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DAVID HUME, ESQ.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
page 8
reiterated letters to Pope Celestine; exclaiming against the injury which her son had sustained, representing the impiety of detaining in prison the most illustrious prince that had yet carried the banners of Christ into the Holy Land; claiming the protection of the apostolic see, which was due even to the meanest of those adventurers; and upbraiding the pope, that, in a cause where justice, religion, and the dignity of the church, were so much concerned, a cause which it might well befit his holiness himself to support by taking in person a journey to Germany, the spiritual thunders should so long be suspended over those sacrilegious offenders.(**) The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to the impatience of the queen mother; and the regency of England were, for a long time, left to struggle alone with all their domestic and foreign enemies. The king of France, quickly informed of Richard's confinement by a message from the emperor,(***)prepared himself to take advantage of the incident; and he employed every means of force and intrigue, of war and negotiation, against the dominions and the person of his unfortunate rival. He revived the calumny of Richard's assassinating the marquis of Montferrat; and by that absurd pretence he induced his barons to violate their oaths, by which they had engaged that, during the crusade, they never would, on any account, attack the dominions of the king of England. He made the emperor the largest offers, if he would deliver into his hands the royal prisoner, or at least detain him in perpetual captivity he even formed an alliance by marriage with the king of Denmark, desired that the ancient Danish claim to the crown of England should be transferred to him, and solicited a supply of shipping to maintain it. [* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 35.]
[** Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, etc]
[*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 70.] But the most successful of Philip's negotiations was with Prince John, who, forgetting every tie to his brother, his sovereign, and his benefactor, thought of nothing but how to make his own advantage of the public calamities. That traitor, on the first invitation from the court of France, suddenly went abroad, had a conference with Philip, and made a treaty, of which the object was the perpetual ruin of his unhappy brother. He stipulated to deliver into Philip's hands a great part of Normandy:[*] he received, in return, the investiture of all Richard's transmarine dominions; and it is reported by several historians, that he even did homage to the French king for the crown of England. In consequence of this treaty, Philip invaded Normandy; and by the treachery of John's emissaries, made himself master, without opposition, of many fortresses—Neufchatel, Neaufle, Gisors, Pacey, Ivrée: he subdued the counties of Eu and Aumale; and advancing to form the siege of Rouen, he threatened to put all the inhabitants to the sword if they dared to make resistance. Happily, Robert, earl of Leicester appeared in that critical moment, a gallant nobleman, who had acquired great honor during the crusade, and who, being more fortunate than his master in finding his passage homewards, took on him the command in Rouen, and exerted himself, by his exhortations and example, to infuse courage into the dismayed Normans. Philip was repulsed in every attack; the time of service from his vassals expired; and he consented to a truce with the English regency, received in return the promise of twenty thousand marks, and had four castles put into his hands as security for the payment.[**] [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 85.]
[** Hoveden, p, 730, 731. Rymer, vol. i. p. 81] Prince John, who, with a view of increasing the general confusion, went over to England, was still less successful in his enterprises. He was only able to make himself master of the castles of Windsor and Wallingford; but when he arrived in London, and claimed the kingdom as heir to his brother, of whose death he pretended to have received certain intelligence he was rejected by all the barons, and measures were taken to oppose and subdue him.(*) The justiciaries, supported by the general affection of the people, provided so well for the defence of the kingdom, that John was obliged, after some fruitless efforts, to conclude a truce with them; and before its expiration, he thought it prudent to return into France, where he openly avowed his alliance with Philip.(**) Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of insult and indignity. The French ambassadors, in their master's name, renounced him as a vassal to the crown of France, and declared all his fiefs to be forfeited to his liege lord. The emperor, that he might render him more impatient for the recovery of his liberty, and make him submit to the payment of a larger ransom, treated him with the greatest severity, and reduced him to a condition worse than that of the meanest malefactor. He was even produced before the diet of the empire at Worms, and accused by Henry of many crimes and misdemeanors; of making an alliance with Tancred, the usurper of Sicily; of turning the arms of the crusade against a Christian prince, and subduing Cyprus; of affronting the duke of Austria before Acre; of obstructing the progress of the Christian arms by his quarrels with the king of France; of assassinating Conrade, marquis of Montferrat; and of concluding a truce with Saladin, and leaving Jerusalem in the hands of the Saracen emperor.(***) [* Hoveden, p. 724.]
[** W Heming. p. 556.]
[*** M. Paris, p. 121. W. Heming. p. 536.] Richard, whose spirit was not broken by his misfortunes, and whose genius was rather roused by these frivolous or scandalous imputations, after premising that his dignity exempted him from answering before any jurisdiction, except that of Heaven, yet condescended, for the sake of his reputation, to justify his conduct before that great assembly. He observed, that he had no hand in
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