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 shield-wall. The Saracens were driven back in confusion, and, had not the king been seized with a fresh illness, he might have ended the campaign. Being, however, eager to return home, he accepted a three years' truce, coupled with the dismantlement of Ascalon. The crusaders were allowed to visit Jerusalem, and in the holy city itself Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury, had an interview with Saladin—an interview in which Saladin passed a noble encomium on the virtues of his foe.

On 30 Sept. Berengaria and Joan set sail for England, and Richard followed them nine days later. Storm and shipwreck forced him to change his vessel and attempt to work his way home through Germany in disguise, regardless of the fact that he had mortally offended the emperor Henry VI and the Duke of Austria by his conduct in Sicily and the east. After a series of adventures which read like a romance rather than sober history, he was arrested—in the dress of a kitchen knave—in an inn near Vienna (21 Dec.) by the Duke of Austria's men, and was lodged by the duke in the castle of Durrenstein. It was there, according to the legend, that the troubadour Blondel discovered him (see below). The duke handed him over to the emperor, before whom he appeared at Ratisbon on 7 Jan., and at Treves on 23 March, offering one hundred thousand marks for his release (Chron. Magni Presb. p. 520; cf., ii. 106). The intrigues of Philip Augustus and a conspiracy among the German nobles led to the failure of this first negotiation for freedom. Later on the emperor's terms were raised to one hundred and fifty thousand marks, of which one-third was, with marked reference to Richard's dealings with King Tancred, to be used for an expedition against South Italy and Sicily (29 June). The emperor strove to cover the shame of his disgraceful conduct by conferring upon Richard the kingdom of Arles with a right to the homage of the king of Arragon, count of St. Gilles, that Raymond of Toulouse with whom Richard had so frequently waged war when duke of Aquitaine. At the same time, however, Richard was forced to acknowledge himself as a vassal of the German emperor for England itself, a piece of subservience which, though perhaps unavoidable at the time, has its only parallel in English history in the still more extraordinary conduct of his brother John some twenty years later. Richard was set free on 2 March 1194. He gave mortgages for the balance of his ransom, arranged with various German nobles to support him against Philip Augustus, was received with enthusiasm on his way home at Cologne, and landed at Sandwich on 13 March.

Before starting for the east, Richard had taken measures for securing the peace of England in his absence. He bound his two brothers, John and Geoffrey, not to enter the country while he was away; and though he released John later on from this oath and granted him estates on almost a royal scale, he tried to secure quiet for his kingdom by placing almost unlimited power in the hands of his chancellor and justiciar, William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, for whom, a little later, he procured the office of papal legate. Longchamp, having to supply his master with funds and being of harsh and extravagant disposition himself, soon earned the hatred of the people. After John began to plot against him, with the object of securing his own succession to the crown, he quitted the kingdom [see ]. The government passed into the hands of Walter, archbishop of Rouen, whom Richard had sent home with secret instructions from Sicily [see ]. Meanwhile Philip had been clamouring for the delivery of his sister Alice (25 Dec. 1192); and his hostility to Richard was so well known that the emperor wrote him news of that king's captivity within a week of the event. Philip at once passed on the news to John, offered him the hand of Alice, and urged him to strain every nerve to prevent his brother's release. John hurried over to Normandy, swore to be Philip's vassal for Richard's continental provinces, and, as was rumoured at the time, for England too. Philip, secure of John's assistance, flung his army into Normandy, thus openly breaking the vow he had sworn in Syria. Gilbert de Gascuil, Richard's warder in Gisors, betrayed his trust, though Philip's efforts on Rouen were foiled by the gallant conduct of the Earl of Leicester, who had just returned from Syria [see under, d. 1190]. Failing to achieve much by arms, Philip turned to intrigue, and time after time did he and John offer the emperor bribes to keep the English king a prisoner. Nor did the treachery of the two allies stop here. But the justiciar, Walter de Coutances, and his mother, Eleanor of Poitou, held John in check, and the pope excommunicated him (10 Feb.) Celestine threatened the emperor and Philip with a similar fate, and the justiciar was still engaged in reducing the castles seized by John when Richard landed.

Richard's arrival soon forced Nottingham, the last of the castles held by John, to surrender. This done, he was recrowned at Winchester (17 April 1194); and he set about raising money for his war against Philip by selling the great offices of state. For this