The title of an epic film by Ridley Scott, historically accurate it tells the tale of how, on 02^nd of October in 1187, a crusader knight named Balien d’Ibelin was forced to surrender the city of Jerusalem to the Muslim leader Saladin. This in order to save civilian lives.

By 1189 Pope Gregory VIII had proclaimed the third crusade and European leaders set off to re-take the Holy City.

The final scene of the film shows King Richard of England, The Lionheart, on his way to confront Islam and join in the Third Crusade.

 Richard was unmarried and his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was concerned that he might not return so determined to find him a wife. Her gaze fell upon the neighbouring Basque kingdom of Navarre, where an unmarried princess named, Berengaria, (Berenguella) was busy managing her widowed father’s realm.

King Sancho and Berengaria saw merit in the proposed match and agreed to the union. So Eleanor and Berengaria set off in hot pursuit of King Richard, already on his way to join his English fleet sailing to Marseilles.

They did not catch up with him until they reached the Straits of Messina and did not marry until they were blown to the shores of Cyprus. Although they picked up another queen along the way. Richard’s sister, Queen Joan of Sicily joined them and she and Berengaria became good friends.

After the mariage ceremony, in which England acquired a Basque Queen, they set off across the sea bound for Acre where the two queens were confronted by the vicious reality of a holy, but bloody, war.