Third Crusade
Two Kings
Richard 
Coeur-de-Lion (the Lion-Hearted) was one of the great knights of the Middle Ages, fulfilling every requirement. He was strong and courageous, physically well-suited for warfare. He rode well, fought well, and proved himself to be a good field commander. He was tall and handsome. He had a taste for poetry and song, and he generally lived up to the chivalric code. He had little patience with politics, however, or administration or the other routine chores of a king. He was thirty-three years old, newly-made King of England. While it may be true that he was a better knight than king, his contemporaries did not fault him for it.
Philip Augustus was Richard's match but was also his opposite. He was an excellent administrator, at home with diplomacy and court intrigue. He disliked glamor and romance, and disliked warfare even more. He was well-built, but not particularly handsome, and was blind in one eye. Although he was only twenty-five, he had been king for ten years already and had a firm grasp of the duties of royalty. Where Richard's court was splendid, Philip's was dull. Even so, Philip had proven himself a match for the old lion, Henry II, and was not unfraid to take on the young lion, either.
The French and English assembled in July 1190 at Vezelay, the starting-point for Louis' crusade almost fifty years earlier. They travelled together as far as Lyons, but there the French went to Genoa while the English went to Marseilles. Both kings arrived at Messina, Sicily, in September.