By this time King Richard had passed over to the Continent, to join the king of France in the crusade to Palestine. Those who had taken the cross were assembled in most of the principal towns, preparing to follow him. Of these, the greater number were ill provided with funds to defray the expenses of their journey to the Holy Land, and their zeal in the sacred cause readily justified any conduct, whereby the pious object to which they were pledged might be advanced. They observed with envy that the Jews were possessed of wealth; they regarded them as infidels, and worked themselves into a belief that they should render good service to God, if, by wresting the riches from the hands of unbelievers, they obtained the means for aiding in the overthrow of the enemies of Christianity in the East. On the seventh day of March 1190, a public fair being held at Stamford, had drawn together to that place great multitudes of people, and amongst them whole troops of those _roaming saints_, as they were called. These zealous men, indignant that the enemies of Christ should abound in wealth, while they, who were His great friends, were obliged to strip their wives and children of common necessaries, in order to be equipped with travelling expenses, argued that God would be highly honoured if they should first destroy all the Jews, and then possess themselves of their property. “So ready are men to believe what makes for their worldly advantage”――observes Tovey――“accordingly they flew upon them with great vigour and resolution, and finding very little resistance from an oppressed and spiritless enemy, quickly made themselves masters both of their persons and fortunes; the former of which they treated with all kinds of barbarity. Some few of them, indeed, were so fortunate as to get shelter in the castle, whither, as they fled without their riches, the source of all their misery, they were not earnestly pursued. And as these devout pilgrims pretended to do all this for the advancement of God’s glory, to show they were in earnest, they took shipping as fast as they could, and fled away for Jerusalem; not so much as one of them being detained by the magistrates, or any further inquiry made by the king into such a sanctified piece of villany.”¹ ¹ Anglia Judaica, pp. 19, 20. See Appendix C.