Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/164

140 ornaments of churches. In the year 1193 the Emperor Henry had thrown Richard king of England into a dungeon in the Tyrol; one hundred thousand pounds of silver were demanded as ransom, a sum far beyond the exhausted resources of the captive monarch's exchequer, impoverished by the expenses of protracted warfare in a remote country. No ordinary means appeared available. In vain did his mother Alianore send into every part of the realm to levy from each subject according to his estate; a second and a third time did the measure prove insufficient to meet the pressing emergency: at length Richard resolved upon an extraordinary expedient—he wrote to his mother and the justiciaries, directing them to take the gold and silver in the churches of the realm, and to give a solemn pledge that full restitution should be made. At such a moment of exigency none appear to have offered opposition; the chalice of each parish church was readily given towards the redemption of the lion-hearted King; the treasures of wealthier establishments were likewise rendered up to the commissioners, or an equivalent paid in money ; and the sum thus amassed at length sufficed for the king's liberation. When the light of heaven again shone upon the ransomed captive, and he found himself securely restored to his dominions, the solemn promise was not overlooked; restoration was made, and wherever he learned that, in the most remote country church the altar had been despoiled of its appropriate ornaments for his redemption, Richard forthwith dispensed to them chalices of silver, accounting it a personal reproach that the services of the church should, on his account, be conducted with any want of suitable solemnity.