been established for trying great crimes, such as murder or theft, and
coroners had been instituted to hold inquests upon any persons dying
suddenly, or found dead; either to acquit them of self murder, or seize
their goods; the citizens were also exempted from the judgment of the law
by single combat by Richard I. Among the events of interest bearing very
early date is the royal visit of the first Henry, in the day when the
king was his own tax-gatherer, and when, failing to receive his dues in
lawful coin of the realm, he was wont to take them in kind, and to tarry
until himself and suite had eaten up the hogs and sheep, and cows and
geese, whose addition to his retinue would have been otherwise very
burdensome. So liberal was the entertainment afforded the royal visitor
here, that his majesty was pleased to confer upon the citizens many
privileges as a mark of gratitude, among which exemption from such like
visitations in future was included.

The next visit of royalty is attributed to Edward the First, whose
generosity was evidenced by the command issued speedily after his return
thither, that the Jews throughout the kingdom should be charged with
unlawfully clipping and adulterating the coin of the realm, as an excuse
for their persecution, imprisonment, and final extermination. The
religious antipathies of the zealous crusader would not suffice to
explain these atrocities; but the ambition of the warlike monarch seeking
to replenish his exhausted treasury, that he might prosecute expensive
foreign enterprises, gives a more satisfactory clue to the origin of
cruelties, that led to such important confiscations being made to the
crown. In obedience to the royal will, the beautiful college of the Jews
in this city was plundered and burnt, its coffers emptied into the royal
exchequer, and its tenants banished or imprisoned. An inn, called
"Abraham's Hall," was soon after raised in the immediate neighbourhood,
to memorialize the event; but an old ricketty gable or two, hidden away
behind fair modern frontings of brickwork and stucco, is all that remains
of this monument. St. George in combat with the Dragon, now figures on
the sign board affixed to the inn that occupies one portion of its site.

It is some credit to the ministers of justice in the city, that we find
upon their records, traces of the efforts made to bring to punishment
some of the actual perpetrators of the outrages in Jewry, albeit they
could pe