[Sidenote:  A.D. 1194]

Richard, on his coming to England, found all things in the utmost confusion; but before he attempted to apply a remedy to so obstinate a disease, in order to wipe off any degrading ideas which might have arisen from his imprisonment, he caused himself to be new crowned.  Then holding his Court of Great Council at Southampton, he made some useful regulations in the distribution of justice.  He called some great offenders to a strict account.  Count John deserved no favor, and he lay entirely at the king’s mercy, who, by an unparalleled generosity, pardoned him his multiplied offences, only depriving him of the power of which he had made so bad a use.  Generosity did not oblige him to forget the hostilities of the King of France.  But to prosecute the war money was wanting, which new taxes and new devices supplied with difficulty and with dishonor.  All the mean oppressions of a necessitous government were exercised on this occasion.  All the grants which were made on the king’s departure to the Holy Land were revoked, on the weak pretence that the purchasers had sufficient recompense whilst they held them.  Necessity seemed to justify this, as well as many other measures that were equally violent.  The whole revenue of the crown had been dissipated; means to support its dignity must be found; and these means were the least unpopular, as most men saw with pleasure the wants of government fall upon those who had started into a sudden greatness by taking advantage of those wants.

Richard renewed the war with Philip, which continued, though frequently interrupted by truces, for about five years.  In this war Richard signalized himself by that irresistible courage which on all occasions gave him a superiority over the King of France.  But his revenues were exhausted; a great scarcity reigned both in France and England; and the irregular manner of carrying on war in those days prevented a clear decision in favor of either party.  Richard had still an eye on the Holy Land, which he considered as the only province worthy of his arms; and this continually diverted his thoughts from the steady prosecution of the war in France.  The Crusade, like a superior orb, moved along with all the particular systems of politics of that time, and suspended, accelerated, or put back all operations on motives foreign to the things themselves.  In this war it must be remarked, that Richard made a considerable use of the mercenaries who had been so serviceable to Henry the Second; and the King of France, perceiving how much his father, Louis, had suffered by a want of that advantage, kept on foot a standing army in constant pay, which none of his predecessors had done before him, and which afterwards for a long time very unaccountably fell into disuse in both kingdoms.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1199.]