 1197 after Richard made gifts of land to the archbishop and the diocese of Rouen, including two manors and the prosperous port of [[Dieppe]].<ref name="Gillingham 302">{{Harvnb|Gillingham|2002|pp=302–304}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Brown|2004|p=112.}}</ref>

[[File:Chateau gaillard (France, Normandy).JPG|thumb|upright=1.3|The ruins of [[Château Gaillard]] in Normandy]]

Royal expenditure on castles declined from the levels spent under Henry II, attributed to a concentration of resources on Richard's war with the king of France.<ref>{{Harvnb|Brown|1976|pp=355–356.}}</ref> However, 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.<ref name="McNeil 42">{{Harvnb|McNeill|1992|p=42.}}</ref> This was more than double Richard's spending on castles in England, an estimated £7,000.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gillingham|2002|p=304.}}</ref> Unprecedented in its speed of construction, the castle was mostly complete in two years, when most construction on such a scale would have taken the better part of a decade.<ref name="McNeil 42"/> According to [[William of Newburgh]], in May 1198 Richard and the labourers working on the castle were drenched in a "rain of blood". While some of his advisers thought the rain was an evil omen, Richard was undeterred.<ref name="Gillingham 2002 303">{{Harvnb|Gillingham|2002|p=303.}}</ref>
As no master-mason is mentioned in the otherwise detailed records of the castle's construction, military historian Richard Allen Brown has suggested that Richard himself was the overall architect; this is supported by the interest Richard showed in the work through his frequent presence.<ref>{{Harvnb|Brown|2004|p=113.}}</ref> In his final years, the castle became Richard's favourite residence, and writs and charters were written at Château Gaillard bearing "''{{Lang|la|apud Bellum Castrum de Rupe}}''" (at the Fair Castle of the Rock).<ref name="Allen Brown 62">{{Harvnb|Brown|1976|p=62.}}</ref>

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",<ref name="Allen Brown 62"/> 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".<ref>{{Harvnb|Oman|1991|p=33.}}</ref>

Determined to resist Philip's designs on contested Angevin lands such as the Vexin and Berry, Richard poured all his military expertise and vast resources into the war on the French King. He organised an alliance against Philip, including [[Baldwin IX of Flanders]], [[Renaud I, Count of Dammartin|Renaud]], Count of [[Boulogne]], and his father-in-law, King Sancho VI of Navarre, who raided Philip's lands from the south. Most importantly, he managed to secure the [[House of Welf|Welf]] inheritance in [[Saxony]] for his nephew, Henry the Lion's son, who was elected [[Otto IV of Germany]] in 1198.{{Citation needed|date=July 2019}}

Partly as a result of these and other intrigues, Richard won several victories over Philip. At [[Fréteval]] in 1194, just after Richard's return to France from captivity and money-raising in England, Philip fled, leaving his entire archive of financial audits and documents to be captured by Richard. At the [[Battle of Gisors]] (sometimes called Courcelles) in 1198, Richard took ''{{Lang|fr|Dieu et mon Droit}}''{{Snd}}"God and my Right"{{Snd}}as his motto (still used by the [[British monarchy]] today), echoing his earlier boast to Emperor Henry that his rank acknowledged no superior but God.{{Citation needed|date=July 2019}}