How many know this historical fact about King Richard the Lionheart?
That’s a well-known fact, yes. Less well-known is that fact that in his youth he was a notorious rapist; before he became King, when he was Count of Poitou, his vassals there rebelled against his rule because he had a habit of abducting their daughters. They might not have minded that so much (abducting women was pretty customary for a 12th-century ruler) if he had done the decent thing – paid them off when he got tired of them, and supported any bastards he fathered. Their real beef was that when he got tired of them he simply passed them on to his followers for a general gang-bang, so that when (if) the poor girls finally came limping home there was no telling the paternity of any children they had.
