tains of North Wales: but he was prevented from
making further progress against the enemy by the disorders which soon
after broke out in England.

The Welsh invasion was the appointed signal for the malecontent barons
to rise in arms; and Leicester, coming over secretly from France,
collected all the forces of his party, and commenced an open rebellion.
He seized the person of the bishop of Hereford, a prelate obnoxious to
all the inferior clergy, on account of his devoted attachment to the
court of Rome.[**] Simon, bishop of Norwich, and John Mansel, because
they had published the pope's bull, absolving the king and kingdom from
their oaths to observe the provisions of Oxford, were made prisoners,
and exposed to the rage of the party. The king's demesnes were ravaged
with unbounded fury,[***] and as it was Leicester's interest to allure
to his side, by the hopes of plunder, all the disorderly ruffians in
England he gave them a general license to pillage the barons of the
opposite party, and even all neutral persons.

* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 354.

** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382, 392.

*** Trivet, p. 211. M. West. p. 382.

But one of the principal resources of his faction was the populace of
the cities, particularly of London; and as he had, by his hypocritical
pretensions to sanctity, and his zeal against Rome, engaged the monks
and lower ecclesiastics in his party, his dominion over the inferior
ranks of men became uncontrollable. Thomas Fitz-Richard, mayor of
London, a furious and licentious man, gave the countenance of authority
to these disorders in the capital; and having declared war against the
substantial citizens, he loosened all the bands of government, by which
that turbulent city was commonly but ill restrained. On the approach of
Easter, the zeal of superstition, the appetite for plunder, or what is
often as prevalent with the populace as either of these motives, the
pleasure of committing havoc and destruction, prompted them to attack
the unhappy Jews, who were first pillaged without resistance, then
massacred, to the number of five hundred persons.[*] The Lombard bankers
were next exposed to the rage of the people; and though, by taking
sanctuary in the churches, they escaped with their lives, all their
money and goods became a prey to the licentious multitude. Even the
houses of the rich citizens, though English, were attacked by night;
and way was made by sword and by fire to