he noise of the Jewish congregation; but the king
permitted another synagogue to be built in a more suitable place. Henry
then ordered the Jews to pay up all arrears of tallages within four
months, and half of the sum in seventeen days. The Tower of London was
naturally soon full of grey-bearded Jewish debtors.

No wonder, with all these persecutions, that the Chancery Lane house of
converts began soon to fill. "On one of the rolls of this reign," says
Mr. Margoliouth, probably quoting Prynne's famous diatribe against the
Jews, "about 500 names of Jewish converts are registered." From the 50th
year of Henry III. to the 2nd of Edward I., the Crown, says Coke,
extorted from the English Jews no less than L420,000 15s. 4d.!

Edward I. was more merciful. In a statute, however, which was passed in
his third year, he forbade Jews practising usury, required them to wear
badges of yellow taffety, as a distinguishing mark of their nationality,
and demanded from each of them threepence every Easter. Then began the
plunder. The king wanted money to build Carnarvon and Conway castles, to
be held as fortresses against the Welsh, whom he had just recently
conquered and treated with great cruelty, and the Jews were robbed
accordingly. It was not difficult in those days to find an excuse for
extortion if the royal exchequer was empty. In the 7th year of Edward no
less than 294 Jews were put to death for clipping money, and all they
possessed seized by the king. In his 17th year all the Jews in England
were imprisoned in one night, as Selden proves by an old Hebrew
inscription found at Winchester, and not released till they had paid
L20,000 of silver for a ransom. At last, in the year 1290, came the
Jews' final expulsion from England, when 15,000 or 16,000 of these
tormented exiles left our shores, not to return till Cromwell set the
first great example of toleration. Edward allowed the Jews to take with
them part of their money and movables, but seized their houses and
other possessions. All their outstanding mortgages were forfeited to the
Crown, and ships were to be provided for their conveyance to such places
within reasonable distance as they might choose. In spite of this,
however, many, through the treachery of the sailors, were left behind in
England, and were all put to death with great cruelty.

"Whole rolls full of patents relative to Jewish estates," says Mr.
Margoliouth, "are still to be seen at the Tower, which estates, to