[1] – From Henry’s History of Great Britain, one would be led to believe that the “one hundred and thirty thousand pounds were raised.”—Vol. v., p. 182.
Andrews—who was evidently no friend to the Jews—in his continuation of Henry’s Britain, observes—“The partiality in favour of Jewish physicians was unaccountable, and probably ill-founded; yet Elizabeth chose to trust her health in the hands of the Hebrew, Rodrigo Lopez, rather than have recourse to many English students in medicine, of considerable abilities, who attended her court.” And in a note he adds—“The same fantastic preference had made Francis I., when indisposed with a tedious complaint, apply to Charles V. for an Israelite, who was the imperial physician. Accordingly, the person whom he sought for visited Paris; but the king, finding that he had been converted to Christianity, lost all confidence in his advice, and applied to his good ally, Soliman II., who sending him a true, hardened Jew, the monarch took his counsel, drank asses’ milk, and recovered.”[1]
[1] – Vol. ii., p. 63.
When King Henry died, the Jews began to hope for better days. They were encouraged in their hopes by Richard’s conduct, who, after his return from Normandy—where he had been as prince—proclaimed liberty to all prisoners and captives, even to the greatest criminals. The coronation day, which was to take place in the beginning of the month of September, A.D. 1189, was proclaimed by the intended king to be an universal day of joy; and to crown all, that year was believed by all Jews to have been one of their jubilees.
All these circumstances conspired to flatter the oppressed Jews, and to raise their expectation that they also would experience mercy from the lion-hearted monarch, and led them to hope that together with this reign an era of better days would be introduced into the annals of their history in this country. But, alas! hope told them a flattering tale.
From the accession of this sovereign to the throne, the Jews had to date in characters of blood the commencement of a new and most severe series of sufferings and outrages; their footsteps in this country from the days of Richard to the days of Edward the First—when they were finally banished—may be tracked by their blood; against them sympathy has been steeled, and for their rights justice has had no balances. So far has the bitterness of their affliction been from exciting commiseration, or their hopeless prostration from disarming cruelty, that however Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton may have differed in other respects, and however adverse they were to each other, they concurred in treading down the Jews, and contended which should look with greatest detestation upon a people whom it was accounted a point of religion to hate, to revile, to despise, to plunder, and to persecute.
How truly was it said, that “except, perhaps, the flying fish, there was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or in the waters, who were the objects of such an unintermitting, general, and relentless persecution as the Jews of this period. Upon the slightest and most unreasonable pretences, as well as upon accusations the most absurd and groundless, their persons and property were exposed to popular fury.”[1]
[1] – Sir Walter Scott.
It may not be uninstructive, however, to dwell on the history of the Jews in this realm during that period—though a dreary tale of woe—as it throws a great measure of light upon the national character of the people of this country, and the nature of its government during the dark ages of its annals; and if it be painful to you to hear of massacres, extortions, and persecutions perpetrated by your ancestors, upon a defenceless people, it is still a subject of congratulation that you are permitted to turn your eyes upon the improved state both of the persecuted and the persecutors—an idea which is naturally reflected from the opaque surface of these barbarous times with a luminous brightness, upon your own more happy epoch.
Richard Cœur de Lion, whose whole thoughts were engaged in the contemplated relief of the Holy Land, and the recovery of Jerusalem, seems to have regarded the Jews with feelings of especial antipathy, as being the determined and sworn enemies of a religion of which he professed himself so zealous a champion. The courtiers and the clergy, especially Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, endeavoured to make the king believe that the Jews were in general sorcerers, and might possibly bewitch him if allowed to be present at his coronation. Actuated by these sentiments, and desirous, perhaps, to give proof of the sovereign contempt he entertained towards the opponents of Christianity in general, Richard, as one of the first acts of his reign, caused a proclamation to be issued, the day before his inauguration, forbidding any woman or Jew to approach the palace during the ceremony of his coronation. Both women and Jews were considered by the ministers of the Church to practice sorcery and witchcraft.[1]