called Jews' alms was
also sternly enforced; and we find Lucretia, widow of David, an Oxford
Jew, actually compelled to pay L2,590 towards the rebuilding of
Westminster Abbey. It was about this time that Abraham, a Jew of
Berkhampstead, strangled his wife, who had refused to help him to
defile and deface an image of the Virgin, and was thrown into a dungeon
of the Tower; but the murderer escaped, by a present of 7,000 marks to
the king. Tormented by the king's incessant exactions, the Jews at last
implored leave to quit England before their very skins were taken from
them. The king broke into a fit of almost ludicrous rage. He had been
tender of their welfare, he said to his brother Richard. "Is it to be
marvelled at," he cried, "that I covet money? It is a horrible thing to
imagine the debts wherein I am held bound. By the head of God, they
amount to the sum of two hundred thousand marks; and if I should say
three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the bounds of truth. I am
deceived on every hand; I am a maimed and abridged king--yea, now only
half a king. There is a necessity for me to have money, gotten from what
place soever, and from whomsoever."

[Illustration: SIR R. CLAYTON'S HOUSE, GARDEN FRONT. (_From an Old
Print._)]

The king, on Richard's promise to obtain him money, sold him the right
which he held over the Jews. Soon after this, eighty-six of the richest
Jews of London were hung, on a charge of having crucified a Christian
child at Lincoln, and twenty-three others were thrown into the Tower.
Truly Old Jewry must have often heard the voice of Rachel weeping for
her children. Their persecutors never grew weary. In a great riot,
encouraged by the barons, the great bell of St. Paul's tolled out, 500
Jews were killed in London, and the synagogue burnt, the leader of the
mob, John Fitz-John, a baron, running Rabbi Abraham, the richest Jew in
London, through with his sword. On the defeat of the king's party at the
battle of Lewes, the London mob accusing the Jews of aiding the king,
plundered their houses, and all the Israelites would have perished, had
they not taken refuge in the Tower. By royal edict the Christians were
forbidden to buy flesh of a Jew, and no Jew was allowed to employ
Christian nurses, bakers, brewers, or cooks. Towards the close of
Henry's life the synagogue in Old Jewry was again taken from the Jews,
and given to the Friars Penitent, whose chapel stood hard by, and who
complained of t