THE WELSH INCURSIONS.

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new parliamentary measure, the barons were likewise obliged to yield to his request, and supply his pecuniary wants, so that the Jews had peace from him, during the whole of that year. But it was only for that year. The next one was introduced with another demand.

In consequence of the king's again wanting money to meet the Welsh incursions, the Jews were once more applied to and despoiled of, 10,000 marks: transportation to Ireland was the punishment in case of refusal.

Many families removed and hid themselves, fearing Ireland, as it would seem, more than England ;* so that the king had recourse to his father's measures, and issued a most cruel proclamation respecting their wives and children: in which, orders were given to the justices appointed for the protection of the Jews, that they should cause

*It is a favourite boast on the part of many Irish Christians, that their countrymen never persecuted the Jews. The above incidental piece of information may account for it.

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A CRUEL EDICT.

to be proclaimed throughout all the counties of England, where the Jews were, that if a Jewess, the wife of any Jew, or their children, fly, or take to flight, or in any way skulk from the village where they were on the festival of St. Andrew, in the twenty-ninth year of that reign, up to the year following: so that if they did not promptly appear, at the summons of the king, or of his bailiffs, in the bailiwicks in which they dwelt, that the husband of that Jewess, and even the Jewess herself, and all their children, shall be presently outlawed; and all their lands, revenues, and all their chattels, shall come into the hands of the king, and be sold, for the assistance of the king, and for the future, they shall not return into the kingdom of England, without the king's special orders.

Westminster Abbey was about this time rebuilt; and the Jews, who were prohibited from entering any Christian place of worship, were at the same time commanded to aid in the rebuilding and ornamenting of that magnificent church.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

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Lucretia, widow of David, a Jew of Oxford, was obliged to pay 2590 pounds, which was devoted to that undertaking.

Anderson tells us: "About this time, the beautiful and stately abbey church of Westminster began to assume the venerable and majestic appearance which it wears to this day, except the finely rebuilt north front, reared on the ancient foundation, which is now strengthened and new cased, where the stone had fallen to decay.". Maddox, in his "History of Exchequer," adds: "For, this purpose, Henry grants and dedicates to God and St. Edward, and the Church of Westminster for the re-edifying of that fabrick, the sum of £2590, which he extracted from Lucretia, the widow of David, a Jew of Oxford." Upon which Hunter, in his "History of London," remarks: "It is amusing to reflect, that one of our noblest and most ancient Christian structures owes its renovation and embellishment to the Jewish nation."

There was a tallage laid upon the Jews, for that very purpose, which went by the name

of the Jews' alms; which is evident from the following passage in Prynne's Demurrer :

"In the 29th of Henry III. the king sends writs to his justices for the custody of the Jews, and to his sheriffs to levy the debts due to him from the heirs of Hamond the Jew of Hereford, and that Crespin, a Jew, should pay him twenty-eight marks, to be laid out in silk and cloth of gold for Westminster Church, as his alms."

The most uninteresting part of Jewish history in the annals of this country, is that during the reign of Henry III. We can scarcely relate any thing but it is closely connected with the uncontrollable avarice of the British monarch, as well as that of his subjects. There is a disagreeable sameness in those annals. I must once more relate, that Henry extracted again 60,000 marks from the Jews, for which even the monkish historians find no excuse. In order to keep their treasures well supplied, usury was permitted to them by act of parliament, which rendered them most odious in the opinions of their Gentile debtors, who, gene

THE POPE'S USURERS.

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rally, as soon as they incurred some large debt, began to scheme their creditor's destruction; and which was the means of branding them with the unobliterable stigmas of "the usurious race," and "money brokers," which polite Gentile writers indulge in even to this very day.*

Whilst treating of this subject, I think it proper to call your attention to the pope's usurers in this country, which will show that the poor Jews got more of the name than of the gain. Their method was extremely characteristic.

The Jews were very much amused at it. Dr. Tovey, after expatiating for some time on the usurious practice of the Jews, proceeds, "when I said the Jews were the sole usurers of the kingdom, I meant to have excepted the pope; for he, indeed, the pope, was wont to carry on that infamous trade, in such a shameful manner, by the help of several Italian merchants, called Caursini, that the

* Miss Strickland, in her popular work, “Lives of the Queens of England," seems to think such epithets quite elegant. See vol. i. p. 354.