de Lion.]

On returning to England, John raised an army to support his pretensions,
while his confederate, Philip, took up arms in his behalf in France,
and, entering Normandy, overran a great part of that duchy, although
Rouen, the capital, was preserved principally by the exertions of the
Earl of Essex, lately one of Richard's companions in the Holy Land. In
England, also, John met with a general opposition to his usurpation of
the regal authority, which soon compelled him to conclude an armistice
with a council of regency that had been appointed by the prelates and
barons. This was the position of affairs when Longchamp, having
discovered Richard's place of confinement, after much solicitation
prevailed upon the emperor to allow the royal prisoner to be brought
before the diet at Hagenau, where, accordingly, he made his appearance
on April 13, 1193, and defended himself with so much eloquence against
the several charges made against him in regard to Tancred and the
kingdom of Sicily, to his conquest of Cyprus, and to the murder of
Conrad of Montferrat, that Henry found himself compelled by the general
sentiment of the diet to order his chains to be immediately struck off,
and to agree to enter upon negotiations for his ransom. Longchamp was
immediately despatched to England with a letter to the council of
regency, and the result was, that, notwithstanding the insidious efforts
both of John and his friend, Philip of France, to prevent the
conclusion of the treaty, Richard was at last liberated, on February 4,
1194, after seventy thousand marks had been actually paid to the
emperor, and hostages given for the payment of thirty thousand more. The
English king had also engaged to release both Isaac of Cyprus and his
daughter, and he had besides, at the persuasion, it is said, of his
mother, Eleanor, the more effectually to conciliate Henry, formally
resigned his crown into the hand of the emperor, who immediately
restored it to him to be held as a fief of the empire, and burdened with
a yearly feudal payment to his superior lord of five thousand pounds.
This strange transaction rests on the authority of the contemporary
annalist Hoveden. Richard, descending the Rhine as far as Cologne,
proceeded thence across the country to Antwerp, and, embarking there on
board his own fleet, landed at Sandwich on March 13th.

Most of John's strongholds had been wrested from his hands before his
brother's return, and now the rest imme