is, p. 648.

**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 630.

The earl of Cornwall had now reason to value himself on his foresight,
in refusing the fraudulent bargain with Rome, and in preferring the
solid honors of an opulent and powerful prince of the blood of England,
to the empty and precarious glory of a foreign dignity. But he had not
always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution: his vanity and
ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his avarice; and he was
engaged in an enterprise no less expensive and vexatious than that of
his brother, and not attended with much greater probability of success.
The immense opulence of Richard having made the German princes cast
their eye on him as a candidate for the empire, he was tempted to expend
vast sums of money on his election; and he succeeded so far as to be
chosen king of the Romans, which seemed to render his succession
infallible to the imperial throne. He went over to Germany, and carried
out of the kingdom no less a sum than seven hundred thousand marks, if
we may credit the account given by some ancient authors,[*] which is
probably much exaggerated.[**] His money, while it lasted, procured him
friends and partisans; but it was soon drained from him by the avidity
of the German princes; and, having no personal or family connections in
that country, and no solid foundation of power, he found, at last, that
he had lavished away the frugality of a whole life in order to procure
a splendid title; and that his absence from England, joined to the
weakness of his brother's government, gave reins to the factious and
turbulent dispositions of the English barons, and involved his own
country and family in great calamities.

* M. Paris, p. 638. The same author, a few pages before,
makes Richard's treasures amount to little more than half
the sum, (p. 634.) The king's dissipations and expenses,
throughout this whole reign, according to the same author,
had amounted only to about nine hundred and forty thousand
marks, (p. 638.)

** The sums mentioned by ancient authors, who were almost all
monks, are often improbable, and never consistent. But we
know from an infallible authority, the public remonstrance
to the council of Lyons, that the king's revenues were below
sixty thousand marks a year: his brother, therefore, could
never have been master of seven hundred thousand marks;
especially as he did not