ot so much his own wish as the wish of his subjects, who,
being largely in debt to the Jews, regarded them as cruel tyrants. The
nation soon discovered that it had made a mistake in thus getting rid of
its creditors, for in the absence of the Jews, Edward was compelled to
resort to the Lombard merchants. It may possibly have been owing to some
monetary transactions between them that the king was solicitous of getting
a life interest in the city's Small Beam made over to a lady known as
Jacobina la Lumbard. No particulars are known of this lady, but to judge
from her name she probably came of a family of money-lenders, and if so,
the king's action in writing from Berwick (28th June, 1291) to the warden
and aldermen of the city--at a time when he was completely in the hands of
the Italian goldsmiths and money-lenders--soliciting for her a more or less
lucrative post is easily intelligible.(318) The king's request was
refused, notwithstanding the city being at the time in charge of a
_custos_ of his own choice instead of a mayor elected by the citizens
themselves. Such requests produced friction between the king and the city,
and the former's financial relations with the foreign merchants were
fraught with danger to himself and to his son.(319)

(M202)

Edward's anxiety was in the meanwhile increased by domestic troubles. In
1290 he suffered a bitter disappointment by the death of a Scottish
princess who was affianced to his son, the Prince of Wales, and thus a
much-cherished plan for establishing friendly relations between the two
countries was frustrated. But this disappointment was quickly cast in the
shade by the more severe affliction he suffered in the loss of his wife.
In November Queen Eleanor died. Her corpse was brought from Lincoln to
Westminster, and the bereaved husband ordered a memorial cross to be set
up at each place where her body rested. One of these crosses was erected
at the west end of Cheapside. After the Reformation the images with which
the cross was ornamented, like the image of Becket set over the gate of
the Mercers' Chapel, roused the anger of the iconoclast, who took delight
in defacing them.

(M203)

Time only increased the king's pecuniary difficulties. In February, 1292,
all freeholders of land of the annual value of L40 were ordered to receive
knighthood, and in the following January the estates of defaulters were
seized by the king's orders.(320) In June, 1294, war was declared agains