When the Civil War was over, the position of the King’s son Edward as, on the one hand, the sworn friend of the lower baronage, and, on the other hand, the leader of the Council and the most powerful man in England,[54] made it impossible that the Jews should continue to carry on their business under the royal protection as they had hitherto done. And Edward’s personal character and political ideals were such as to make him execute with vigour the policy towards the Jews that was forced on him by his relations with the lower baronage. He was a religious prince, one who could not but feel qualms of conscience at seeing the “enemies of Christ” carrying on the most unchristian trade of usury in the chief towns of England. He was a statesman, the future author of the Statutes of Mortmain and _Quia Emptores_, and he wished to see the work of the nation performed by the united action of the nation, and its expenses met by due contributions from all the National resources. But in so far as the Jews had any hold on English land they prevented the realisation of this ideal. Sometimes they took possession of land that was pledged to them, and then the amount of the feudal revenue and the symmetry of the feudal organisation suffered, though the King might gain a great deal in other ways;[55] very often they secured payment in money of their debts by bringing about an agreement for the transfer to a monastery of the estates that had been pledged to them as security,[56] and then the land came under the “dead hand”; sometimes they contented themselves with a perpetual rent-charge,[57] and then it would be hard, if not impossible, for the struggling debtor to discharge his feudal obligations.[58]