Henry of Brunswick, the eldest son of Henry the Lion, who had accompanied the Emperor to Italy as a hostage, escaped from the imperial camp, and established an alliance between Tancred and the Guelfs. During the king’s absence in Italy, Henry the Lion had broken the Peace of Fulda, and was waging war against his Saxon enemies. On the king’s return to Germany, a struggle between the Guelfs and the Hohenstaufen seemed inevitable. [Sidenote: Renewed German troubles, 1191–1194.] However Henry VI. still made it his main object to conquer Naples and Sicily, and Henry the Lion was too old and too fearful of fresh banishment to risk everything once more. Accordingly, negotiations were entered into between the two, and a reconciliation seemed likely to ensue. But the German magnates were more afraid of the Guelfs than the Emperor, and pressed him to go to war against Henry the Lion. [Sidenote: The Saxon troubles and the Liége succession, 1192.] At last, in 1192, Henry took the field against the Guelfs. A new complication followed. There had been a disputed succession to the see of Liége, which had given Henry a chance to annul the two rival elections, and appoint Lothair of Hochstaden as bishop. It was a glaring violation of the Concordat of Worms, and a direct defiance of the spiritual power. The stronger of the wronged claimants, Albert of Brabant, appealed to the Pope, and obtained his recognition. Unable to get hallowed as bishop by his own metropolitan at Cologne, Albert went to Reims, to seek consecration from a foreign prelate. Three knights, vassals of Liége and servants of the Emperor, followed Albert to Reims, and murdered him, in November 1192. A great sensation was created by the dastardly deed, which in many ways recalled the murder of St. Thomas of Canterbury twenty-two years before. But Henry managed to escape direct ecclesiastical censure, though the murderers afterwards received fiefs from him in Italy. [Sidenote: The revolt of the Rhineland, 1193.] However, the barons of the Rhineland, already disaffected at Henry’s masterful policy, and resenting his neglect of the magnates for his faithful officials, took the opportunity to revolt, and, joining the rebellious Guelfs, raised up a formidable opposition to the Emperor, and talked of transferring the crown to their leader, the Duke of Brabant. But fortune was on Henry’s side. At the same time as the news of the rebellion came the joyful tidings that Richard of England, returning in disguise from the Holy Land, had been captured by Leopold, Duke of Austria, who brought a series of charges against him, and handed him over to the Emperor. [Sidenote: Captivity and ransom of Richard I., 1192–1194.] Philip of France, and John, Richard’s brother, pressed the Emperor to keep the captive as long as he could, and Richard remained more than two years in prison, but the delay was due to his unwillingness to accept the hard conditions imposed upon him. At last