88, 102.] This war was not distinguished by any more remarkable incidents than the foregoing.

After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers, and made an exchange of some territories with each other.[*] {1196.} Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace; their mutual antipathy engaged them again in war before two months expired.

Richard imagined that he had now found an opportunity of gaining great advantages over his rival, by forming an alliance with the counts of Flanders, Toulouse, Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable vassals of the crown of France.[**] But he soon experienced the insincerity of those princes; and; was not able to make any impression on that kingdom, while governed by a monarch of so much vigor and activity as Philip.

The most remarkable incident of this war was the taking prisoner, in battle, the bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate who was of the family of Dreux, and a near relation of the French king.

Richard, who hated that bishop, threw him into prison, and loaded him with irons; and when the pope demanded his liberty, and claimed him as his son, the king sent to his holiness the coat of mail which the prelate had worn in battle, and which was all besmeared with blood; and he replied to him in the terms employed by Jacob's sons to that patriarch: "This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no."[***] This new war between England and France, though carried on with such animosity that both kings frequently put out the eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished by a truce of five years; and immediately after signing this treaty, the kings were ready, on some new offence, to break out again into hostilities, when the mediation of the cardinal of St.Mary, the pope's legate, accommodated the difference.[****] This prelate even engaged the princes to commence a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of Richard put an end to the negotiation.
[* Rymer, vol.i.p.