Richard therefore knew that he must carry with him all the treasure necessary for his enterprise, and that both the remoteness of his own country and its poverty, made it unable to furnish him with those continued supplies, which the exigencies of so perilous a war must necessarily require.

His father had left him a treasure of above a hundred thousand marks; and the king, negligent of every consideration but his present object, endeavored to augment his sum by all expedients, how pernicious soever ta the public, or dangerous to royal authority.

He put to sale the revenues and manors of the crown; the offices of greatest trust and power, even those of forester and sheriff, which anciently were so important,[*] became venal; the dignity of chief justiciary, in whose hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws, was sold to Hugh de Puzas, bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the same prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life;[**] many of the champions of the cross, who had repented of their vow, purchased the liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of men than of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their attendance.

Elated with the hopes of fame, which in that age attended no wars but those against the infidels, he was blind to every other consideration; and when some of his wiser ministers objected to this dissipation of the revenue and power of the crown, he replied, that he would sell London itself could he find a purchaser.[***] Nothing indeed could be a stronger proof how negligent he was of all future interests in comparison of the crusade, than his selling, for so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage of Scotland, together with the fortresses of Roxborough and Berwick, the greatest acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of his victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England.[****] The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by numerous exactions: menaces were employed both against the innocent and the guilty, in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence was wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his displeasure, to lend him sums which he knew it would never be in his power to repay.
[* The sheriff had anciently both the administration of justice and the management of the king's revenue committed to him in the county.

See Hale, of Sheriffs' Accounts.] [** M.Paris, p.