The ex-Chancellor Longchamp had at length discovered the king's prison, and had gone to see him. He managed to induce the emperor to convoke the Diet of the Empire at Hagenau, in order to hear the charges against Richard. The King of England appeared before the princes there assembled, and cleared himself easily of the accusations brought against him. The emperor consented to deliver him up for a ransom; the sum fixed was a hundred and fifty thousand marks of silver. The king's fetters were removed, and he was led back to his prison, there to remain until the united efforts of his people should raise the required sum of money. "My brother John will never gain a kingdom by his valor!" Cœur-de-Lion had disdainfully declared on hearing of that prince's treachery. But John could plot, and, supported by Philip Augustus, he contributed greatly towards postponing the deliverance of his brother. Richard was still languishing in prison at the beginning of the year 1194, lamenting his fate in Provençal ballads, which may be translated thus:-- Now know ye well, my barons, people, all, English and Norman, Gascon and Poitevin, That for no money would I leave in thrall The poorest of my comrades thus to pine. Reproach I made not nor desire withal, Though now two winters here. The period of his captivity was at length, however, drawing to an end; in vain did Philip-Augustus and Prince John propose to the Emperor Henry a much larger sum than Richard's ransom if he would still keep the latter in prison. The princes of the Empire opposed the offer indignantly, and when the first half of the ransom arrived, in the month of February, 1194, the king was at length restored to liberty. {198} He landed at Sandwich on the 13th of March, to the great delight of his subjects. Prince John had taken refuge in Normandy, and the other traitors had disappeared. Richard seized upon several castles, deprived several rebels of their offices, and sold them to the highest bidder; then, levying another tax upon a country exhausted by war and by the payment of the royal ransom, he hastened to France, to punish her king for the injuries inflicted upon him by that monarch. On disembarking Richard was met by his brother, who reckoned upon the intercession of his mother to obtain the forgiveness of the sovereign whom he had so cruelly wronged. "I forgive him," said Richard; "and I hope that I shall forget his misdeeds as completely as he will forget my forgiveness." He refused, however, to reinstate John in his land and castles.