Why didn't Costner even bother to speak the same English as everyone?

Look in the Trivia section, it's explained there.

Funny thing about Connery's casting, since we're talking accents: he was ~25 years older than Richard would have been when this took place (1149 if I remember correctly), and Richard Coeur de Lion was French and didn't speak very much, if any, English.

Do you know how dumb British slang sounds without the accent?

The irony is that the English accent is highly likely to have sounded American back in 1194. Costner's Hood might actually sound more authentic than Rickman's Nottingham.

Robin should've spoken in Cockney rhyming slang. I feel like that would have been a brave choice.

Yes because people living in England all have the same accents and sound exactly the same

Watch Richard Gere in First Knight----NO ACCENT whatsoever. Quit dissing Kevin on this. ENOUGH!!!

I really don't understand what the British (or Americans, for that matter) have about accents, or lack thereof. So Costner doesn't speak with an English accent. So what? A member of the English gentry in the 12th century probably would have spoken some cross between middle English and old French, anyway. If Richard I spoke English at all (which I doubt. He probably spoke French), it most definitely would NOT have been with Sean Connery's Scottish accent. And I don't hear people from Israel complaining about Morgan Freeman's accent, or the fact that no one in the Jerusalem scene speaks Arabic.

And, as mentioned on another board, you don't see Italians getting all bent out of shape over the fact that, every time a movie is made taking place in Rome, Caesar or the Pope talk with upperclass English accents. Peter O'Toole sounds British to the core in *The Tudors,* even though he's playing a 16th century Italian. Where's the complaining over HIS accent?