It was on the 25th of October, 1192, that Richard, with his wife, his sister, and nobles, embarked for Europe; but fearing lest his unchivalrous enemy, Philip, might attempt to seize him, if he passed through his dominions, he took the fatal step of returning through Germany in disguise. He clothed himself in the usual garb of pilgrimage, and concealing that name, "of which all Europe rung from side to side," under the unassuming one of Hugh the Merchant, he set forth with but few attendants. Arrived at Gerity, it was necessary to solicit safe conduct from the chief of that province; and Richard, with his characteristic generosity, sent a ring, in which was ruby worth three hundred bezants to ensure his protection and aid. The chief, astonished at the value of the present, inquired who the pilgrims were; the reply did not satisfy him.

These are not the gifts of merchants," said he; and then the far-famed largesse of that most illustrious of the Croises recurring to his mind, he added, "it must be king Richard." He sent a courteous message; but Richard was alarmed, mounted his horse at midnight, and proceeded to Eisenbach. This town was in the county belonging to the before-mentioned chief, and the news too quickly arrived. The brother sent a confidential knight, with directions to endeavour to discover the king. The knight proceeded from inn to inn, and at length discovered the suspected stranger: but although the knight thus sought him out, it was not his intention to betray him; for he was a Norman knight, and he had married an English woman; so he acquainted

Richard with his danger, and earnestly, and with tears, entreated him to flee away, offering him a valuable steed.

The knight, secure of Richard's escape, returned to his liege lord, pretending that the information was erroneous; but his pretences could not succeed. The lord insisted that Richard was in the town, and he sent armed men to take both him and his company. But Richard was far away; and accompanied only by one knight, and a boy who understood German, he fled, without staying on his road, three days and three nights. Yielding at length to the pressure of hunger, they stopped at a town near Vienna, where the duke of Austria was residing; and they sent the boy into the market for provisions. Again the right royal habits of Richard betrayed him; the boy, in an age when even silver money was scarce, displayed several pieces of gold. The market people, astonished at the unaccustomed sight, gathered around him, marvelling from whence he could be. To their inquiries, he replied that he was servant to a rich merchant ; and escaping from them, he hastened home, told what had happened, and earnestly prayed Richard not to stay. But the lion-hearted king was faint and weary, and, overcome with the fatigues of the past journey, he refused to listen to the saving counsel. He sought out an obscure cottage, and there, until he had recovered strength, the valiant leader of the third crusade, the mighty opponent of the monarch of the whole East, was content to dwell :—but even here his luckless fortune pursued him. On the 21st of December, the boy was again

sent out to procure food; when, by that strange fatality which sometimes seems to pursue those doomed to misfortune, he unconsciously carried the king's gloves in his girdle. The broidered glove immediately betrayed the rank of the master; the story of the rich merchant could no longer be told; and the boy, having been brought before the magistrates, and scourged, at length confessed. That evening the lion-hearted monarch was a prisoner to the duke of Austria, by whom, in the following spring, he was sold to the emperor Henry VI. for 60,000 pounds of silver *

No suspicions of Richard's captivity arose in the minds of his nobles, who suffered shipwreck in their homeward passage, until on their arrival in England they inquired after him; and, as it seems not to have been known to his implacable enemy, Philip, until the period of his transference into the hands of the emperor, it is probable that the authentic account did not reach England ere the summer.

When the intelligence at length arrived, it was received by the people with feelings of sorrow and indignation, and by his mother with broken-hearted grief. She despatched an earnest letter to the sovereign pontiff, imploring him to put in force that mighty power with which he was invested, against those who, although they professed themselves Christians, had not scrupled to immure the valiant leader of the Croises in their dungeons. "Elinor, by the wrath of God, queen of England," is the for

* Vide Note 8, Appendix.

cible introduction to this letter, which supplicates aid for a wretched mother, "from him who sitteth vicar of Him the crucified, the successor of Peter, the priest of Christ, even Christ the Lord, the God even of Pharaoh." She reminds him that Ambrose wielded the thunders of the church against Valens; that his predecessor Alexander excommunicated the emperor's father, and urges the exertion of the same power; concluding with an address to Him, "in whose strength alone is the king exalted, and Roman church, which now too culpably slackens in her exertion for his liberation; and not without tears she, (the writer) blushes for her, who refuses to acknowledge, in the midst of so many afflictions, such a son."

The letter obtained no reply. The sovereign pontiff, although always willing to summon the chivalry of Europe to fight for the cause of holy church, was tardy enough in affording them, in return, his aid. Neither wealth, nor accession of power to the Holy See, could be obtained, by pleading the cause of the captive Richard; and Europe beheld with astonishment and indignation him, who had so devotedly led forward the soldiers of the Cross, confined in a far distant prison-house, without one single effort to release him.

A second letter was sent by the broken-hearted mother,―a letter which, both from the haughty tone it breathes, so different from the spirit of quiet submission which letters from churchmen to their superiors display, and from its deep feeling, (although written by Peter of Blois,) in whose epistles,

as well as in the Fœdera, it appears,) seems at least to have been dictated by Elinor herself. In this letter, she complains that "the staff of her age, the light of her eyes," is lost to her. "Mother of pity! look on a mother of so many afflictions!-or if thy son, the exhaustless fount and source of mercy, afflict the son for the sins of the mother, oh, let her, who alone was the cause, endure all! let the guilty be punished; but oh! smile not at the sufferings of the innocent. The younger king, and the earl of Britany, both sleep in death; while their most wretched mother is still compelled to live on, tormented by irremediable recollections of the dead. Two other sons yet remained for my succour, who to-day but remain for my misery. King Richard is held in fetters; while John, brother to the captive, depopulates with the sword, and wastes with fire. The Lord is against me in all things; his wrath fights against me, and therefore do my sons fight against each other." She then, in the language of indignant expostulation, addresses Celestine: "Shall the cross of Christ yield to the eagle of the Cæsars? shall the sword of Peter bow to that of Constantine? shall the spiritual power succumb before the temporal? Hath not God given unto thee the power that whosoever thou bindest should be bound? Wherefore thus careless during this long time? why so cruelly deferrest thou to loose my son's fetters? Thou hast the power to release him: let the fear of God displace all human fear. Give back my son to me, man of God—if thou be indeed a man of God, and not a man of blood! for if thou neglectest his libe