payment of the ransom was more certain than Philip's promises, and as the instances of the Diet, and the menaces of the Pope, who protected Richard, as a prince serving under the Cross, were of more immediate consequence than his threats, Richard was at length released; and though it is said the Emperor endeavored to seize him again, to extort an other ransom, he escaped safely into England. [Sidenote: A.D. 1194] Richard, on his coming to England, found all things in the utmost confusion; but before he attempted to apply a remedy to so obstinate a disease, in order to wipe off any degrading ideas which might have arisen from his imprisonment, he caused himself to be new crowned. Then holding his Court of Great Council at Southampton, he made some useful regulations in the distribution of justice. He called some great offenders to a strict account. Count John deserved no favor, and he lay entirely at the king's mercy, who, by an unparalleled generosity, pardoned him his multiplied offences, only depriving him of the power of which he had made so bad a use. Generosity did not oblige him to forget the hostilities of the King of France. But to prosecute the war money was wanting, which new taxes and new devices supplied with difficulty and with dishonor. All the mean oppressions of a necessitous government were exercised on this occasion. All the grants which were made on the king's departure to the Holy Land were revoked, on the weak pretence that the purchasers had sufficient recompense whilst they held them. Necessity seemed to justify this, as well as many other measures that were equally violent. The whole revenue of the crown had been dissipated; means to support its dignity must be found; and these means were the least unpopular, as most men saw with pleasure the wants of government fall upon those who had started into a sudden greatness by taking advantage of those wants.