The court festivities lasted three days,[388] and the manner in which they were conducted presented a marked contrast to the rough, careless, unceremonious ways of the court of Henry II. The banquet each day was as stately and decorous as it was lavish and splendid. Clergy and laity were seated apart, and the former had the place of honour, being at the king’s own table.[389] Richard had further emphasized the solemnity of the occasion by a proclamation ordering that no Jew and no woman should be admitted to the palace. Notwithstanding this, certain Jews did present themselves at the doors on the evening of the coronation-day with gifts for the king. The courtiers of lower rank and the people who crowded round robbed them, beat them, and drove them away; some were mortally injured, some slain on the spot.[390] The tumult reached the ears of the king in the banqueting-hall, and he sent the justiciar and some of the nobles to suppress it; but it was already beyond their control.[391] A great wave of anti-Jewish feeling swept through the city; before morning most of the Jews’ houses were sacked; and the number of persons concerned in the riot was so large and public feeling so strongly on their side that although some of them were arrested by Richard’s orders and brought before him, he found it impossible to do justice in the matter,[392] and only ventured to send three men to the gallows—one who in the confusion had robbed a Christian, and two who had kindled a fire which burned down a Christian’s house.[393] For the rest he had to “condone what he could not avenge.”[394] He tried, however, to prevent further disturbances of the same kind by sending into every shire letters commanding that the Jews should be left in peace and no one should do them wrong;[395] and so long as he remained in England these orders were obeyed.