such as common thieves, who should be found in the country after three days from the time they were, under these orders, directed to leave it; and the lands, houses, and effects of those who should be banished, were to be forthwith taken possession of and sold. The persons who were appointed to carry these directions into effect were, an Irish bishop――Bishop elect of Waterford――and two friars; and they appear to have executed the office entrusted to them with such relentless severity, that the king’s mind was moved to pity, and in many cases he gave orders to release particular individuals amongst the Jews from a part of the demands made upon them. The complaints which had been made, towards the end of the last reign, of the injuries which were experienced by the people in general, from the laws and proceedings respecting the Jews, it seems were now again brought forward. And the extent to which the Jews were permitted to take interest by the canon law, in order to fill the coffers of the king, was, it appears, also the subject of increased remonstrance. It must be borne in mind that the Gentiles were by far the greater usurers than the Jews, but they could practise the foul profession with impunity, by stating that they laboured for the pope: for instance, in the thirty-sixth year of the preceding reign, Henry ordered that the Causini should be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law for their usuries; but they pleaded that they were the servants of the pope, and employed by him, and were therefore not only left alone, but countenanced in that nefarious traffic.