The tidings of his captivity were received with sorrow by his subjects generally, with undissembled joy by his brother John and Philip Augustus of France. Of these two princes the former prepared to fight for the crown, and after the first reverse accepted an armistice: the latter, having sent to Richard to renounce his allegiance, invaded Normandy, and met with a complete repulse at Rouen. At length the place of Richard’s imprisonment was discovered by William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, the English chancellor; or, as the romance would have it, by his faithful minstrel Blondel. The pope was at once assailed with entreaties to come forward for his rescue. Peter of Blois, archdeacon of Bath, reminded Cælestine III. of his debt of gratitude to so faithful a son of the Church. His mother Eleanor wrote to him in less measured terms. Where, she asked, was the zeal of Elijah against Ahab, of John the Baptist against Herod, of Alexander III. against the father of the emperor who had wrought this iniquity in Christendom? ‘For trifling reasons your cardinals are sent in all their power to the most savage lands; in this great cause you have appointed not even a subdeacon or an acolyth. You would not have much debased the dignity of the holy see had you set out in person to rescue him. Restore to me my son, O man of God, if thou art indeed a man of God and not a man of blood. If you remain lukewarm, the Most High may require his blood at your hands.’ In later letters she asks him if he thinks that his soul can be safe while he is thus slack in rescuing the sheep of his fold, and tells him that he ought to be willing to lay down his life for one in whose behalf he was unwilling to speak or write a single word. The truth is that Cælestine was full of zeal for Richard’s cause: he was only waiting with true papal caution for Richard’s deliverance to express his zeal emphatically.

At length, after nearly four months, Richard was brought before the diet at Hagenau. The captive might have pleaded the incompetence of the tribunal; he chose to answer the charges brought against him with arguments which convinced his judges of his innocence and made the emperor willing to treat about his ransom. This ransom was raised by new taxes laid on his subjects, whose resources, even when taxed to the uttermost, seemed unlikely to satisfy imperial avarice; and there was the further danger that whatever might be the sum raised, John might outbid them. This upright and honourable prince had offered to pay to Henry VI. the sum of 20,000l. for every month during which the imprisonment of Richard might be prolonged; but there was a limit to the patience of the German barons, and their words convinced Henry that this limit had been reached. Richard was released, hostages being given for that portion of his ransom which was not paid on the spot. His deliverance set free the tongue of pope Cælestine, who now wrote to the Austrian duke as well as to the emperor, insisting that the ransom should be given back and the hostages restored. The emperor paid no heed to the command, but Leopold was brought to obedience by the discipline of excommunication and sickness, and Richard after four years’ absence landed in his own kingdom to impoverish his people by fresh exactions for quarrels as useless as the enterprise which had taken him across the seas.