The story of Richard the Lionheart's perception by the British public is a long and complicated one. He has always been controversial, and opinion has generally swung on a pendulum between harsh condemnation as a vagabond who didn't bother to rule England verses a lionised hero who led the Third Crusade and nearly won. So here's the basics of why.

Richard's father, Henry II, had been a strong king but also a controversial one for his own long and complicated list of reasons - he had almost been overthrown in a rebellion led by his own children, including Richard. When Richard I was crowned there was hope that he would be a steady ruler and keep his slippery brother John under control. His coronation degenerated into an anti-semitic riot in the streets of London, and that rather set the tone.

In his own day Richard was not particularly loved, other than when he was freed from captivity, which was met with widespread celebration. Numerous sources, including people who personally knew him, openly describe him as an asshole even by medieval standards. He was a serial rapist, his marriage was dysfunctional and so lacking in love that the pope publicly called him out on it, he had little regard for the lower classes of society, he killed prisoners, he had people assassinated including the king-elect of Jerusalem, and he was known to be difficult to work with (a shock given what I just told you, I know). We know him as 'the Lionheart' but during his lifetime he was also known as 'Oc-e-Non', which in Occitan means 'yes and no'; a reference to his terseness. He was cruel and difficult.

The Third Crusade, for which he is best known, was a mixed affair for Richard's reputation. On the one hand, he had led the counter attack against Saladin, who was rightfully perceived as the greatest threat to Christian dominion over the Holy Land in living memory. On the other hand, he delayed going (for which he was attacked by the famous troubadour Bertran de Born) and... he lost. There's no getting around the fact that he did not fulfil his crusading vow by visiting Jerusalem. The decision to leave was his call, and almost his call alone - his men even mutinied against him and I can't emphasise how rare that was in the Middle Ages. Whilst he was away, king Philip II of France invaded Normandy and his brother John attempted to expand his personal domains in England and potentially seize the throne and, because Richard was thought to have had the king-elect of Jerusalem assassinated, he was imprisoned on his way home by the duke of Austria, who he'd been such an asshole to on the Third Crusade that most of the remaining German contingent departed because they couldn't stand him. His ransom nearly bankrupted England and he spent a year unable to fight back against John and Phillip so lost chunks of Normandy to the French that would never be securely recovered. He cocked up royally.

Then a few years later he was shot in the collar and killed by a teenager because he was too busy taunting a guy defending a castle with a frying pan to spot the kid lining up a crossbow on him.

From what I've just written, you might be wondering why anyone remembers him positively at all given that he messed up so much.

He did have some things going for him. He dazzled contemporaries with his brilliance in war, thanks partly to Roman military doctrine laid out in Vegetius' De Re Militari, a late Roman treatise on warfare. Richard wasn't so much interested in battle tactics - his army was no Roman legion, not even close - but in training and logistics he took a lot on board from Vegetius. Crusades in particular had been blighted by poor logistical preparation but Richard had a solid grasp of what was needed. He prepared flat-pack trebuchets that he could ferry to the Holy Land, he conquered Cyprus in part to secure a supply of food and money to support the crusade, he successfully worked out how to counter Saladin's tactics, but he also viewed the crusade as a personal battle between himself and Saladin and lost sight of the mission. Commenting on Richard's qualities, the historian Stephen Runciman put it eloquently: "he was a bad son, a bad husband, and a bad king, but a gallant and splendid soldier"

He was also good at delegating. Richard has been infamous in history for not speaking English and not taking an interest in the running of the kingdom. These were not criticisms levied at him in his lifetime (u/CoeurdeLionne goes into more detail below). Henry II had created a centralised government in Westminster that handled the daily affairs of state and Richard left them to it. They were nothing special, but it kept the kingdom in safe-ish hands.

So he was a good military leader, and his lack of interest in politics turned out to be a good thing, but why the lionisation?

Nostalgia is powerful, especially in a time of great difficulty. We think 'well the current time is bad, so the before time must have been at least a bit good', and this was essentially what happened to Richard's reputation. The problems of Richard's reign were pretty small compared to John's. John's reign was so bad we got the beginnings of constitutional monarchy (through Magna Carta) to restrain the worst of it. People looked back on Richard favourably as a result. John was intrusive in the affairs of state and routinely overruled the civil servants that had competently run the kingdom in Richard's absence. His disrespect for the barons led to civil wars, and the trouble they caused both to the aristocracy and the common folk.

In the years after John's death, literature emerged praising those nostalgic days before John ruined everything. In late medieval stories like the early Robin Hood tales, John was invariably an antagonist. In any story set while Richard was away on crusade, Richard was cast as the just ruler undermined by his nefarious brother. Robin Hood is the most famous example but there were plenty such tales in circulation. As I've described, there's a lot of truth to that portrayal, and writers seized on it as way to further vilify John.

