son, instead of being the enemy of
the Earl of Leicester, was (for the time) his friend. It fell out,
therefore, that these two Earls joined their forces, took several of the
Royal Castles in the country, and advanced as hard as they could on
London. The London people, always opposed to the King, declared for them
with great joy. The King himself remained shut up, not at all
gloriously, in the Tower. Prince Edward made the best of his way to
Windsor Castle. His mother, the Queen, attempted to follow him by water;
but, the people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating her with
all their hearts, ran to London Bridge, got together a quantity of stones
and mud, and pelted the barge as it came through, crying furiously,
'Drown the Witch! Drown her!' They were so near doing it, that the
Mayor took the old lady under his protection, and shut her up in St.
Paul's until the danger was past.

It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a great deal of
reading on yours, to follow the King through his disputes with the
Barons, and to follow the Barons through their disputes with one
another--so I will make short work of it for both of us, and only relate
the chief events that arose out of these quarrels. The good King of
France was asked to decide between them. He gave it as his opinion that
the King must maintain the Great Charter, and that the Barons must give
up the Committee of Government, and all the rest that had been done by
the Parliament at Oxford: which the Royalists, or King's party,
scornfully called the Mad Parliament. The Barons declared that these
were not fair terms, and they would not accept them. Then they caused
the great bell of St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing up
the London people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound and formed
quite an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, however, that instead
of falling upon the King's party with whom their quarrel was, they fell
upon the miserable Jews, and killed at least five hundred of them. They
pretended that some of these Jews were on the King's side, and that they
kept hidden in their houses, for the destruction of the people, a certain
terrible composition called Greek Fire, which could not be put out with
water, but only burnt the fiercer for it. What they really did keep in
their houses was money; and this their cruel enemies wanted, and this
their cruel enemies took, like robbers and murderers.

The