And now we feel tempted to leave awhile the domain of sober history, and enter that of romance, which tells one of its prettiest stories about King Richard's captivity. The story goes that the people of England knew not what had become of their king. That he was held in durance vile somewhere in Germany they had been told, but Germany was a broad land and had many prisons, and none knew which held the lion-hearted king. Before he could be rescued he must be found, and how should this be done? Those were the days of the troubadours, who sang their lively lays not only in Provence but in other lands. Richard himself composed lays and sang them to the harp, and Blondel, a troubadour of renown, was his favorite minstrel, accompanying him wherever he went. This faithful singer mourned bitterly the captivity of his king, and at length, bent on finding him, went wandering through foreign lands, singing under the walls of fortresses and prisons a lay which Richard well knew. Many weary days he wandered without response, almost without hope; yet still faithful Blondel roamed on, heedless of the palaces of the land, seeking only its prisons and strongholds. At length arrived a day in which, from a fortress window above his head, came an echo of the strain he had just sung. He listened in ecstasy. Those were Norman words; that was a well-known voice; it could be but the captive king. "O Richard! O my king!" sang the minstrel again, in a song of his own devising. From above came again the sound of familiar song. Filled with joy, the faithful minstrel sought England's shores, told the nobles where the king could be found, and made strenuous exertions to obtain his ransom, efforts which were at length crowned with success. Through the alluring avenues of romance the voice of Blondel still comes to us, singing his signal lay of "O Richard! O my king!" but history has made no record of the pretty tale, and back to history we must turn. The imprisoned king was placed on trial before the German Diet at Worms, charged with--no one knows what. Whatever the charge, the sentence was that he should pay a ransom of one hundred thousand pounds of silver, and acknowledge himself a vassal of the emperor. The latter, a mere formality, was gone through with as much pomp and ceremony as though it was likely to have any binding force upon English kings. The former, the raising of the money, was more difficult. Two years passed, and still it was not all paid. The royal prisoner, weary of his long captivity, complained bitterly of the neglect of his people and friends, singing his woes in a song composed in the polished dialect of Provence, the land of the troubadours. "There is no man, however base, whom for want of money I would let lie in a prison cell," he sang. "I do not say it as a reproach, but I am still a prisoner."