he liberties of the march were an
anachronism, since the marchers had no longer the work of defending
English interests against the Welsh nation.[1]

[1] Mr. J.E. Morris in chap. vi. of his _Welsh Wars of Edward
I._ has admirably summarised this suit. See also G.T. Clark's
_Land of Morgan_.

Another measure that followed Edward's home-coming was the expulsion of
the Jews. Despite constant odium and intermittent persecution, the
Jewish financiers who had settled in England after the Norman conquest
steadily improved their position down to the reign of Henry III. The
personal dependants of the crown, they were well able to afford to share
their gains from usury with their protectors. They lived in luxury,
built stone houses, set up an organisation of their own, and even
purchased lands. Henry III.'s financial embarrassments forced him to
rely upon them, and the alliance of the Jews and the crown stimulated
the religious bigotry of the popular party to ill-treat the Jews during
the Barons' War. Stories of Jews murdering Christian children were
eagerly believed; and the cult of St. Hugh of Lincoln and St. William of
Norwich,[1] two pretended victims of Hebrew cruelty, testified to the
hatred which Englishmen bore to the race.

[1] See for this saint, Thomas of Monmouth, _Life and Miracles
of St. William of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp and James (1896).

Under Edward I. the condition of the Jews became more precarious. The
king hated them alike on religious and economical grounds. He rigorously
insisted that they should wear a distinctive dress, and at last
altogether prohibited usury. Driven from their chief means of earning
their living, the Jews had recourse to clipping and sweating the coin.
Indiscriminate severities did little to abate these evils. Meanwhile
active missionary efforts were made to win over the Jews to the
Christian faith. They were compelled to listen to long sermons from
mendicant friars, and their obstinacy in adhering to their own creed was
denounced as a deliberate offence against the light. Peckham shut up
their synagogues, and Eleanor of Provence, who had entered a convent,
joined with the archbishop in urging her son to take severe measures
against them. There was a similar movement in France, and Edward, during
his long stay abroad, had expelled the Jews from Aquitaine. In 1290 he
applied the same policy to England, and their exile was so popular an
act that parliament made him a