The chief baron, Stratton, was fined 34,000 marks, the chief justice of the King’s Bench, 7000, the master of the rolls, 1000; while Weyland, chief justice of the common pleas, fled to sanctuary, was there blockaded, and after his forty days of safety had to abjure the realm. His property, which was confiscated, is said to have amounted to 100,000 marks. [Sidenote: Banishes the Jews. 1290.] At the same time the King banished all the Jews from the kingdom. Upwards of 16,000 are said to have left England, nor did they reappear till Cromwell connived at their return in 1654. It is not quite clear why the King determined on this act of severity, especially as the Jews were royal property, and a very convenient source of income. It is probable, however, that their way of doing business was very repugnant to his ideas of justice, while they were certainly great falsifiers of the coinage, which he was very anxious to keep pure and true. Earlier in the reign he had hanged between 200 and 300 of them for that crime, and they are said to have demanded 60 per cent. for their loans, taking advantage of the monopoly as money-lenders which the ecclesiastical prohibition of usury had given them. Moreover, about this time, the great banking-houses of Italy were becoming prominent. With them Edward had already had much business, and their system of advances upon fairer terms was much more pleasing to him. From this time onwards the money business of England was in their hands.[45] [Sidenote: End of First Period of the reign.] We have now reached what may be considered as the close of the first period of Edward’s reign, which had been occupied by legislation and by the conquest of Wales. From this time onwards, it is the conquest of Scotland, and the great constitutional effort of the reign, intermingled with foreign affairs, which we shall have to observe. [Sidenote: Relations with Scotland.]