As time went on, poor Richard fancied himself forgotten, and bitterly lamented because he had no friend nor relation who loved him enough to rescue him. But he was wrong, for as soon as his mother heard of his captivity she spared no pains nor money to obtain his release. It was a long time, though, before the exact spot of his imprisonment could be ascertained, and this is how it happened, after many months: A certain troubadour knight who had been with Richard when he was shipwrecked at Istria, having heard of his captivity, wandered around through the southern cities of Germany in search of him. One day he {119} [Illustration: 0123] {121}stood beneath the tower that formed Richard's prison, and sang a song that he and the king had composed together. When he finished the first stanza, the prisoner replied with the second; then the troubadour hastened with all speed to Queen Eleanora with the discovery he had made. She took immediate measures for her son's release, and with the assistance of the pope, to whom she made a most pathetic appeal, a large ransom was collected, with which the devoted mother set out for Germany. [[A.D. 1195.]] After an absence of more than four years, Richard arrived in England in company with Queen Eleanora. During his imprisonment, John, his younger brother, had tried to possess himself of the crown of England. It was the mother who prevented anything so disgraceful, and who kept all Richard's dominions intact, and it was she who proudly sat beside her brave son at his second coronation, which took place in his own country. Berengaria remained in France, and Richard was not at all anxious to join her there, or to have her with him. The reason for this remarkable conduct on the part of a husband is that on his return to England Richard had been met by his former bachelor friends, into whose way of living he fell, much to the disgust of the more sober of his subjects. He drank with them to excess, and led such a gay, bad life, that Berengaria could not join him. At last he became alarmingly ill, and began to repent of his neglect of his wife; but he knew that she was justly displeased with him, and did not dare to approach her. So he assembled at his bedside all the monks within ten miles and publicly confessed his sins, vowing that if Queen Berengaria would forgive him he would never forsake her again. A few months later he went to France and became {122}reconciled to his wife. It was a year of famine and of suffering among the poor, and the queen used her newly-restored influence over the heart of Richard to persuade him to many acts of charity that preserved the lives of a number of families. The Christmas of the year 1196, which occurred shortly after the king's arrival in France, was celebrated in grand style. Berengaria accompanied her husband in all his campaigns after that, and never left him during the remaining three years of his life.