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...would it have been so for Richard the Lionheart...
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Leaders are not very open to negotiation when you have executed several thousands of their captured soldiers being held as hostages because it would be awkward to continue to hold them as your forces advanced.
A side note - I have been to
Trifels, the castle where Henry Vl held Richard for ransom - not a well restored castle but copies of Henry's sword, crown, sceptre, and orb as Emperor of the Holy Roman and Germanic Empires are on display there - and I've seen the originals on display in the Schatzkammer in Wien which also contains the Hapsburg collection of
holy relics - including what were
proclaimed to be pieces from the cross on which Christ was crucified, the Holy Lance used to pierce His side, the thorn of crowns, the cloth that covered the table at the last supper, and Christ's loincloth.
Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles, and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that once ignorance is put aside that wonderment would be taken away which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.
- Spinoza
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
- Blaise Pascal
Richard