It was plain that the return of the King alone could save the kingdom. Yet those English pilgrims who returned home before Christmas were surprised to find the King yet absent. He did not come, and the gloomy news was at length noised abroad that he was in a dungeon in Germany. He had attempted to return by sea, but afraid to travel through France, he had made his way up the Adriatic, intending to cross Germany to the dominions of his friend and relative the Duke of Saxony. Travelling in disguise, he had been discovered while in the Duchy of Austria; and the Archduke, whose anger he had roused at Ascalon, made him his prisoner. He shortly after sold him to Henry VI., Emperor of Germany. The capture of the King, whose name was in every one’s mouth, strongly excited the feelings of Europe, and steps were immediately taken for his liberation. But to John his imprisonment served only as a means of aggrandizement. He hurried abroad, did homage to Philip, purchasing his favour with Gisors, the Vexin, and with Tours, and pledging himself not to make peace with his brother without Philip’s permission. He tried to persuade the English justiciaries that his brother was dead, and secured, with his auxiliaries, Wallingford and Windsor. Philip, too, basely took advantage of his rival’s position, used all his influence to lengthen his imprisonment, broke off the feudal connection between them, and invaded his dominions. Richard’s subjects were, however, remarkably true to him. The justiciaries, assisted by Queen Eleanor, boldly opposed John in England, and the burghers of Rouen put Philip to a shameful flight.

England ransoms him.

In Germany Richard did homage to Henry for England. The connection of England with Germany makes it possible that there may have been some political meaning in this act. Some general action against France, or against Apulia, may have been thought of. But it came to nothing. It was afterwards cancelled by Henry himself, and has been generally regarded as a mere formality. However formal the act of homage may have been, Richard was certainly much connected with the German Empire. He mixed authoritatively in the next imperial election, after the death of Henry VI. in 1198; and it was chiefly by his influence that Otho, his nephew, a prince of the Guelphic royal family, and generally regarded as an English prince, was elected to succeed him. Of more immediate importance to England than this connection was the sum of money demanded for the King’s ransom. The form of a trial was gone through at Spiers. All the charges which had been brought against him in the East were repeated;—his friendship with Tancred, his victory over Isaac, the murder of Conrad, his insults to Austria, even his final treaty with Saladin. He replied frankly and eloquently to these charges, and it was finally agreed that he should be liberated on the payment of 100,000 marks of silver, and 50,000 additional as a contribution to the Emperor’s proposed march against Apulia. He was to be liberated as soon as the first sum was paid; for the payment of the second hostages were to be left. With considerable difficulty the money was collected, chiefly from the estates of the Church; and after some further difficulties, caused by the intrigues of Philip Augustus, in 1194, on the 13th of March the King landed at Sandwich.

Destruction of John’s party.

War with France.

Richard’s death at Chaluz. 1199.

His appearance in England at once destroyed the influence of John’s party. Hubert the Justiciary had been doing his best to suppress it; such castles as still held out surrendered at the presence of Richard. His residence in England was short. He caused himself to be re-crowned, to remove the stain of his captivity, had recourse to his old nefarious means of gathering money, and then, weary of idleness, crossed into the more troubled country of France. With Philip it was impossible that he should have peace. An almost continuous war between the kings occupied the rest of the reign. Richard never displayed the talents of a general, and the war dwindled into an uninteresting series of petty skirmishes. These were usually decided in favour of Richard. Once, in the year 1196, united action among the enemies of France seemed to threaten Philip with a heavy blow. Raymond of St. Gilles, Richard’s old enemy, married his sister, Joanna of Sicily; the Count of Flanders, the Bretons, and the Count of Champagne joined in the league; and in the following year, Count Baldwin of Flanders succeeded in taking Philip prisoner, but he was freed on promising peace; nor for want of leaders did the alliance get much beyond the ordinary petty warfare of the time. At length, in 1198, a truce was patched up by the Papal influence, but before disbanding his troops, Richard led them to attack the Castle of Chaluz, where the Count of Limoges was said to be keeping some treasure which the King claimed. He was there wounded in the shoulder, as he rode round the walls, and the wound proved fatal. During his illness the castle was taken, and all the garrison hanged, with the exception of Bertrand de Gourdon, who had discharged the fatal arrow. He was reserved for the King’s own judgment. “What have I done,” asked the King, “that you should take my life?” “You have killed my father and my two brothers,” answered he, “and I would willingly bear any torture to see you die.” King Richard is said, in spite of his merciless temper, to have ordered his life to be spared. Mercadi, the chief of his mercenaries, was not so scrupulous; he had him flayed and hanged.

Although the King himself was but a few months in his own country, the conduct of affairs in England possesses some interest, as showing the further advance of the administrative system established by Henry II. After the King’s return from his captivity, and final triumph over the machinations of John, the kingdom was left in the hand of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury. He had been trained by Glanvill, and belonged to the class of officials created by the late King. It was through his activity that, while the ransom was still being collected, the kingdom was reduced to tranquillity, and John’s castles captured in the name of the King. On Richard’s withdrawal to his native dominions, Hubert held the three high offices of Justiciary, Archbishop, and Papal Legate. The whole government of the kingdom was virtually in his hands. It was carried on by him in harmony with the system in which he had been trained; and in the instructions given to the justices, for a great visitation of the kingdom in the year 1194, we find the superiority of the central to the local courts still further increased by an order, that sheriffs should not act as justices in their own counties. The dangerous power of these officers was for the time destroyed, when afterwards by the Magna Charta they were forbidden to hold the pleas of the crown at all, that is to say, all business in which the crown was interested was removed from their jurisdiction to that of the central courts. The demands of Richard for money were incessant. And on one occasion, when a large carucage, or tax upon every carucate of land, was demanded, which was in fact a renewal of the Danegelt in another shape, a fresh survey of the country, established by sworn and representative witnesses, and very similar to the Domesday survey, was ordered. In this system of representative inquiry for financial purposes is to be found the beginning of the representative system subsequently employed in Parliament. So heavy were the taxes, that opposition was finally excited, and Hugh of Lincoln followed the example of Thomas à Becket, and refused payment from his Church land. It was apparently in connection with this opposition that Hubert, in 1198, withdrew from his secular work, and was succeeded by Geoffrey Fitz-Peter. Politically, the strength of the crown exhibited in these transactions, the very completeness and excellence of Henry’s system, tended to change the interests of the various classes in England. The crown, hitherto the champion of the people against the feudal barons, began to overstrain its power, and all classes were gradually forced into opposition to it,—a work completed by the greater and less glorious tyranny of John, and by the increased feeling of nationality excited among the barons, when the loss of Normandy severed them entirely from France.

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