It was in the month of October, 1192, when King Richard was just setting sail from Acre, that rumors of his approaching return were spread throughout Europe; but in vain did days, weeks, months elapse. The champion of the Cross, Cœur-de-Lion, had disappeared, and his fate remained shrouded in mystery, when, at the beginning of the year 1193, a letter from the Emperor Henry VI. to the King of France, discovered by accident, revealed the fact of Richard's incarceration in Austria. "The enemy of the Empire and the disturber of France," said the Emperor, "is imprisoned in a castle in the Tyrol, and watched day and night by faithful guards with naked swords." The exact whereabouts of the castle remained a secret. The effect of this news in Europe was wonderful; Richard's reputation had caused people to forget his pride and avarice. Prince John was as proud and as avaricious as his brother, without the fitful generosity and brilliant valor which in Richard compensated for so many faults: the clergy remembered the great deeds performed for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre; all the noblemen and knights were disgusted at the treachery which kept a king and a crusader in an unknown prison; the Pope excommunicated the Archduke Leopold, and threatened the Emperor with the same penalty; Prince John and the King of France alone rejoiced at the powerless state in which their enemy found himself. The prince hastened to Paris to do homage to Philip for all the dominions which the King of England held upon the Continent; and then, recrossing the Channel, he commenced preparations for raising an army, to enable him to dispute his brother's claim to the crown; but already the barons and prelates who remained faithful to Richard had unfurled the royal standard; the hired soldiers gathered together by John were repulsed, and the feeble usurper was compelled to consent to an armistice. His ally of France had been unsuccessful at Rouen, which was defended by the Earl of Essex, who had recently arrived from Palestine. Philip had been compelled to quit that town. {197}