Edward’s ideas of honesty we have already seen in the affair of the Templars, and his feelings of gratitude in his conduct towards the Scots. His sense of justice may be gathered from his proceedings against the Jews. The silver pennies of the realm having been clipped, the offence was traced to some of that unfortunate people, and in one day 280 of both sexes were executed in London, besides a great many more in different parts of the kingdom, where it seems simultaneous measures had been taken against them. That this crime was confined entirely to the Jews, is not likely. The implements by which it could be committed were certainly not beyond the reach of English intellect; nor could the latter be supposed, in every instance, superior to the temptation which the gains presented. That the guilt of all who suffered was ascertained, is impossible; and a wholesale butchery of this kind, authorized by law, as it could not answer the ends of justice, can only be considered as gratuitously administering to the worst of human passions. The estimation in which Edward held those arts which are calculated to instruct, refine, and elevate the human mind, may be learned from his treatment of the Minstrels of Wales. The remorseless and sanguinary policy which suggested that unhallowed act, could only have found place in the breast where every virtuous and honourable feeling had disappeared before the withering influence of a selfish and detestable ambition. In an age when the Minstrel’s profession was a passport to the presence and protection of the great, and the persons of those who exercised the calling were held sacred even among tribes the least removed from barbarism, the mind must have reached a fearful state of depravity, that could break through those barriers with which the gratitude and veneration of mankind had surrounded the children of genius, and thus immolate at the shrine of an heartless despotism, the innocent and meritorious depositories of a nation’s lore. * * * * *