tified the assignment by
his royal authority.

But for this compulsory aid, wrung from them by violence, the Jews
were treated by the barons as allies and accomplices of the King. When
London, at least her turbulent mayor and the populace, declared for
the barons; when the Grand Justiciary, Hugh le Despenser, led the city
bands to destroy the palaces of the King of the Romans at Westminster
and Isleworth, threw the justices of the king's bench and the barons
of the exchequer into prison, and seized the property of the foreign
merchants, five hundred of the Jews,[83] men, women, and children,
were apprehended and set apart, but not for security. Despenser chose
some of the richest in order to extort a ransom for his own people,
the rest were plundered, stripped, murdered by the merciless rabble.
Old men, and babes plucked from their mothers' breasts, were
pitilessly slaughtered. It was on Good Friday that one of the fiercest
of the barons, Fitz John, put to death Cok ben Abraham, reputed to
have been the wealthiest man in the kingdom, seized his property, but,
fearful of the jealousy of the other barons surrendered one-half of
the plunder to Leicester in order to secure his own portion.

The Jews of other cities fared no better, were pillaged, and then
abandoned to the mob by the Earl of Gloucester; many at Worcester were
plundered and forced to submit to baptism by the Earl of Derby. At an
earlier period the Earl of Leicester (Simon de Montfort) had expelled
them from the town of Leicester; they sought refuge in the domains of
the Countess of Winchester. Robert Grostete, the wisest and best
churchman of the day, then Archdeacon of Leicester, hardly permitted
the Countess to harbor this accursed race; their lives might be
spared, but all further indulgence, especially acceptance of their
ill-gotten wealth, would make her an accomplice in the wickedness of
their usuries.[84]

After the battle of Lewes, 1264, the King, with the advice of his
barons--he was now a prisoner in their camp--issued a proclamation to
the Lord Mayor and sheriffs of London, in favor of the Jews. Some had
found refuge, during the tumult and massacre, in the Tower of London;
they were permitted to return with their families to their homes. All
ill-usage or further molestation was prohibited under pain of death.
Orders of the same kind were issued to Lincoln; twenty-five citizens
were named by the King and the barons their special protectors; so
a