wars between Matilda and Stephen had drained the royal coffers; money became more and more imperatively needed; and, following the example of the continental nations, charges the most false, but from their very horror and improbability eagerly credited by the ignorant populace, were promulgated against the Jews, and immense sums extorted from them to purchase remission from suffering and exile. Those who refused acceptance of the royal terms were mercilessly banished, and their estates and other possessions confiscated to the crown.

During the reigns of Stephen and Henry II. these persecutions continued with little intermission, yet still they remained industrious and uncomplaining, eager on every occasion to testify their loyalty and allegiance.

In the last year of Henry II.'s reign (1188), a parliament was convened at Northampton to raise supplies for an expedition to the Holy Land. The whole Christian population were assessed at £70,000, while the Jews alone, in numbers but a very small fraction of the king's native subjects, were burdened with a tax of £60,000; £3330 having been during this one reign already tortured from them. The abandonment of the project, followed as it was by the king's death, prevented this illegal extortion; and it was perhaps from joy at this unexpected relief that the Hebrews thronged in crowds to Westminster to witness the coronation of Richard, sumptuously attired, and bearing rich offerings, to testify their eager desire to conciliate the king.

were

This, however, was not permitted. The nobles and populace— whose strongest link of union in those days was jealous hatred of a people whose only crime was wealth-resolved on their exclusion. The presence of such ill-omened sorcerers at the coronation, it was declared, would blight every hope of prosperity for the reign, and commands were peremptorily issued that no Jews should be admitted to witness the ceremony. Some few individuals dared the danger of discovery, and made their way within the church. Their boldness was fatal; and not to themselves alone. Insulted and maltreated almost to death, they dragged from the church, and the signal given for universal outrage. The populace spread through every Jewish quarter, destroying and pillaging without pause, setting even the royal commands at defiance; for avarice and hatred had obtained sole possession of their hearts. For a day and a night these awful scenes continued in London, and not a Jewish dwelling in the city escaped. England was at that time thronged with friars preaching the Crusade; and, as had previously been the case on the continent, they urged the sacrifice of the unbelieving Jews as a fit commencement for their holy expedition. The example of London was held forth as an exhibition of praiseworthy enthusiasm; and at Edmondsbury, Norwich, and Stamford the same scenes of blood and outrage were enacted. At Lincoln the miserable Hebrews obtained protection from the governor. At York,

after a vain attempt to check the popular fury, a great number retreated to the castle with their most valuable effects. Those not fortunate or expeditious enough to reach the temporary shelter were all put to the sword, neither age nor sex spared, their riches appropriated, and their dwellings burnt to the ground.

For a short time the castle appeared to promise a secure retreat, but gradually the suspicion spread that the governor was secretly negotiating for their surrender, the price of his treachery being a large portion of their wealth. Whether this suspicion were correct or not was never ascertained, but it worked so strongly on the minds of the Jews, that they seized the first occasion of the governor's absence from the castle, on a visit to the town, to close the gates against him. They then themselves manned the ramparts, and awaited a siege. It happened that the sheriff of the county (without whose permission no measures to recover the castle could be taken) was passing through York with an armed force; the incensed governor instantly applied to him, and demanded the aid of his men. Recollecting the king's attempt to keep peace between his Christian and Jewish subjects in London, the sheriff at first hesitated; but, urged on by the indig nant representations of the governor, he at length permitted the

assault.

The frantic fury with which the shouting rabble rushed to the attack, the horrid nature of the scenes which he knew must inevitably ensue, caused him, even at that moment, to revoke the order; but it was too late. License once given, the passions of the surging multitude could not be assuaged. The clergy fanned them into yet hotter flame, by encouraging their mad fury as holy zeal, promising salvation to all who shed the blood of a Jew; and themselves, in strange contradiction to the professions signified by the garbs they wore, joining in the affray, and often heading the attack. The unshrinking courage, the noble selfdenial and heroic endurance of the hapless Hebrews, could little avail them against the wild excitement and immense multitude of their assailants; yet still they resisted with vigour. Accused as they were of never handling the weapons or experiencing the emotions of the warrior, it was now shown that circumstances and not character were at fault. The spirit of true heroism peculiar to their race in the olden time might indeed appear crushed and lost beneath the heavy fetters of oppression, but it burned still, ready to burst into life and energy whenever occa sion demanded its display.

Notwithstanding the bold defence of the besieged, resistance was too soon seen to be hopeless, and in stern unbending resolu tion they assembled in the council-room. Their rabbi (a Hebrew word signifying chief or elder), a man of great learning and eminent virtue, rose up, and with mournful dignity thus addressed them" Men of Israel, the God of our ancestors is

omniscient, and there is no one who can say, 'What doest thou?' This day he commands us to die for his law-that law which we have cherished from the first hour it was given, which we have preserved pure throughout our captivity in all nations, and for which, for the many consolations it has given us, and the belief in eternal life which it communicates, can we do less than die? Posterity shall behold its solemn truths sealed with our blood; and our death, while it confirms our sincerity, shall impart strength to the wanderers of Israel. Death is before our eyes; we have only to choose an easy and an honourable one. If we fall into the hands of our enemies, which fate you know we cannot elude, our death will be ignominious and cruel; for these Christians, who picture the Spirit of God in a dove, and confide in the meek Jesus, are athirst for our blood, and prowl like wolves around us. Let us escape their tortures, and surrender, as our ancestors have done before us, our lives with our own hands to our Creator. God seems to call for us; let us not be unworthy of that call."

