of view; while his subjects, who were, or considered themselves, already hard pressed by the financial administration of Henry, would have felt or at least resented such taxes as an additional and oppressive burden. Richard adopted quicker and easier methods. Among the crowds who had taken the Cross in a moment of enthusiasm there were many whose zeal had cooled during the months or years of waiting, and who would now gladly be relieved of the obligation to fulfil their vow. There was also among them a much larger number of officers of the English court and government, and of other men belonging to the classes from which such officers were usually taken, than could well be spared from the work of administration at home. Accordingly, Richard had asked and obtained from Pope Clement letters patent granting release from their vow to all persons whom the king should appoint to take part in the safe-keeping of the realm during his absence.[399] Naturally such release was conditional on compensation being made to the crusading cause by all who were thus transferred from the service of the Cross to that of the Crown, since they had taken the former upon themselves and the latter was not compulsory; and this compensation necessarily took the form of the payment to the king of a sum which could only be fixed in each case by a bargain between him and the payer. From this it was not a difficult step for the king to make similar bargains with men who had not taken the Cross, but were suitable for and ambitious of office in England, and able to pay for it. Neither the sale of public offices nor the yet more general practice of requiring payment for royal grants of land, privileges, and benefits of any kind—including confirmations by a new king of grants made by his predecessors—was condemned, in principle at least, by the ordinary code of political morality in Richard’s day. He might fairly argue that men who desired any of these things, and had means to pay for them, ought to be made to contribute as largely as possible to the Treasury for the furtherance of the Crusade; and he accordingly set himself to drain, as it seemed, to the uttermost all these sources of revenue. “He deposed from their bailiwicks nearly all the sheriffs and their deputies, and held them to ransom to the uttermost farthing. Those who could not pay were imprisoned.”[400] He “induced many persons to vie with each other in spending money to purchase dignities or public offices, or even royal manors.”[401] “All who were overburdened with money the king promptly relieved of it, giving them powers and possessions at their choice.”[402] “Whosoever would, bought of the king his own rights as well as those of other men.” “All things were for sale with him—powers, lordships, earldoms, sheriffdoms, castles, towns, manors, and suchlike”;[403] or as Roger of Howden sums it all up, “the king put up to sale everything that he had.”[404]