The siege was now pressed with more vigour, and before the middle of July, Acre surrendered. Then Philip, whose heart was always in his plans at home, pleaded ill health and returned to France. After this began the slow advance on Jerusalem, Saladin's troops hanging on the line of march and constantly attacking in small bodies, while the crusaders suffered greatly from the climate and from lack of supplies. So great were the difficulties which Richard had not foreseen that at one time he was disposed to give up the attempt and to secure what he could by treaty, but the negotiations failed. The battle of Arsuf gave him an opportunity to exercise his peculiar talents, and the Saracens were badly defeated; but the advance was not made any the easier. By the last day of the year the army had struggled through to within ten miles of the holy city. There a halt was made; a council of war was held on January 13,1192, and it was decided, much against the will of Richard, to return and occupy Ascalon before attempting to take and hold Jerusalem—probably a wise decision unless the city were to be held merely as material for negotiation. Various attempts to bring the war to an end by treaty had been going on during the whole march; Richard had even offered his sister, Joanna, in marriage to Saladin's brother, whether seriously or not it is hardly possible to say; but the demands of the two parties remained too far apart for an agreement to be reached. The winter and spring were occupied with the refortification of Ascalon and with the dissensions of the factions, the French finally withdrawing from Richard's army and going to Acre. In April the Marquis Conrad was assassinated by emissaries of "the Old Man of the Mountain"; Guy had little support for the throne except from Richard; and both parties found it easy to agree on Henry of Champagne, grandson of Queen Eleanor and Louis VII, and so nephew at once of Philip and Richard, and he was immediately proclaimed king on marrying Conrad's widow, Isabel. Richard provided for Guy by transferring to him the island of Cyprus as a new kingdom. On June 7 began the second march to Jerusalem, the army this time suffering from the heats of summer as before they had suffered from the winter climate of Palestine. They reached the same point as in the first advance, and there halted again; and though all were greatly encouraged by Richard's brilliant capture of a rich Saracen caravan, he himself was now convinced that success was impossible. On his arrival Richard had pushed forward with a scouting party until he could see the walls of the city in the distance, and obliged to be satisfied with this, he retreated in July to Acre. One more brilliant exploit of Richard's own kind remained for him to perform, the most brilliant of all perhaps, the relief of Joppa which Saladin was just on the point of taking when Richard with a small force saved the town and forced the Saracens to retire. On September 2 a truce for three years was made, and the third crusade was at an end. The progress of Saladin had been checked, a series of towns along the coast had been recovered, and the kingdom of Cyprus had been created; these were the results which had been gained by the expenditure of an enormous treasure and thousands of lives. Who shall say whether they were worth the cost.
During all the summer Richard had been impatient to return to England, and his impatience had been due not alone to his discouragement with the hopeless conditions in Palestine, but partly to the news which had reached him from home. Ever since he left France, in fact, messages had been coming to him from one and another, and the story they told was not of a happy situation. Exactly those things had happened which ought to have been expected. Soon after the council in Normandy, William Longchamp had freed himself from his rival Hugh of Durham by placing him under arrest and forcing him to surrender everything he had bought of the king. Then for many months the chancellor ruled England as he would, going about the country with a great train, almost in royal state, so that a chronicler writing probably from personal observation laments the fact that a house that entertained him for a night hardly recovered from the infliction in three years. Even more oppressive on the community as a whole were the constant exactions of money which he had to make for the king's expenses. The return of John to England in 1190, or early in 1191, made at first no change, but discontent with the chancellor's conduct would naturally look to him for leadership, and it is likely John was made ready to head an active opposition by the discovery of negotiations between Longchamp and the king of Scotland for the recognition of Arthur of Britanny as the heir to the kingdom, negotiations begun—so the chancellor said—under orders from Richard. About the middle of summer, 1191, actual hostilities seemed about to begin. Longchamp's attempt to discipline Gerard of Camville, holder of Lincoln castle and sheriff of Lincolnshire, was resisted by John, who seized the royal castles of Nottingham and Tickhill. Civil war was only averted by the intervention of Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, who had arrived in England in the spring with authority from the king to interfere with the administration of Longchamp if it seemed to him and the council wise to do so. By his influence peace was made, at an assembly of the barons at Winchester, on the whole not to the disadvantage of John, and embodied in a document which is almost a formal treaty. One clause of this agreement is of special interest as a sign of the trend of thought and as foreshadowing a famous clause in a more important document soon to be drawn up. The parties agreed that henceforth no baron or free tenant should be disseized of land or goods by the king's justices or servants without a trial according to the customs and assizes of the land, or by the direct orders of the king. The clause points not merely forward but backward, and shows what had no doubt frequently occurred since the departure of the king.