It was a fearful counsel, and the venerable elder himself wept as he ceased to speak; but by far the greater number declared that he had spoken well, and they would abide by his words. The few that hesitated were desired by their chief, if they approved not of his counsel, to depart in peace; and some obeyed. It was night ere the council closed, and during the hours of darkness not a sound betrayed the awful proceedings within the castle to the besiegers. At dawn the multitudes furiously renewed the attack, falling back appalled for the minute by the sight of flames bursting from all parts of the citadel. A few miserable objects rushing to and fro on the battlements also became visible, with wild cries intreating mercy for themselves, imploring baptism rather than death, and relating with groans and lamentations the fate of their companions. The men had all slain their wives and children, and then fallen by each others' hands, the most distinguished receiving the sad honour of death from the sword of their old chief, who was the last to die. Their precious effects were burnt or buried, according as they were combustible or not; so that, when the gates were flung open, and the rabble rushed in, eager to appropriate the wealth which they believed awaited them, they found nothing but heaps of ashes. Maddened with disappointment, all pledges of safety to the survivors, if the gates were opened, were forgotten, and every human being that remained was tortured and slain. Five hundred had already fallen by their own hands, and these voluntary martyrs were mostly men forced by persecution into such mean and servile occupations as to appear incapable of a lofty thought or heroic deed.

No punishment followed the atrocious proceedings at York. The laws of England never interfered in behalf of the king's Jewish subjects, though they would have been somewhat rigidly

obeyed had the sufferers been the offenders. On King Richard's return from captivity, the Hebrews were, under certain statutes, acknowledged as the exclusive property of the crown. John commenced his reign with a semblance of extreme lenity towards them. The privileges formerly granted to them by Henry I. were confirmed. They might settle in any part of England, instead of being confined to certain quarters of certain towns; hold lands, and receive mortgages. Their evidence might be taken in courts of justice. All English subjects were commanded to protect their persons and possessions as they would the especial property of the king. Other laws equally lenient were issued; and, misled by such favourable appearances, many of the conti nental Hebrews flocked to England. This increase of Jewish population of course materially increased Jewish wealth; the hatred of the people was anew excited, and several indignities were perpetrated against the Jews. The king wrote a strong rebuke to the perpetrators; and then, at the very time that the Jews were rejoicing at this undeniable proof of his sincerity, and their own security, completely changed his policy, and from the extreme of lenity proceeded to the extreme of rigour. He had, in fact, only favoured them to multiply their wealth, and then revelled in its seizure; glad that there were now some possessions he could appropriate without any interference from the pope. The unhappy Israelites were imprisoned, tortured, murdered, and their treasures all confiscated to the crown. A Jew of Bristol having refused to betray his hoards, was condemned to have a tooth pulled out every day until he should yield. The man suffered seven of his teeth to be extracted before he complied: the king gained 10,000 marks by his cruel device. In the war between John and his barons they were persecuted by both parties-by the king for their wealth; by the barons, because they were vassals of the king. Even the stern and noble assertors of liberty, the heroes of the Magna Charta, seeking justice and freedom for all classes of Englishmen, had no pity for the wretched Jews; seizing their possessions, and demolishing their homes, to repair the walls of London, which had been greatly injured in the civil war.

The guardians of England during the reign of Henry III. sought in some degree to meliorate the condition of the Jews. Twenty-four burgesses of every town, where they resided, were appointed to protect their persons and property; but the protection even of royalty could avail little when every class of men conspired to detest and oppress them. The merchants were jealous of the privileges permitting the Jews to buy and sell. The people hated them, from the idle tales of horrible crimes attributed to them, which had no foundation whatever in truth, but which ignorance and prejudice not only believed, but so magnified and multiplied as to cause them to be inseparably associated with the word Jew. The clergy-men who, both pro

fessors and preachers of a religion of peace, should have been the first to protect the injured, and calm the turbulent passions of the populace were the constant incitors to persecution and cruelty, believing, by a most extraordinary hallucination, that to maltreat the Jew was the surest evidence of Christian zeal.

The guardians of the young king had, however, so guided him, that for a brief interval after attaining his majority, the royal protection shielded the Jews in some measure from popular oppression. But this was only until the king's coffers became impoverished: when these were empty, the only means of refilling them was to follow the example of his predecessors, and by fair means or foul, extort money from the Jews. In this reign alone, the enormous sum of 170,000 marks was, under various pretences and various cruelties, wrung from them; and when all other means of extortion seemed exhausted, an extraordinary spectacle was displayed in the convention of a Jewish parliament. The sheriffs of the different towns had orders to return six of the wealthiest and most influential Jews from the larger cities, and two from the smaller. In those times almost the only function of a parliament was to vote supplies; this Jewish parliament, therefore, in being informed by the sovereign that he must have 20,000 marks from the Jews of England, served for the Jewish part of the population pretty nearly the same purpose as the ordinary parliament served for the rest of the community. The assembled members were probably left to decide the amount of assessment which the various ranks of Jews should pay, so as to make up the total sum required; and as this right of proportioning the assessment was generally the only right exercised by ancient parliaments, properly so called, the particular hardship of the Jews, as compared with their fellowsubjects, consisted not in having no liberty of refusal-for that is a liberty which only modern parliaments have acquired-but in the enormous sum demanded from them, and in the rigours which they knew would be employed to enforce its speedy collection. Assembled, and made aware of the demand which was made upon them, the unfortunate Jewish representatives were dismissed to collect the money from their own resources as speedily as possible; and because it was not forthcoming as quickly as was requisite for the royal necessities, all their possessions were seized, and their families imprisoned.

Believing, at length, that their wealth must be exhausted by such demands, or weary of the trouble of extortion, Henry consummated his acts of oppression by actually selling his Jewish subjects, their persons and effects, to his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, for 5000 marks. The records of this disgraceful bargain are still preserved; and that the king had power to conclude it, marks the oppressed and fearful position of this hapless people emphatically than any lengthened narrative. Yet the barbarity of the sovereign met with universal approbation; the

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