s of Henry, who had
vigorously opposed all the enterprises of his sons, were received with
open arms, and were continued in those offices which they had
honourably discharged to their former master [a]. This prudent
conduct might be the result of reflection; but in a prince like
Richard, so much guided by passion, and so little by policy, it was
commonly ascribed to a principle still more virtuous and more
honourable.
[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 655. Bened. Abb. p. 547. M. Paris, p. 107.]

Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach of
duty to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen-
dowager from the confinement in which she had long been detained; and
he intrusted her with the government of England till his arrival in
that kingdom. His bounty to his brother John was rather profuse and
imprudent. Besides bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in
Normandy, granting him a pension of four thousand marks a year, and
marrying him to Avisa, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, by whom
he inherited all the possessions of that opulent family, he increased
his appanage, which the late king had destined him, by other extensive
grants and concessions. He conferred on him the whole estate of
William Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in
possession of eight castles, with all the forests and honours annexed
to them: he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall,
Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster, and Derby. And
endeavouring by favours, to fix that vicious prince in his duty, he
put it too much in his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.

[MN The king's preparations for the crusade.]
The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by
superstition, acted from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole
purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and
the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens. This zeal against
infidels, being communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on
the day of his coronation, and made them find a crusade less
dangerous, and attended with more immediate profit. The prejudices of
the age had made the lending of money on interest pass by the
invidious name of usury; yet the necessity of the practice had still
continued it, and the greater part of that kind of dealing fell
everywhere into the hands of the Jews; who being already infamous on
account of their religion, had n