About the middle of September a new element of discord was brought into the situation by the landing of Geoffrey, who had now been consecrated Archbishop of York, and who asserted that he, as well as John, had Richard's permission to return. Longchamp's effort to prevent his coming failed; but on his landing he had him arrested at the altar of the Priory of St. Martin's, Dover, where he had taken sanctuary, and he was carried off a prisoner with many indignities. This was a tactical mistake on Longchamp's part. It put him greatly in the wrong and furnished a new cause against him in which everybody could unite. In alarm he declared he had never given orders for what was done and had Geoffrey released, but it was too late. The actors in this outrage were excommunicated, and the chancellor was summoned to a council called by John under the forms of a great council. At the first meeting, held between Reading and Windsor on October 5, he did not appear, but formal complaint was made against him, and his deposition was moved by the Archbishop of Rouen. The meeting was then adjourned to London, and Longchamp, hearing this, left Windsor at the same time and took refuge in the Tower. For both parties, as in former times of civil strife, the support of the citizens of London was of great importance. They were now somewhat divided, but a recognition of the opportunity inclined them to the stronger side; and they signified to John and the barons that they would support them if a commune were granted to the city.[55] This French institution, granting to a city in its corporate capacity the legal position and independence of the feudal vassal, had as yet made no appearance in England. It was bitterly detested by the great barons, and a chronicler of the time who shared this feeling was no doubt right in saying that neither Richard nor his father would have sanctioned it for a million marks, but as he says London found out that there was no king.[56] John was in pursuit of power, and the price which London demanded would not seem to him a large one, especially as the day of reckoning with the difficulty he created was a distant one and might never come. The commune was granted, and Longchamp was formally deposed. John was recognized as Richard's heir, fealty was sworn to him, and he was made regent of the kingdom; Walter of Rouen was accepted as justiciar; and the castles were disposed of as John desired. Longchamp yielded under protest, threatening the displeasure of the king, and was allowed to escape to the continent.
The action of John and the barons in deposing Longchamp made little actual change. John gained less power than he had expected, and found the new justiciar no more willing to give him control of the kingdom than the old one. The action was revolutionary, and if it had any permanent influence on the history of England, it is to be found in the training it gave the barons in concerted action against a tyrannous minister, revolutionary but as nearly as possible under the forms of law. While these events were taking place, Philip was on his way from Tyre to France. He reached home near the close of the year, ready for the business for which he had come, to make all that he could out of Richard's absence. Repulsed in an attempt to get the advantage of the seneschal of Normandy he applied to John, perhaps with more hope of success, offering him the hand of the unfortunate Adela with the investiture of all the French fiefs. John was, of course, already married, but that was a small matter either to Philip, or to him. He was ready to listen to the temptation, and was preparing to cross to discuss the proposition with Philip, when his plans were interrupted by his mother. She had heard of what was going on and hastily went over to England to interfere, where with difficulty John was forced to give up the idea. The year 1192 passed without disturbance. When Longchamp tried to secure his restoration by bribing John, he was defeated by a higher bid from the council. An attempt of Philip to invade Normandy was prevented by the refusal of his barons to serve, for without accusing the king, they declared that they could not attack Normandy without themselves committing perjury. At the beginning of 1193 the news reached England that Richard had been arrested in Germany and that he was held in prison there.
[53] Benedict of Peterborough, ii. 90.
[54] Roger of Howden, iii. 18.
[55] Round, Commune of London, ch. xi.
[56] Richard of Devizes, Chronicles of Stephen, iii. 416.