Richard II. Jacob Abbott
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of these extortions. The Jews in Europe were at this time generally excluded from almost every kind of business except buying and selling movable property, and lending money; but by these means many of them became very rich, and their property was of such a nature that it could be easily concealed. This led to a great many cases of cruelty in the treatment of them by the government. The government pretended often that they were richer than they really were, while they themselves pretended that they were poorer than they were, and the government resorted to the most lawless and atrocious measures sometimes to compel them to pay. The following extract from one of the historians of the time gives an example of this cruelty, and, at the same time, furnishes the reader with a specimen of the quaint and curious style of composition and orthography in which the chronicles of those days are written.
Extract from the old chronicles.
Furthermore, about the same time, the King taxed the Jewes, and greeuouslie tormented and emprisoned them bicause divers of them would not willinglie pay the summes that they were taxed at. Amongst other, there was one of them at Bristow who would not consent to give any fine for his 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.
Absurd accusations.
The story of the crucified child.
John Lexinton.
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 additional 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.
Confessions extorted by torture.
Injustice and cruelty of the practice.
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.
Anecdotes of the nobles and the king.
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 submit to their demands.
Chapter II.
Quarrels.
A.D. 1327
Classes of quarrels in which the kings and the people were engaged.
In the days of the predecessors of King Richard the Second, notwithstanding the claim made by the kings of a right on their part to reign on account of the influence exercised by their government in promoting law and order throughout the community, the country was really kept in a continual state of turmoil by the quarrels which the different parties concerned in this government were engaged in with each other and with surrounding nations. These quarrels were of various kinds.
1. The kings, as we have already seen, were perpetually quarreling with the nobles.
2. The different branches of the royal family were often engaged in bitter and cruel wars with each other, arising from their conflicting claims to the crown.
3. The kings of different countries were continually making forays into each other's territories, or waging war against each other with fire and sword. These wars arose sometimes from a lawless spirit of depredation, and sometimes were waged to resent personal insults or injuries, real or imaginary.
4. The Pope of Rome, who claimed jurisdiction over the Church in England as well as elsewhere, was constantly coming into collision with the civil power.
The Pope.
His claim of jurisdiction in England.
From some one or other of these several causes, the kingdom of England, in the time of Richard's predecessors, was seldom at peace. Some great quarrel or other was continually going on. There was a great deal of difficulty during the reigns that immediately preceded that of Richard the Second between the kings and the Pope. The Pope, as has already been remarked, was considered the head of the whole Christian Church, and he claimed rights