Page 130
Chap. 13.
King Richard taken prisoner in Austria; sold and sent to the Emperour; dearly ransomed, returneth home.
KIng Richard setting sail from Syria, the sea and wind favour∣ed him till he came into the Adriatick; and on the coasts of Istria he suffered shipwrack: Wherefore he intended to pierce through Germany by land, the next way home. But the near∣nesse of the way is to be measured not by the shortnesse but the safenesse of it.
He disguised himself to be one Hugo a merchant, whose onely commodity was himself, whereof he made but a bad bargain. For he was discovered in an Inne in Austria, because he disguised his person not his expenses; so that the very policy of an hostesse, finding his purse so farre above his clothes, did detect him: Yea, saith mine Authour, Facies orbiterrarum nota, ignorari non potuit. The rude people flocking together, used him with insolencies un∣worthy him, worthy themselves: and they who would shake at the tail of this loose Lion, durst laugh at his face now they saw him in a grate. Yet all the weight of their cruelty did not bow him beneath a Princely carriage.
Leopoldus Duke of Austria hearing hereof, as being Lord of the soil, seised on this Royall stray; meaning now to get his penny-worths out of him, for the affront done unto him in Pa∣lestine.
Not long after the Duke sold him to Henry the Emperour, for his harsh nature surnamed Asper, and it might have been Saevus, being but one degree from a tyrant. He kept King Ri∣chard in bands, charging him with a thousand faults committed by him in Sicilie, Cyprus, and Palestine. The proofs were as slender as the crimes grosse; and Richard having an eloquent tongue, innocent heart, and bold spirit, acquitted himself in the judgement of all the hearers. At last he was† ransomed for an hundred and fourty thousand marks, Colein weight. A summe so vast in that age, before the Indies had overflowed all Europe with their gold and silver, that to raise it in England they were forced to sell their Church-plate to their very chalices. Whereupon out of most deep Divinity it was concluded, That they should not celebrate the Sacrament in† glasse, for the brit∣tlenesse of it; nor in wood, for the sponginesse of it, which would suck up the bloud; nor in alchymie, because it was sub∣ject to rusting; nor in copper, because that would provoke vo∣miting;