In England, the Jews were constantly being blackmailed by King John (1199-1216) and by King Henry III (1216-1272). The most notable and typical instance of the extortion of money from the Jews, is that reported of King John, who imprisoned a Jew and ordered that one of his teeth should be drawn every day until he agreed to pay the sum demanded of him. The heavy taxes laid upon the Jews forced them to charge higher rates of interest, thus embittering the people against them, and making them so miserable that they asked to be permitted to emigrate. Finally Edward I, in 1290, ordered the expulsion of all the Jews from England. They were permitted to take their property with them, and a sea captain, who put the Jewish exiles aboard his vessel on a sand bar where they were drowned by the high tide, was put to death. In France the vassals possessed power independent of the crown. There the Jews were expelled from the territory of the king and recalled several times during the fourteenth century. At each expulsion they were robbed, so that an assembly of Jewish notables proposed to declare it unlawful, under penalty of excommunication, for any Jew to settle in territory from which the Jews had been previously expelled. Judah Hechasid, author of a book on religious ethics, however, condemned this resolution because it would not be effective and merely cause the Jews to transgress the law. A very serious persecution broke out in Franconia, in 1298, the Jews being accused of desecrating the host in Roettingen. This is the first case of this kind, often repeated up to the sixteenth century. The leader of the mob was a man named Rindfleisch. Another bloody persecution broke out in Alsace, in 1336, under the leadership of an innkeeper, John Armleder, so-called because he fastened to his arm a patch of leather which was imitated by all his followers. These riots were finally suppressed after having brought great misery upon the Jews, but the evil-doers were not punished. The most serious persecutions broke out in 1348-1349, during the so-called Black Plague which spread all over Europe. As a reason for these attacks the rumor was circulated that the Jews had poisoned the wells or had smeared some poisonous salve on the doors. In many cases the Jews were killed and their houses sacked. The protection of the Emperor availed them nothing; even if the Emperor threatened a city with punishment for breach of the peace, the affair was usually compromised by allowing the city to retain part of the plunder taken from the Jews, the Emperor taking the rest. The Flagellants, who appeared at about this time, by their religious fanaticism also stimulated the hatred against the Jews.