Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 206, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1916 — "WORTH A KING’S RANSOM” [ARTICLE]

"WORTH A KING’S RANSOM”

•Origin of Widely-Known Phrase It Traced Back to Medieval Days. ' The expression “king’s ransom” has been traced back to the distant days “when all murders were punishable by fine on a sliding scale, and even kings •went cheap at from SIOO to s2§o, a London Chronicle man Writes. It is more probably a dim popular remilalscence of the heavy taxation of Engk e.- "• ~ 1

land to pay the ransom demanded for our Richard Coeur de Lion when he was kept in captivity by some of our present enemies. The expression “worth a king’s ransom” more probably refers to that paid to a king. In early times, when armies received practically no regular pay, and the soldiers’ reward was the booty take# from the vanquished, each- soldier had a right to the bodies as well as to the goods of the prisoners he captured. The conqueror giigbt slay his prisoner, sell him to slavery or

set him at liberty on payment of a ransom. But though it was the common practice in feutjql times for th«j individual captor to receive the ransorq for prisoners of low degree, those for princes or great nobles were always paid to the kings, hence a king’s ransom. ' ■ . ,