uished by any more remarkable incidents than the
foregoing. After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few
insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers, and
made an exchange of some territories with each other.[*] {1196.} Their
inability to wage war occasioned the peace; their mutual antipathy
engaged them again in war before two months expired. Richard imagined
that he had now found an opportunity of gaining great advantages over
his rival, by forming an alliance with the counts of Flanders, Toulouse,
Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable vassals of the crown of
France.[**] But he soon experienced the insincerity of those princes;
and; was not able to make any impression on that kingdom, while
governed by a monarch of so much vigor and activity as Philip. The most
remarkable incident of this war was the taking prisoner, in battle, the
bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate who was of the family of Dreux,
and a near relation of the French king. Richard, who hated that bishop,
threw him into prison, and loaded him with irons; and when the pope
demanded his liberty, and claimed him as his son, the king sent to his
holiness the coat of mail which the prelate had worn in battle, and
which was all besmeared with blood; and he replied to him in the terms
employed by Jacob's sons to that patriarch: "This have we found: know
now whether it be thy son's coat or no."[***] This new war between
England and France, though carried on with such animosity that both
kings frequently put out the eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished
by a truce of five years; and immediately after signing this treaty,
the kings were ready, on some new offence, to break out again into
hostilities, when the mediation of the cardinal of St. Mary, the pope's
legate, accommodated the difference.[****] This prelate even engaged the
princes to commence a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of
Richard put an end to the negotiation.

[* Rymer, vol. i. p. 91]

[** W. Heming, p. 549. Brompton, p. 1273. Rymer,
vol i. p. 94.]

[*** Genesis, chap, xxxvii. ver. 32. M. Paris, p;
128. Brompton, p. 1273]

[**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 109, 110.]

{1199.} Vidomar, viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king, had found a
treasure, of which he sent part to that prince as a present. Richard, as
superior lord, claimed the whole; and, at the head of some Brabancons,
besieged the viscount in the ca