News came that Philip II and the Emperor Henry VI were plotting with his brother John for his ruin at home, and Richard, weary at heart and sick in health, agreed to a three years and eight months’ truce that left the Christians in the possession of the seaports of Jaffa and Tyre, with the coastal territory between them, and gave pilgrims leave to visit Jerusalem untaxed. He himself refused with tears in his eyes even to gaze from a distant height on the city he could not conquer; but, vowing he would return, he set sail for the West in the autumn of 1192, and with his departure the Third Crusade ended. There were to be many other crusades, but none that expressed in the same way as these first three expeditions the united aspirations of Western Europe for the recovery of the land of the Holy Sepulchre. National jealousies had ruined the chances of the Third Crusade, and with every year the spirit of nationality was to grow in strength and make common action less possible for Europe. There is another reason also for the changing character of the Crusades, namely, the loss of the religious enthusiasm in which they had their origin. Men and women had believed that the cross on their arms could turn sinners into saints, break down battlements, and destroy infidels, as if by miracle. When they found that human passions flourished as easily in Palestine as at home and that the way of salvation was, as ever, the path of hard labour and constant effort, they were disillusioned, and eager multitudes no longer clamoured to go to the East. The Crusades did not stop suddenly, but degenerated with a few exceptions into mere political enterprises, patronized now by one nation, now by another: the armies recruited by mere love of adventure, lust of battle, or the desire for plunder. If Western Christendom had gained no other blessing by them, the early Crusades at least freed the nations at a critical moment from a large proportion of the unruly baronage that had been a danger to commerce and good government. England paid heavily in gold for the Third Crusade; but the money supplied by merchants and towns was well spent in securing from the Lion-Heart privileges and charters that laid the foundations of municipal liberty. In France the results of the Second Crusade had been for the moment devastating. Whole villages marched away, cities and castles stood empty, and in some provinces it was said ‘scarce one man remained to seven women’. In the orgy of selling that marked this exodus lands and possessions rapidly changed hands, the smaller fiefs tending to be absorbed by the larger fiefs and many of these in their turn by the crown. Aided also by other causes, the King of France with his increased demesnes and revenues came to assume a predominant position in the national life.