ge of Acre. And now, neither keeping himself out of the power
of that prince, nor rousing his generosity by seeming to confide in it,
he attempted to get through his dominions in disguise. Sovereigns do not
easily assume the private character; their pride seldom suffers their
disguise to be complete: besides, Richard had made himself but too well
known. The Duke, transported with the opportunity of base revenge,
discovered him, seized him, and threw him into prison; from whence he
was only released to be thrown into another. The Emperor claimed him,
and, without regarding in this unfortunate captive the common dignity of
sovereigns, or his great actions in the common cause of Europe, treated
him with yet greater cruelty. To give a color of justice to his
violence, he proposed to accuse Richard at the Diet of the Empire upon
certain articles relative to his conduct in the Holy Land.

The news of the king's captivity caused the greatest consternation in
all his good subjects; but it revived the hopes and machinations of
Prince John, who bound himself by closer ties than ever to the King of
France, seized upon some strongholds in England, and, industriously
spreading a report of his brother's death, publicly laid claim to the
crown as lawful successor. All his endeavors, however, served only to
excite the indignation of the people, and to attach them the more firmly
to their unfortunate prince. Eleanor, the queen dowager, as good a
mother as she had been a bad wife, acted with the utmost vigor and
prudence to retain them in their duty, and omitted no means to procure
the liberty of her son. The nation seconded her with a zeal, in their
circumstances, uncommon. No tyrant ever imposed so severe a tax upon his
people as the affection of the people of England, already exhausted,
levied upon themselves. The most favored religious orders were charged
on this occasion. The Church plate was sold. The ornaments of the most
holy relics were not spared. And, indeed, nothing serves more to
demonstrate the poverty of the kingdom, reduced by internal dissensions
and remote wars, at that time, than the extreme difficulty of collecting
the king's ransom, which amounted to no more than one hundred thousand
marks of silver, Cologne weight. For raising this sum, the first
taxation, the most heavy and general that was ever known in England,
proved altogether insufficient. Another taxation was set on foot. It was
levied with the same rigor as t