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The Chopard L.U.C XPS 1860 Officer Royal Arms of England

Richard I earned his ‘Lionheart’ appellation for his efforts as a military leader and warrior, not least his whipping the proverbials of Saladin and his men in the Battle of Arsuf during the Crusades. So it’s apt that this Chopard piece — one set to fight its way through the dress-watch battlefield with robust authority — pays tribute to the medieval monarch by revealing a lion when the crown is pressed to make the hinged cover hiding its exhibition case-back open at a 90-degree angle.

Richard I, an iconic English king who was also Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, is a perfect figure with whom to celebrate the opening of a new flagship boutique on London’s New Bond Street by a company based in French-speaking Geneva — hence his getting a nod within the confines of this extremely limited U.K.-only edition (there are just eight pieces) of Chopard’s ultra-thin L.U.C XPS 1860 model.

The 96.01-L movement atop which Richard’s lion sits is powered by an intricately engraved 22-carat-gold micro-rotor that channels enough energy to the stacked barrels (which feature Chopard’s patented Twin structure) to guarantee around 65 hours of running time with certified accuracy — a personal stipulation by Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, Chopard’s co-president, who is emotionally wedded to unsurpassed chronometric precision when it comes to L.U.C models equipped with small seconds.