Furthermore, Richard's battles against Saladin had all the elements of a naturally excellent story. It was two great leaders facing off against each other in a great struggle for the future of the Holy Land, and Richard was without a doubt its hero. In particular, the Battle of Jaffa showed him to be a mighty warrior; he led the vanguard personally and cut down dozens of Saladin's men, wielded a crossbow with great accuracy, and then utterly crushed Saladin's army in it's last charge. It wasn't just his own court poets writing about him like this either,the Muslim sources also describe him as a terrifyingly good warrior who always led from the front. To round off the victory, Richard mounted a horse and rode down the front of Saladin's line taunting his men, and nobody dared to attack him. He was great, and he knew it. He had been occasionally called 'the Lionheart' before the Battle of Jaffa, but afterwards it defined his memory in popular culture.

Against the backdrop of John's terrible reign, and the controversial reign of Henry III (John's son, who lost secure possession of all Normandy and was deemed so bad there was a revolution against him in 1258 that saw him entirely removed from government for a few years), Richard became a figure representative of the time before all the problems. People latched onto those people who defied the misery of John and Henry, Richard was one, another was William Marshall - eulogised as the greatest knight of all time. Compared to the difficulties of the 13th century, the reign of Richard looked positively peachy. And as crusades continued to fail badly, his limited success became more praiseworthy as people realised what an achievement it was to even win a battle in the Holy Land.

Richard's lionisation was not (imo) mainly down to his own merits as a ruler, because as king he got a lot wrong. But compared to the trash fire that was England in the 13th century, Richard looked great and was an emblem of the before times when England had a chivalric king who took on Saladin and achieved more than anyone else did. Poets of the later Middle Ages celebrated his military achievements and forgot his misdeeds, in part because John was worse in many respects, and because it made for a better story. After all, rapists and murderers don't make for sympathetic protagonists.

Finally, I'd like to point out that Richard was not always lionised. There's a statue of him outside Parliament in London, awkwardly away from the road where nobody can really see it. It's there because MPs could not decide whether they wanted to venerate Richard or not, and ordered the statue before deciding where to put it because they loved the work of the artist (who had produced an earlier clay version). So they stuck it in a corner as a compromise. An often quoted passage on Richard comes from William Stubbs, who offers a damning picture of Richard that was pretty common for its day:

He was a bad king: his great exploits, his military skill, his splendour and extravagance, his poetical tastes, his adventurous spirit, do not serve to cloak his entire want of sympathy, or even consideration, for his people. He was no Englishman, but it does not follow that he gave to Normandy, Anjou, or Aquitaine the love or care that he denied to his kingdom. His ambition was that of a mere warrior: he would fight for anything whatever, but he would sell everything that was worth fighting for.

So he has not always been lionised, and u/CoeurdeLionne goes into more detail on this in his excellent answer below. I'd also recommend John Gillingham's biography of Richard for how his reputation has fluctuated.

Sources/Further Reading

Gillingham, John. Richard I. Yale University Press, 2002.

Markowski, Michael. "Richard Lionheart: bad king, bad crusader?." Journal of medieval history 23.4 (1997): 351-365.

I have written a few answers on Richard’s fluctuating reputation, which you can read HERE and HERE.

I will preface my own answer by stating that I am in some disagreement with u/J-Force’s own assessment of Richard, which will be evident throughout. I am not writing a direct rebuttal, so I have opted to post this as a top-level comment. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I am limited in my access to primary sources.

I want to also begin by pointing out that the words “good” and “bad” can be a problem in this type of analysis because they carry a moral connotation. When I am judging Richard and John in particular, I try not to look at them through the lens of good and bad so much as “successful” and “unsuccessful”. Obviously we know now in 2020 that embarking on a violent war of religion is bad, but in the 1190’s, it was the expectation of successful kingship.

Richard was controversial in his own time, and contemporary assessment of him often depends on whether they were written before or after he had become King. For example, Roger of Howden and Gervase of Canterbury both write about Richard as a cruel and tyrannical ruler of Aquitaine during 1182-3. During this period, Richard was being attacked by his elder brother, Henry the Young King, who was expected to succeed their father, Henry II, as King of England. However, Henry the Young King died of dysentery in June 1183 and Richard became heir to England, Normandy and Anjou. At least Roger of Howden is known to have revised his work to characterize Richard as the victim in these passages sometime after Richard became King. While we cannot absolutely determine which interpretation is accurate, it is likely that both versions include a certain amount of political spin.

Richard did have a reputation for terseness, but also one for wit and humor when it suited him. One muslim writer describes him speaking in a tone that seemed half-serious, and half-joking. While imprisoned in Germany, Richard was made to endure a show trial, in which he defended himself ably. Even William the Breton, a chronicler of Richard’s great rival expressed admiration. He was a songwriter, and was acknowledged by both Angevin and Capetian chroniclers for his generosity, or at least that he paid more than Philip II of France.

However, as I have said, Richard displayed this qualities only when it suited him. He was also known to be arrogant, and certainly made his share of political blunders. The worst was certainly his handling of the situation with Leopold of Austria. After taking the city of Acre, Richard and Philip II of France both flew their banners above the city (they had made an agreement to share the spoils equally between them). When Leopold flew his banner above the city as well, Richard ordered it removed. This created a grudge that eventually led to Richard’s imprisonment in the Holy Roman Empire, for which Leopold and Emperor Henry both received consequences from the Pope. Leopold was actually ordered to repay the ransom. Though whether or not it was actually paid is anyone’s guess.

