The oppressions exercised towards the Jews by the king, rendered them obnoxious to the inhabitants of the places where they resided. The continual exactions to which they were subjected had necessarily the effect of withdrawing large sums from the towns of their abode; and it could not fail, sooner or later, to be discovered that though the tax, in the first instance, fell upon the Jews alone, yet that eventually the wealth of the neighbourhood was thereby considerably diminished. It was, it is probable, partly with a view to this consequence, that many towns obtained, during the present reign, from the king, charters or writs, directing that no Jews should reside within their walls. Charters or writs to this effect were granted to the towns of Newcastle, Derby, Southampton, as you have already heard, Wycomb, Newbery, and to other places; and the Jews were forced to remove with their families and effects. It would have been happy for the Jews, if the necessity of changing the places of their residence had been the only hardship to which, through the popular feeling, they were exposed. In many parts of the country, the people treated them with open violence; charges of the wildest description were raised against them, and made excuses for the exercise of every species of cruelty and extortion; tumults were excited; their houses were pillaged and burned; and hundreds fell victims to the frenzy of the populace. At Norwich, on the occasion of some Jews being executed upon a charge of having stolen a Christian child, which you have already heard, the citizens broke into the houses of the Jews there, and stripped them, and then setting fire to them, burned them to the ground. At Canterbury, the Jews were subjected to a similar violence, the immediate cause of which is not mentioned; but it is stated, that the clergy there did not scruple to encourage the outrage, and to take an active part with the mob on the occasion. At Oxford, the scholars of the university, having upon some pretext picked a quarrel with the Jews, broke into their houses and pillaged them of their property.¹ ¹ Prynne; Tovey; J. E. Blunt.