This deplorable state of things convinced Edward of the futility of his policy. Other causes intensified his anger against the Jews. In the first year of his reign a Dominican friar embraced Judaism, a little later a Jew was burnt for blasphemy at Norwich, and, in 1278, a Jewess at Nottingham created great excitement by abusing in virulent terms the Christians in the market place; all this despite the King’s proclamation that blasphemy against Christ, the Virgin Mary, or the Catholic faith should be visited with loss of life or limbs, and the penalties, not less severe, which the Church reserved for apostates. ♦1281♦ Parliament now urged the expulsion of the Jews. Edward, his native moderation notwithstanding, could not defy public opinion. The precedent of his mentor, the brave and wise baron Simon de Montfort, also pointed in the same direction. ♦About 1253♦ The latter had expelled the Jews from Leicester and given to the burgesses a solemn promise that they should never return.[68] The example could not but have its influence upon Edward, and his own mental attitude was too orthodox to render him impervious to the overwhelming prejudices of the age. He had endeavoured to reconcile duty with humanity, and had failed. Neither did the Christians wish to receive the Jews amongst themselves, nor would the Jews have embraced such an invitation. So long as they remained in England, mutual antipathy and mutual bigotry would bar amalgamation, and therefore, under the feudal system, the only calling which the Jews could pursue, in a Christian country, would be the sinful traffic in money. Since the Jews could not be improved, they ought to be removed. While Edward was slowly coming to the one inevitable conclusion, there arrived in England, at the end of 1286, a Bull from the Pope Honorius IV., addressed to the archbishops and bishops. After a lengthy enumeration of the familiar charges brought against the Jews--their obedience to “a wicked and deceitful book, called Talmud, containing manifold abominations, falsehoods, heresies, and abuses”; their seduction of brethren snatched from infidelity, and their perversion of Christians; their immorality, their criminal intercourse with Christians, and other “horrible deeds done to the shame of our Creator and the detriment of the Catholic faith”--Honorius bade the bishops increase their severity, and their “spiritual and temporal penalties” against the “accursed and perfidious” people. ♦1287♦ In consequence of this mandate, we find a synod at Exeter passing ordinances restricting still further the Jew’s discretion in matters of dress and behaviour. The apostolic epistle accelerated Edward’s decision. It is also probable that the King, on the eve of his struggle with Scotland and France, thought it prudent to conciliate his English subjects by yielding to their demand for the expulsion of the hated people.