Richard I

(1) In Richard’s absence the odium for his exactions fell upon his ministers at home, who bore the burden meet for his own callous shoulders, while he enjoyed an undeserved popularity by reason of his bravery and achievements, exaggerated as these were by the halo of romance which surrounds a distant hero.

Richard’s heavy taxation and contemptuous indifference to English interests reconciled men’s minds to thoughts of change, and prepared the basis of a combined opposition to a power that threatened to grind all other powers to powder.

The isolated precedent of Henry’s reign was followed when an extraordinarily heavy levy was required for Richard’s ransom.

“It appears from the Great Charter itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father Henry, under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom.

and the provision, in chapter 61, that the king “will cause full justice to be administered” in regard to “all those things, of which any person has, without legal judgment of his peers, been dispossessed or deprived, either by King Henry, our father, or our brother, King Richard,” indicate the tyrannical practices that prevailed.