Richard at the time of his coronation was thirty-two years old; a man of tall stature, like his father and elder brother, ruddy and brown-haired, and giving already some indications of corpulence, which he tried to keep down by constant exercise. In dress he was very splendid and ostentatious, therein unlike his father. The dissimilarity in character was greater. Richard was foolishly extravagant, as lavish of money as Henry was sparing, and as unscrupulous in his ways of exacting it as his father was cautious and considerate. At this period of his life he had no pronounced political views; he had taken the Cross, and was that very rare phenomenon, an ardent Crusader, but he had not yet conceived a political scheme as King of England or as enemy of the King of France. He had not thought of taking into his hands the strings of that foreign policy for which Henry had sacrificed so much. He despised his friend Philip far more than his knowledge of him or the results of their intercourse justified him in doing; he trusted in himself far more than any man should do who has any sense of the rights or duties of kingship. He was a thorough warrior; personally brave, fearless in danger, politic and cautious in planning, and rapid in executing, exhibiting in battle the very faculties which deserted him in council--circumspection, self-control, readiness. He cared more for the glory of victory than either for the fame or the substance of it; it was his very joy to excel in arms, rather than to win renown or profit; yet for both renown and profit he had an insatiable thirst also. He was eloquent, generous and impulsive. In religion he was perhaps more sincere than his family generally were; he heard mass daily, and on three occasions did penance in a very remarkable way, simply on the impulse of his own distressed conscience. He did not show the carelessness in divine things that marked the house of Anjou, still less the brutal profanity of John. But notwithstanding this he was a vicious man, a bad husband and a bad son; vicious, although his vices did not, like those of his father and brother, complicate his public policy. All one can say about this is that, when he professed penitence, he seems to have been sincerely penitent. His best trait is the forgivingness of his character, and that is especially shown in his treatment of John.