nal particulars in regard to the crime, and implicated
numerous other persons in the commission of it. All was, however, of
no avail. He was executed, and eighteen other Jews with him.

Judging from the evidence which we have in this case, it is highly
probable that the alleged crime was wholly imaginary. Confessions that
are extorted by pain or fear are never to be believed. They may be
true, but they are far more likely to be false. It was the custom in
ancient times, and it still remains the custom among many ignorant and
barbarous nations, to put persons to torture in order to compel them
to confess crimes of which they are suspected, or to reveal the names
of their accomplices, but nothing can be more cruel or unjust than
such a practice as this. Most men, in such cases, are so maddened with
their agony and terror that they will say any thing whatever that they
think will induce their tormentors to put an end to their sufferings.

The common people could not often resist the acts of oppression which
they suffered from their rulers, for they had no power, and they could
not combine together extensively enough to create a power, and so they
were easily kept in subjection.

The nobles, however, were much less afraid of the monarchs, and often
resisted them and bid them defiance. It was the law in those days
that all estates to which no other person had a legal claim
_escheated_, as they called it, to the king. Of course, if the king
could find an estate in which there was any flaw in the title of the
man who held it, he would claim it for his own. At one time a king
asked a certain baron to show him the title to his estate. He was
intending to examine it, to see if there was any flaw in it. The
baron, instead of producing his parchment, drew his sword and held it
out before the king.

"This is my title to my estate," said he. "Your majesty will remember
that William of Normandy did not conquer this realm for himself
alone."

At another time a king wished to send two of his earls out of the
country on some military expedition where they did not wish to go.
They accordingly declined the undertaking.

"By the Almighty," said the king, "you shall either go or hang."

"By the Almighty," replied one of the earls, "we will neither go nor
hang."

The nobles also often formed extensive and powerful combinations among
each other against the king, and in such cases they were almost always
successful in bringing him to