Whilst this war was carried on, by intervals and starts, it came to the ears of Richard that a nobleman of Limoges had found on his lands a considerable hidden treasure.  The king, necessitous and rapacious to the last degree, and stimulated by the exaggeration and marvellous circumstances which always attend the report of such discoveries, immediately sent to demand the treasure, under pretence of the rights of seigniory.  The Limosin, either because he had really discovered nothing or that he was unwilling to part with so valuable an acquisition, refused to comply with the king’s demand, and fortified his castle.  Enraged at the disappointment, Richard relinquished the important affairs in which he was engaged, and laid siege to this castle with all the eagerness of a man who has his heart set upon a trifle.  In this siege he received a wound from an arrow, and it proved mortal; but in the last, as in all the other acts of his life, something truly noble shone out amidst the rash and irregular motions of his mind.  The castle was taken before he died.  The man from whom Richard had received the wound was brought before him.  Being asked why he levelled his arrow at the king, he answered, with an undaunted countenance, “that the king with his own hand had slain his two brothers; that he thanked God who gave him an opportunity to revenge their deaths even with the certainty of his own.”  Richard, more touched with the magnanimity of the man than offended at the injury he had received or the boldness of the answer, ordered that his life should be spared.  He appointed his brother John to the succession; and with these acts ended a life and reign distinguished by a great variety of fortunes in different parts of the world, and crowned with great military glory, but without any accession of power to himself, or prosperity to his people, whom he entirely neglected, and reduced, by his imprudence and misfortunes, to no small indigence and distress.

In many respects, a striking parallel presents itself between this ancient King of England and Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden.  They were both inordinately desirous of war, and rather generals than kings.  Both were rather fond of glory than ambitious of empire.  Both of them made and deposed sovereigns.  They both carried on their wars at a distance from home.  They were both made prisoners by a friend and ally.  They were both reduced by an adversary inferior in war, but above them in the arts of rule.  After spending their lives in remote adventures, each perished at last near home in enterprises not suited to the splendor of their former exploits.  Both died childless.  And both, by the neglect of their affairs and the severity of their government, gave their subjects provocation and encouragement to revive their freedom.  In all these respects the two characters were alike; but Richard fell as much short of the Swedish hero in temperance, chastity, and equality of mind as he exceeded him in wit and eloquence.  Some of his sayings are the most spirited that we find in that time; and some of his verses remain, which is a barbarous age might have passed for poetry.