Such dreams however were soon to be dispelled. On the second day after his crowning Richard received the homage of the bishops and barons of his realm;[1364] he then proceeded into Northamptonshire, and on September 15 held a great council at Pipewell.[1365] His first act was to fill up the vacant sees, of which there were now four besides that of York. The appointments were made with considerable judgement. London, whose aged bishop Gilbert Foliot had died in 1187,[1366] was bestowed upon Richard Fitz-Nigel,[1367] son of Bishop Nigel of Ely, and for the last twenty years his successor in the office of treasurer; while Ely, again vacated scarcely three weeks ago by the death of Geoffrey Ridel,[1368] rewarded the past services and helped to secure the future loyalty of Richard’s chancellor, William of Longchamp.[1369] Winchester, vacated nearly a year ago by the death of Richard of Ilchester,[1370] was given to Godfrey de Lucy, a son of Henry’s early friend and servant Richard de Lucy “the loyal”;[1371] Salisbury, which had been without a bishop ever since November 1184,[1372] was given to Hubert Walter,[1373] a near connexion of the no less faithful minister of Henry’s later years, Ralf de Glanville. This last appointment had also another motive. Hubert Walter was dean of York; he stood at the head of a party in the York chapter which had strongly disputed the validity of Geoffrey’s election in the preceding August, and some of whom had even proposed the dean himself as an opposition candidate for the primacy.[1374] Hubert’s nomination to Salisbury cleared this obstacle out of Geoffrey’s way, and no further protest was raised when Richard confirmed his half-brother’s election in the same council of Pipewell.[1375]

When, however, the king turned from the settlement of the Church to that of the state, it became gradually apparent that his policy in England had only two objects:—to raise money for the crusade, and to secure the obedience of his realm during his own absence in the East. These objects he endeavoured to effect both at once by a wholesale change of ministers, sheriffs and royal officers in general, at the council of Pipewell or during the ten days which elapsed between its dissolution and the Michaelmas Exchequer-meeting. The practice of making a man pay for the privilege either of entering upon a public office or of being released from its burthen was, as we have seen, counted in no way disgraceful in the days of Henry I., and by no means generally reprobated under Henry II. Richard however carried it to a length which clearly shocked the feelings of some statesmen of the old school,[1376] if not those of the people in general. The first to whom he applied it was no less a person than the late justiciar, Ralf de Glanville. Ralf was, like Richard himself, under a vow of crusade, which would in any case have rendered it impossible for him to retain the justiciarship after the departure of the English host for Palestine.[1377] The king, however, insisted that his resignation should take effect at once,[1378] and also that it should be paid for by a heavy fine—a condition which was also required of the Angevin seneschal, Stephen of Turnham, as the price of his release from prison.[1379] Worn out though he was with years and labours,[1380] Ralf faithfully kept his vow.[1381] If all the intending crusaders had done the same, it would have been no easy matter to fill his place or to make adequate provision for the government and administration of the realm. Both king and Pope, however, had learned that for eastern as well as western warfare money was even more necessary than men; Richard had therefore sought and obtained leave from Clement III. to commute crusading vows among his subjects for pecuniary contributions towards the expenses of the war.[1382] By this means he at once raised a large sum of money, and avoided the risk of leaving England deprived of all her best warriors and statesmen during his own absence. Instead of Ralf de Glanville he appointed two chief justiciars, Earl William de Mandeville and Bishop Hugh of Durham;[1383] under these he placed five subordinate justiciars, one of whom was William the Marshal.[1384] The bishop-elect of London, Richard Fitz-Nigel, was left undisturbed in his post of treasurer, where his services were too valuable for the king to venture upon the risk of forfeiting them; but the bishop-elect of Ely, although a favourite servant and almost a personal friend of Richard, had to pay three thousand pounds for his chancellorship. On the other hand, Richard proved that in this instance he was not actuated solely by mercenary motives, by refusing a still higher bid from another candidate.[1385] All the sheriffs were removed from office; some seven or eight were restored to their old places, five more were appointed to shires other than those which they had formerly administered;[1386] the sheriffdom of Hampshire was sold to the bishop-elect of Winchester,[1387] that of Lincolnshire to Gerard de Camville, those of Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire to Bishop Hugh of Chester;[1388] and the earldom of Northumberland was granted on similar terms to the justiciar-bishop of Durham.[1389]

