ay, through
which can be caught glimpses of the door of an old chapel, leads to the
Rolls Court. On the site of that chapel, in the year 1233, history tells
us that Henry III. erected a Carthusian house of maintenance for
converted Jews, who there lived under a Christian governor. At a time
when Norman barons were not unaccustomed to pull out a Jew's teeth, or
to fry him on gridirons till he paid handsomely for his release,
conversion, which secured safety from such rough practices, may not have
been unfrequent. However, the converts decreasing when Edward I., after
hanging 280 Jews for clipping coin, banished the rest from the realm,
half the property of the Jews who were hung stern Edward gave to the
preachers who tried to convert the obstinate and stiff-necked
generation, and half to the Domus Conversorum, in Chancellor's Lane. In
1278 we find the converts calling themselves, in a letter sent to the
king by John the Convert, "Pauperes Coelicolae Christi." In the reign of
Richard II. a certain converted Jew received twopence a day for life;
and in the reign of Henry IV. we find the daughter of a rabbi paid by
the keepers of the house of converts a penny a day for life, by special
patent.

Edward III., in 1377, broke up the Jewish almshouse in Chancellor's
Lane, and annexed the house and chapel to the newly-created office of
Custos Rotulorum, or Keeper of the Rolls. Some of the stones the old
gaberdines have rubbed against are no doubt incorporated in the present
chapel, which, however, has been so often altered, that, like the
Highlandman's gun, it is "new stock and new barrel." The first Master of
the Rolls, in 1377, was William Burstal; but till Thomas Cromwell, in
1534, the Masters of the Rolls were generally priests, and often king's
chaplains.

The Rolls Chapel was built, says Pennant, by Inigo Jones, in 1617, at a
cost of L2,000. Dr. Donne, the poet, preached the consecration sermon.
One of the monuments belonging to the earlier chapel is that of Dr. John
Yonge, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Henry VIII. Vertue and
Walpole attribute the tomb to Torregiano, Michael Angelo's contemporary
and the sculptor of the tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster. The master is
represented by the artist (who starved himself to death at Seville) in
effigy on an altar-tomb, in a red gown and deep square cap; his hands
are crossed, his face wears an expression of calm resignation and
profound devotion. In a recess at the back is