A.D. 1197. THE INTERDICT IN NORMANDY RELAXED. 89 of all the aforementioned places and rights, he collected a great army, and having broken his treaty with the king of France, laid siege to Albemarle. And after having done this, the king of England ordered all the estates and possessions to be seized which were in his reach belonging to the abbots of the great monastery at Cluny, of the monastery of Saint Denis, and of the monastery of Charity, who were the securities for the king of France in the matter of the covenant before mentioned which was to the effect, that if the king of France transgressed it, they should pay the sum of money named in the agreement. In the mean time, the king of France took the castle of Albemarle by storm, and destroyed it, as he did many others. The same year, Hugh de Chaumont, a very powerful noble, and a great friend of the king of France, was taken prisoner. In these days also, count John and Marcadée, being at no great distance from the city of Beau vais, took prisoner Philip, bishop of that city, in full armour, and William de Merlan, his son, with many other knights, and a great number of common soldiers, and Marcadée coming early in the morning to the bedside of king Richard, said to him in the Norman dialect, " Sus, Richard, sus, je te aymene le cantatur de Balvais"1 And so the bishop was presented in complete armour to king Richard, and by the king's command, he was detained in prison in his armour ; and when the lord the pope wrote in his behalf, desiring that he might be released, severely reproving king Richard, for having taken prisoner and detained in this manner a bishop, who was his most beloved son, the king sent to the pope, who wrote thus for his son the breast-plate of the bishop in which he had been taken, and said in his letter of answer, " See, Ο father, whether this be thy son's coat or no." And as the pope desisted from making any more requests in his behalf, the bishop was subsequently liberated by ransom. The interdict in Normandy is relaxed. Fulh distinguishes himself as a preacher. A.D . 1197« Richard, king of England, in order to procure the relaxation of the sentence of interdict which the archbishop of Rouen had uttered, because of the affair of the castle of Audley, sent to the Roman court his chancellor, William, bishop of Ely, and the bishops of Durham and ' Get up, Richard, get up, I bring you the charter of Beauvaia."