When the archduke had thus secured Richard, he sent him, for safe keeping, to a castle in the country belonging to one of his barons, and gave notice to the emperor of what had occurred. The name of the castle in which Richard was confined was Tiernsteign.
As soon as the emperor heard that Richard was taken he was overjoyed. He immediately sent to Leopold, the archduke, and claimed the prisoner as his.
CASTLE AND TOWN OF TIERNSTEIGN.
"You can not rightfully hold him," said he. "A duke can not presume to imprison a king; that duty belongs to an emperor."
The emperor buys the prisoner.
But the archduke was not willing to give Richard up. A negotiation was, however, opened, and finally he consented to sell his prisoner for a large sum of money. The emperor took him away, and what he did with him for a long time nobody knew.
In the mean while, during the period occupied by the voyage of Richard up the Adriatic, by his long and slow journey by land, and by the time of his imprisonment in Tiernsteign, the winter had passed away, and it was now the spring of 1193.