Two other matters had to be dealt with before Richard’s preparations for departure were completed. To guard his realm from external disturbance, he must secure the fealty of the vassal-rulers of Scotland and Wales. To guard it against internal treason, he must, if such a thing were possible, secure the loyalty of the brother whom he was leaving behind him. The first was at once the less important and the easier matter of the two. Rees of South Wales had indeed profited by the change of rulers in England to break the peace which he had been compelled to maintain with King Henry, and after the council of Pipewell Richard sent John against him at the head of an armed force. The other Welsh princes came to meet John at Worcester and made submission to him as his brother’s representative;[1390] Rees apparently refused to treat with any one but the king in person, and accordingly he came back with John as far as Oxford, but Richard would not take the trouble to arrange a meeting, and was so unconcerned about the matter that he let him go home again without an audience, and, of course, in a state of extreme indignation.[1391] His threatening attitude served as an excuse for raising a scutage, nominally for a Welsh war;[1392] but the expedition was never made. The king of Scots was otherwise dealt with. Early in December, while Richard was at Canterbury on his way to the sea, William the Lion came to visit him, and a bargain was struck to the satisfaction of both parties. Richard received from William a sum of ten thousand marks, and his homage for his English estates, as they had been held by his brother Malcolm; in return, he restored to him the castles of Roxburgh and Berwick, and released him and his heirs for ever from the homage for Scotland itself, enforced by Henry in 1175.[1393]

Richard’s worst difficulty however was still unsolved: how to prevent John from trying to supplant him in his absence. Richard knew that this lad, ten years younger than himself, had been his rival ever since he was of an age to be a rival to any one; and he knew his brother’s character as, perhaps, no one else did know it as yet—for their mother had scarcely seen her youngest child since he was six years old. In the light of later history, it is impossible not to feel that Richard’s wisest course, alike for his own sake and for England’s, would have been to follow the instinct which had once prompted him to insist that John should go with him to the crusade. In this case however he was now led astray by the noblest feature in his character, his unsuspecting confidence and generosity. From the hour of their reconciliation after their father’s death, Richard’s sole endeavour respecting John was to gain his affection and gratitude by showering upon him every honour, dignity and benefit of which it was possible to dispose in his favour. The grant of the county of Mortain made him the first baron of Normandy, and it was accompanied by a liberal provision in English lands. To these were added, as soon as the brothers reached England, a string of “honours”—Marlborough, Luggershall, Lancaster, each with its castle; the Peak, Bolsover, and the whole honour of Peverel; those of Wallingford and Tickhill, and that of Nottingham, including the town; and the whole shire of Derby;[1394] besides the honour of Gloucester, which belonged to John’s betrothed bride Avice, and which Richard secured to him by causing him to be married to her at Marlborough on August 29,[1395] in spite of Archbishop Baldwin’s protests against a marriage between third cousins without dispensation from the Pope. Baldwin at once laid all the lands of the young couple under interdict; but John appealed against him, and a papal legate who came over in November to settle Baldwin’s quarrel with his own monks confirmed the appeal and annulled the sentence of the primate.[1396] At the same time Richard bestowed upon his brother four whole shires in south-western England—Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset—with the ferms and the entire profits of jurisdiction and administration.[1397] More than this even Richard could not give; if more was needed to hold John’s ambition in check, he could only trust to the skilful management of Eleanor. She was left, seemingly without any formal commission, but with the practical authority of queen-regent, and with the dowries of two former queens in addition to her own.[1398]

One important part of Richard’s administrative arrangements was however already upset: William de Mandeville, having gone to Normandy on business for the king, died there on November 14.[1399] Earl of Essex by grant of Henry II., count of Aumale by marriage with its heiress, William had been through life one of Henry’s most faithful friends; he was honoured and esteemed by all parties on both sides of the sea; there was no one left among the barons who could command anything like the same degree of general respect; and Richard for the moment saw no means of filling his place. He therefore left Bishop Hugh of Durham as sole chief justiciar; but he made a change in the body of subordinate justiciars appointed at Pipewell. Two of them were superseded; one was replaced by Hugh Bardulf, and the other, it seems, by the chancellor William of Longchamp, who, in addition to the office which he already held, was put in charge of the Tower of London, and intrusted with powers which virtually made him equal in authority to the chief justiciar.[1400]