Richard, in September, concluded a peace with Saladin for three years, three months, and three days, and in his im pulsive, impatient way started off home alone, without waiting for his army and fleet. A storm shipwrecked him near the N. end of the Adriatic. In disguise he began to make his way through the dominions of his bitter enemy, the Arch duke of Austria. He was recognized, seized, and handed over to the Emperor Henry VI. (March, 1193). The emperor demanded a heavy ransom for his re lease, but promised to give him the king dom of Arles in addition to his liberty. Richard's loyal subjects raised the money; and greatly to the chagrin of Philip of France and Richard's brother John, the captive king returned home (March 13, 1194).
In England in the meantime Long champ had made himself so unpopular that Richard had been obliged to super sede him, appointing in his place Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen. It was John, however, who exercised the greatest power in the realm. And though he used his utmost endeavors to prevent Richard's return from his captivity, yet Richard generously forgave him. After distributing judicious rewards and pun ishments, raising what money he could, making arrangements for the governance of the kingdom, and being crowned again —the emperor is said to have forced his captive to resign his crown and take it back as a fief of the empire—Richard proceeded to France, and spent the rest of his life there, warring against Philip.
England was governed in his absence by Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canter bury, who by the measures he took to raise the vast sums demanded by his master trained the English people in habits of self-government. The most im portant constitutional advances made under Hubert's rule were the formula tion of the methods for electing the county grand juries and an arrangement for keeping the pleas of the crown by officers who may be regarded as the forerunners of the modern coroner. Rich ard was shot, on April 7, 1199, by an archer of the Viscount of Limoges, while besieging that nobleman's castle of Cha lus-Chabrol, and was buried in the abbey church of Fontevraud.
Richard cannot be called a good king; his only thought of his subjects was how to get money from them. He was not a faithful husband; he was an undutiful son. Yet, on the other hand, he treated his perfidious brother John in the most forgiving spirit, and was not incapable of noble and generous acts. His im pulsive, hot-headed temperament made him at times cruel, but never vindictive. He was an adventurer, with a passion ate love for contention and strife; he fought for warlike glory, not for victory or real advantage; he had all the per sonal courage and self-confidence of the born warrior. A fair scholar, he also had the knack of writing verses, and has been called a poet.