Where prejudice is, pretexts for persecution are not wanting. A favourable opportunity for the expression of public feeling was offered by the coronation of Richard Coeur de Lion. Richard was the first English King who took up the cross against the infidels, and his reign was appropriately inaugurated by an anti-Jewish demonstration. The Jews were by royal edict forbidden to show their unchristian countenances in the Abbey during the ceremony. But some of them, armed with rich gifts from their people to the King, presumed to take up their station outside the Church. The street was thronged with the servants and retainers of the barons and knights who assisted at the coronation, as well as by a miscellaneous mob, drawn thither by curiosity. The foreign faces of the Jews were soon detected by the fanatical crowd, in holiday mood, and were at once made the marks of insult and riot. The wretches tried to escape; the populace pursued them; and one at least was obliged to save his life by baptism. Later in the day a rumour got abroad that the King had ordered a general slaughter of the Jews. The alleged command found many persons only too ready to carry it out. All the Jews that happened to be out of doors were cut to pieces, without remorse and without resistance, while those who had wisely remained at home were attacked by the zealous and greedy crowd, who broke into their houses, murdered the inmates, plundered their effects, and ended by setting fire to the Jewry. The riotous and avaricious instincts of the populace once roused, the havoc spread far and wide, and the city of London soon became a scene of pillage and rapine, in which no invidious distinction was made between Christian and infidel, but all were impartially robbed who were worth robbing. The King’s endeavours to bring these atrocities home to the guilty resulted in the discovery that the punishment would involve so great a number that, after having hanged three offenders, he was forced to desist. The very magnitude of the crime saved its authors.