Many families removed and hid themselves, fearing Ireland, as it would seem, more than England;¹ so that the king had recourse to his father’s measures, and issued a most cruel proclamation respecting their wives and children: in which, orders were given to the justices appointed for the protection of the Jews, that they should cause to be proclaimed throughout all the counties of England, where the Jews were, that if a Jewess, the wife of any Jew, or their children, fly, or take to flight, or in any way skulk from the village where they were on the festival of St. Andrew, in the twenty-ninth year of that reign, up to the year following: so that if they did not promptly appear, at the summons of the king, or of his bailiffs, in the bailiwicks in which they dwelt, that the husband of that Jewess, and even the Jewess herself, and all their children, shall be presently outlawed; and all their lands, revenues, and all their chattels, shall come into the hands of the king, and be sold, for the assistance of the king, and for the future, they shall not return into the kingdom of England, without the king’s special orders. ¹ It is a favourite boast on the part of many Irish Christians, that their countrymen never persecuted the Jews. The above incidental piece of information may account for it. Westminster Abbey was about this time rebuilt; and the Jews, who were prohibited from entering any Christian place of worship, were at the same time commanded to aid in the rebuilding and ornamenting of that magnificent church. Lucretia, widow of David, a Jew of Oxford, was obliged to pay 2590 pounds, which was devoted to that undertaking. Anderson tells us: “About this time, the beautiful and stately abbey church of Westminster began to assume the venerable and majestic appearance which it wears to this day, except the finely rebuilt north front, reared on the ancient foundation, which is now strengthened and new cased, where the stone had fallen to decay.” Maddox, in his “History of Exchequer,” adds: “For this purpose, Henry grants and dedicates to God and St. Edward, and the Church of Westminster for the re-edifying of that fabrick, the sum of £2590, which he extracted from Lucretia, the widow of David, a Jew of Oxford.” Upon which Hunter, in his “History of London,” remarks: “It is amusing to reflect, that one of our noblest and most ancient Christian structures owes its renovation and embellishment to the Jewish nation.” There was a tallage laid upon the Jews, for that very purpose, which went by the name of the Jews’ alms; which is evident from the following passage in Prynne’s Demurrer: “In the 29th of Henry III. the king sends writs to his justices for the custody of the Jews, and to his sheriffs to levy the debts due to him from the heirs of Hamond the Jew of Hereford, and that Crespin, a Jew, should pay him twenty-eight marks, to be laid out in silk and cloth of gold for Westminster Church, _as his alms_.”