*Acre surrendered on July 12 1191, after the arrival of King Philip II of France and King Richard I of England. Duke Leopold V, as commander of the German Hohenstaufen contingent, demanded rights equal to those of the two kings but was rejected. When the banners of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, England, France and Leopold's ducal flag were raised in the city by Leopold's cousin, Marquis Conrad of Montferrat, Richard removed Leopold's colours and the duke wrathfully left for his Austrian home, where he arrived by the end of 1191. In January 1192 he proceeded to the court of Emperor Henry VI and complained bitterly about Richard, who also was suspected of involvement in the murder of Conrad, shortly after his election as King of Jerusalem.
The emperor probably agreed with King Philip, already in conflict with the English king, on Richard's capture. When King Richard left the Holy Land in late October 1192, he sailed up the Adriatic Sea to Aquileia, planning to reach the Bavarian estates of his Welf brother-in-law Henry the Lion. Whilst travelling under disguise, he stopped at Vienna shortly before Christmas 1192, where he was recognized (supposedly because of his signet ring) and arrested in Erdberg (modern Landstraße district). Initially Duke Leopold had the king imprisoned in Dürnstein, and in March 1193 Richard was brought before Emperor Henry VI at Trifels Castle, accused of Conrad's murder. A ransom of 35,000 kilograms of silver was paid to release Richard. Leopold also demanded that Richard's niece, Eleanor, marry his son Frederick. Due to Leopold's death, this marriage never took place. Leopold's share of the ransom became the foundation for the mint in Vienna and was used to build new city walls for Vienna, as well as to found the towns of Wiener Neustadt and Friedberg in Styria. The duke was excommunicated by Pope Celestine III for having taken a fellow crusader prisoner.*