We left the Royal party in conversation in the chamber at Westminster.
“Have you quite resolved, Sire, to expel all the Jews from England?” asked De Valence.
“Resolved? Yes; I hope it is half done,” replied the King. “You are aware, fair Uncle, that our Commons voted us a fifteenth on this condition?”
“No, I did not hear that,” said De Valence.
“How many are there of those creatures?” inquired Lancaster.
“How should I know?” returned Edward, with an oath. “I only know that the Chancellor said the houses and goods were selling well to our profit.”
“Fifteen thousand and sixty, my Lord of Surrey told me,” said Lancaster. “I doubted if it were not too high a computation; that is why I asked.”
“Oh, very likely not,” responded Edward, carelessly. “There are as many of them as gnats, and as much annoyance.”
“Well, it is a pious deed, of course,” said Lancaster, stroking his moustache, not in the dilettante style of De Echingham, but like a man lost in thought. “It seems a pity, though, for the women and children.”
“My cousin of Lancaster, I do believe, sings Dirige over the chickens in his barnyard,” sneered De Valence.