deliverance;
wherefore by the king's commandment he was put unto this
penance, namely, that eurie daie, till he would agree to
give to the king those ten thousand marks that he was siezed
at, he would have one of his teeth plucked out of his head.
By the space of seaun daies together he stood stedfast,
losing euerie of those days a tooth. But on the eighth day,
when he shuld come to have the eighth tooth, and the last
(for he had but eight in all), draun out, he paid the monie
to save that, who with more wisedome and less paine might
have done so before, and so have saved his seven teeth which
he lost with such torments; for those homelie toothdrauers
used no great cunning in plucking them forth, as may be
conjectured.=

The poor Jews were entirely at the mercy of the king in these cases,
for they were so much hated and despised by the Christian people of
the land that nobody was disposed to defend them, either by word or
deed, whatever injustice or cruelty they might suffer. The most absurd
and injurious charges were made against them by common rumor, and were
generally believed, for there was nobody to defend them. There was a
story, for example, that they were accustomed every year to crucify a
Christian child. One year a mother, having missed her child, searched
every where for him, and at length found him dead in the bottom of a
well. It was recollected that a short time before the child
disappeared he had been seen playing with some Jewish children before
the door of a house where a certain Jew lived, called John Lexinton.
The story was immediately circulated that this child had been taken by
the Jews and crucified. It was supposed, of course, that John Lexinton
was intimately connected with the crime. He was immediately seized by
the officers, and he was so terrified by their threats and
denunciations that he promised to confess every thing if they would
spare his life. This they engaged to do, and he accordingly made what
he called his confession. In consequence of this confession a hundred
and two Jews were apprehended, and carried to London and shut up in
the Tower.

But, notwithstanding the confession that John Lexinton had made and
the promise that was given him, it was determined that he should not
be spared, but should die. Upon hearing this he was greatly
distressed, and he offered to make more confessions; so he revealed
several additio