288

BARONS MASSACRE THE JEWS.

porary chronicler:-" At the sound of St. Paul's great bell, a numerous mob sallied forth, led on by Stephen Buckrell, the marshal of London, and John Fitz-John, a powerful baron. They killed and plundered many of the wretched people, without mercy. The ferocious leader, John Fitz-John, ran through with his sword, in cold blood, Kokben Abraham, the wealthiest Hebrew resident in London. Besides plundering and killing five hundred* of this devoted race, the mob turned the rest out of their beds, undressed as they were, keeping them so the whole night." During which catastrophe, a newlyerected synagogue was reduced to ashes.

The oppressions exercised towards the Jews by the king, rendered them obnoxious to the inhabitants of the places where they resided. The continual exactions to which they were subjected had necessarily the effect of withdrawing large sums from the towns of their abode; and it could not

* Others have seven hundred.

JEWS BANISHED FROM MANY PLACES. 289

fail, sooner or later, to be discovered that though the tax, in the first instance, fell upon the Jews alone, yet that eventually the wealth of the neighbourhood was thereby considerably diminished. It was, it is probable, partly with a view to this consequence, that many towns .obtained, during the present reign, from the king, charters or writs, directing that no Jews should reside within their walls. Charters or writs to this effect were granted to the towns of Newcastle, Derby, Southampton, as you have already heard, Wycomb, Newbery, and to other places; and the Jews were forced to remove with their families and effects. It would have been happy for the Jews, if the necessity of changing the places of their residence had been the only hardship to which, through the popular feeling, they were exposed. In many parts of the country, the people treated them with open violence; charges of the wildest description were raised against them, and made excuses for the exercise of every

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290 EPIDEMIC FURY AGAINST THE JEWS.

species of cruelty and extortion; tumults were excited; their houses were pillaged and burned; and hundreds fell victims to the frenzy of the populace. At Norwich, on the occasion of some Jews being executed upon a charge of having stolen a Christian, child, which you have already heard, the citizens broke into the houses of the Jews there, and stripped them, and then setting fire to them, burned them to the ground. At Canterbury, the Jews were subjected to a similar violence, the immediate cause of which is not mentioned; but it is stated, that the clergy there did not scruple to encourage the outrage, and to take an active part with the mob on the occasion. At Oxford, the scholars of the university, having upon some pretext picked a quarrel with the Jews, broke into their houses and pillaged them of their property.*

When Prince Edward returned from his victorious campaign in Wales, he was so

* Prynne; Tovey; J. E. Blunt.

THE JEWS GIVEN TO PRINCE EDWARD. 291

poor that he could not pay the arrears which he owed to the troops, and unwilling to disband men whom he foresaw his father's cause would require, the king fixed on the expedient of presenting him with the Jews-the king of the Romans must have got, by this, all he wanted from them*—with a new privilege, viz., that of having all writs of judicature, which had been formerly sealed by the justices of the Jews, sealed by the chancellor of the exchequer, the profits of which were to be paid to the prince. Edward, however, did not keep them long in his grasp; being in want at once of ready cash, he assigned them with his father's consent and signature, for two years to the Catercensian merchants. No more did the latter keep them long, for Edward was soon after accused of a conspiracy against his father; the king therefore seized upon the Jews-a trick of olden times in royal trade. The battle of Lewes is another melan

* See p. 282.

292 THE EFFECT OF THE BATTLE OF

choly memorable event in the history of the Jews in this country. This battle, as all of you must be aware, terminated in the complete discomfiture of the king's party. The common people being disbanded and out of employment, betook themselves to persecute the unfortunate Jews. They pretended that that people conspired with the king's party to destroy the barons and the good citizens of London; which they thought gave them a right to plunder that defenceless people wherever they were found. They began with London, and the conduct of the metropolitans was soon followed by the inhabitants of other places. Lincoln, Northampton, Canterbury, and many other towns in the kingdom became the scenes of plunder and persecution. The London Jews were placed in imminent danger, and in all probability, those who survived the massacre of Montfort and John Fitz-John, would have shared the fate of their five hundred, or seven hundred, brethren, who perished there. But the con