o honour to lose, and were apt to
exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigour, and
even sometimes by rapine and extortion. The industry and frugality of
this people had put them in possession of all the ready money, which
the idleness and profusion, common to the English with other European
nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest. The
monkish writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and
equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully protected this
infidel race from all injures and insults; but the zeal of Richard
afforded the populace a pretence for venting their animosity against
them. The king had issued an edict prohibiting their appearance at
his coronation; but some of them, bringing him large presents from
their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the
hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the
insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued
them; the rumour was spread that the king had issued orders to
massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an
instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had
kept at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by
rapacity and zeal, broke into their houses, which they plundered,
after having murdered the owners; where the Jews barricaded their
doors, and defended themselves with vigour, the rabble set fire to the
houses, and made way through the flames to exercise their pillage and
violence; the usual licentiousness of London, which the sovereign
power with difficulty restrained, broke out with fury, and continued
these outrages; the houses of the richest citizens, though Christians,
were next attacked and plundered; and weariness and satiety at last
put an end to the disorder: yet, when the king empowered Glanville,
the justiciary, to inquire into the authors of these crimes, the guilt
was found to involve so many of the most considerable citizens, that
it was deemed more prudent to drop the prosecution; and very few
suffered the punishment due to this enormity. But the disorder
stopped not at London. The inhabitants of the other cities of
England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the example:
in York, five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the castle
for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place, murdered
their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over