[140] "Præter Utensilia, et Jocalia, et Lapides pretiosos." Matthew Paris.
[141] In passing between Cyprus and Rhodes, in his Expedition to the Holy War, three of his Ships were lost, and among other persons that perished was the Vice-Chancellor, who had the Great Seal in his custody, and was afterwards found with it about his neck. Brompton. This was the manner in which the Seal was formerly carried by the Chancellor himself--"_circa_ cujus _Collum suspensum_ Regis Sigillum postea repertum est," are Brompton's words.
King Richard I. having no child of either sex, there was not an opening for demanding the two common _Aids_; but the third, in the order they are usually placed, _viz._ for the _ransom_ of the _King's Person_, was exercised for the first time in this Reign. Other taxations, heavy and enormous, on frivolous and nugatory occasions, not to our immediate purpose, were copiously extorted from the subject, and even in a shameful manner[142]. If ever the Latin adage, "Quicquid delirant Reges," &c. could be properly applied, it belonged to Richard.
The favourite system of this King was the _Holy-War_, and his intemperate zeal led to the point before us. Failing in the attempt to recover Jerusalem from the Saracens, he concluded a truce of three years with Saladan their King; and, on his return towards England through Germany, was made prisoner by the Arch-duke of Austria (upon a pretext that he had killed the Margrave Conrade at Tyre); who delivered him into the hands of the Emperor, where he remained a captive full _fifteen months_, till he was ransomed[143].
The sum demanded for the King's release is generally allowed to have been 100,000_l._; though some writers reduce it a third part, and call it 100,000 _marks_; but, let it be either of them, it was, in those days, a sum not to be raised without the greatest extortion; and I am justified in saying, it was not done without what, eventually, almost amounted to _sacrilege_[144]. The church was ransacked for plate, which was pretended to have been only borrowed for the moment--but the debt was never repaid.
[144] Sir Richard Baker reckons this no more than a voluntary contribution, forgetting that it was one of the established Norman _Feudal Aids_, though now first brought forward since the Conquest.