A solemn diet was ordered to assemble at Worms. Here were collected all
the nobles of the empire, and before them King Richard was brought. It
was a grand assembly. Upon a raised throne on the dais sat the emperor
himself, and beside him and near him were the great feudatories of the
empire, and along the sides of the walls were ranged in long rows the
lesser barons. When the doors were opened and King Richard entered, the
whole assembly, save the emperor, rose in respect to the captive
monarch. Although pale from his long confinement, the proud air of
Richard was in no way abated, and the eyes that had flashed so
fearlessly upon the Saracens looked as sternly down the long lines of
the barons of Germany. Of splendid stature and physique, King Richard
was unquestionably the finest man of his time. He was handsome, with a
frank face, but with a fierce and passionate eye. He wore his mustache
with a short beard and closely-cut whisker. His short curly hair was
cropped closely to his head, upon which he wore a velvet cap with gold
coronet, while a scarlet robe lined with fur fell over his coat of mail,
for the emperor had deemed it imprudent to excite the feeling of the
assembly in favor of the prisoner by depriving him of the symbols of his
rank.
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