Another of Richard’s blunders was in his promotion of William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely as Chancellor while he was away on Crusade. Longchamp was deeply unpopular, owing to his lack of tact and his disputes with Richard’s brothers John and Geoffrey FitzRoy. However, on the whole, Richard’s biographers praise his delegation of authority in England. John Gillingham, in analyzing Richard’s tax policy does acknowledge that Richard’s taxation was harsher than that of his father, but also that far fewer complaints survive about Richard’s taxes than his father’s. Gillingham interprets this to mean that Richard’s policies were either considered worth the heavier taxes, or that he was simply more persuasive towards his own point of view.

One of the most common, modern criticisms of Richard as King of England is the short amount of time her spent in England, as well as the fact that he did not speak English. The fact of the matter is that Richard maintained a good relationship with KIng William of Scotland, so England suffered not threat of invasion. England’s administration had also been polished and tightened by Richard’s father, so it could function effectively without the King’s immediate interference. In fact, Richard’s predecessors, William I (great-great grandfather), Henry I (great-grandfather), and Henry II (father) also spent long stretches out of England, as they were often more concerned with their French possessions, which were considered more valuable and prestigious at the time. None of them spoke English either, as far as we know. Instead, Richard focused his boundless energy where his skills and immediate threats to his patrimony demanded, which was to be in France.

Arguably, Richard’s worst mistake was his handling of the succession. Though out his reign, he had considered his nephews, Arthur of Brittany and Otto of Saxony as heirs, as well as his brother John, who he eventually confirmed as heir on his deathbed. This left questions in the succession, and John’s early reign was marked by conflicts with Arthur of Brittany, who was backed by an opportunistic Philip II. Had Richard left a direct heir, this crisis may have been averted. We do not know why Richard did not have an heir with Berengaria of Navarre, and without her side of the story, we probably never will. Certainly Richard was ordered to be more faithful towards her, indicating that he at least bears some responsibility for the failure of the marriage.

This brings us to the history of the perception of Richard. Certainly throughout the Middle Ages, he was held up as the gold standard for Kingship. u/J-Force is not wrong to suggest that there was some element of nostalgia for the ‘glory days’ of Richard I’s reign. He was arguably able to sustain the successes of Henry II’s consolidation of the Angevin ‘Empire’ and his reputation as a warrior certainly played to how intertwined warfare was with Medieval ideals of Kingship. Kings were, until the throne passed to Mary I, almost universally depicted on seals and coinage, engaged in mounted combat on one side, and seated as the bringer-of-justice on the other. In addition to maintaining law and just rule within their lands, and defending the Church, it was a major expectation that medieval Kings be actively engaged in either the defense or expansion of their realms, and preferably the latter.

Obviously, this opinion drastically changed with changes to popular perceptions of the role of Kingship. By the 19th Century, where we see popular opinion of Richard veer drastically towards the “bad son, bad husband, bad king” approach. This is where most of the modern criticisms of Richard come from. This was a period of English hegemony, and I suspect that English historians of the time found the very idea of an English King not devoting the majority of his time to England reprehensible. Therefore we get the mythos of Richard as the compulsive warmonger, ignorant of English affairs, and with little care for the island realm. This mythos continued alongside a tradition of Richard as literary hero (largely perpetuated by Sir Walter Scott), which creates an often confusing historiographic landscape today.

In my other answers, which focused more on John, I explain how the two brothers’ reputations have evolved in opposition to each other. Modern scholarship of both is more nuanced. Richard’s main biographers, John Gillingham and Ralph Turner (with Richard Heiser) are both positive towards Richard, but are able to accept his faults as a ruler. Likewise, John’s biographers are able to put themselves past the Evil Prince from the Robin Hood stories to find a character who was deeply flawed, but not evil.

I hope my slightly conflicting alternate answer helps broaden our collective understanding. I hesitated posting this because of the time, but thought it would be an interesting insight for AH readers into how history is made.

Sources

John Gillingham, Richard I - The gold standard biography for Richard. Gillingham has written extensively about the Angevin period and is widely considered to be an expert on the Angevin ‘Empire’

John Gillingham, Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry, and War in the Twelfth Century - A collection of Gillingham’s published articles on Richard and related topics. Of particular interest are: “The Art of Kingship: Richard I, 1189-1199”, “Conquering Kings: Some Twelfth-Century Reflections on Henry II and Richard I”, and “Richard I and Berengaria of Navarre”

Ralph V. Turner and Richard R. Heiser, The Reign of Richard Lionheart: Ruler of the Angevin Empire, 1189-1199 - A biography focusing on Richard’s career other than the Third Crusade

J Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus - For further information on Philip II. I cross-referenced this for some of Gillingham’s information on Philip II’s chroniclers.

There's a good, somewhat related answer here discussing Richard in relation to John by, appropriately, /u/coeurdelionne. Hopefully this will be useful while we wait for more answers.