When once the impulse had been given in the right direction, it is astonishing to notice how fast were the developments of civic freedom and of commerce which go henceforth hand-in-hand throughout the story of the town. When the last sad years of Henry's perpetual struggle with his sons were over, neither of them dared to infringe the privileges he had so solemnly granted or confirmed to the municipality of Rouen. The accession of the Lionheart was signalised in the Cathedral chapterhouse by the characteristic gift of three hundred barrels of wine, which the canons and the archbishops were to claim from the Vicomté de l'Eau, and this privilege the good ecclesiastics thoroughly enjoyed until the middle of the sixteenth century. The jurisdiction of the Vicomté de l'Eau itself, and of the new "Baillage" and the "Maire," was further developed and established in 1192; and the quarrels that are so persistent throughout the history of Rouen, between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, found their expression two years later in a renewed and fiercely contested struggle about the rights over the Parvis of the Cathedral. The canons, as usual, held their own, and in the same year asserted their still more extraordinary right of releasing a prisoner by virtue of the Privilege of the Fierte of St. Romain, by giving their freedom to two men, on the return of Richard from the Holy Land, because the privilege had not been exercised during his imprisonment abroad. There is an extremely fine impression in wax of one of Richard Coeur de Lion's seals in the archives of Rouen, which is one of the few still existing in which he is represented on one side as the King sitting upon the throne of England, and on the other as the Duke of Normandy riding in full armour against his foes. His is a character that gains from the mystery of romance cast over it. His career in France shows little that is creditable either to his head or heart.
In 1197 the same spirit of assertive independence was evidenced in the building of stone crosses in all parts of the city, which lasted until 1562, and recorded that their Duke, Richard had bought the manor of Andelys and the rock for his Château Gaillard from the Archbishop of Rouen, at the price of two of the town's public mills, the manor of Louviers, the towns of Dieppe and Bouteilles, and the forest of Aliermont. The bargain had not been struck without great agitation, interdicts on the town, and outcries from laymen and ecclesiastics alike. But it was well worth any trouble and treasure, and the Lionheart's "saucy castle" became the key of Normandy. His miserable brother John would never have lost the Duchy had he kept the fort. But his reign was ever destined to failure and discredit, and after the murder of Prince Arthur, which is said to have taken place within the Tower of Rouen by the Seine, had added gross impolicy to unpardonable crime, the last descendant of Rollo, who was both a King of England and a Duke of Normandy, fell before the power of the King of France. Rouen surrendered to Philip Augustus, and Normandy became a French province. The change had been an easy one, for John was far more Angevin and English than he was Norman, and his Duchy was no longer the home that William the Conqueror had made a terror to his neighbours.