Among the companies which lent money to English kings in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were the Muzzi of Florence, the Company of Jacopo Brabazen of Sienna, the Bardi of Florence, the Ammanati of Pistoia, the Circuli Nerci and the Circuli Bianche of Florence, the Company of the Sons of Beccori of Lucca, the Palci of Florence, the Riccardi of Lucca, the Spini of Florence, the Company of Bestre of Lucca, the Scali of Florence and the Peruzzi of Florence, besides the Frescobaldi of Florence already mentioned. (See Appendix III.) Enormous sums were advanced by these companies and repaid, during these two centuries. In 1254 Henry III. was called upon by the Pope to pay the sum of 130,541 marks sterling for expenses connected with the business of Sicily. Between the years 1295 and 1309 the Frescobaldi received of Edward I. and Edward II. the sum of £100,000. On the accession of Edward II. he had to pay, on account of his father’s debts, the sum of £118,000 and on his own account £28,000. If, however, the Italians made immense profits out of the English kings retribution fell upon them, because the English King caused their ruin. Giovanni Villani tells the story:— “At the period of the war between the kings of France and England, the companies of the Bardi and Peruzzi, of Florence, were the King of England’s merchants. All his revenues and wools came into their hands, and they furnished from them all his expenses. But the expenses so much exceeded the revenues that the King of England, when he returned home from the war, found himself indebted for principal, assignments, and rewards, to the Bardi more than 100,000 marks sterling, and to the Peruzzi more than 135,000 marks. Of these sums a considerable portion consisted in assignments which the King had made to them in times passed: but they were rash enough, whether from covet of gain or led on by the hope of recovering the entire debt, to give them up, and entrust all their own property and that of others in their keeping, to this one prince. And observe, that a large part of the money they had lent was not their own capital, but had been borrowed by them or received on trust from fellow-citizens and strangers. And great danger thence accrued both to them and to the city of Florence. For not being able to answer the calls of their creditors in England and Florence, and elsewhere, where they trafficked, they lost their credit on all sides, and became bankrupts; and especially the Peruzzi. Yet they avoided complete ruin by their possessions in the city and territory of Florence, and by the great power and rank which they held in the republic. This failure, and the expenses of the state in Lombardy, greatly reduced the wealth and condition of the merchants and traders of Florence, and of the whole community. For the Bardi and Peruzzi had held so large a share of the commerce of Christendom, that upon their fall every other merchant was suspected and distrusted.