The Queen of England fell on her knees, and, with tears said: "Ah, gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea with great danger to see you, I have never asked of you one favour: now, I most humbly ask as a gift, for the sake of the Son of the blessed Mary, and for your love to me, that you will be merciful to these six men." The King looked at her for some time in silence, and then said: "Ah, lady, I wish you had been anywhere else than here: you have entreated in such a manner that I cannot refuse you; I therefore give them to you to do as you please with them." The Queen conducted the six citizens to her apartments, and had the halters taken from round their necks, new clothed, and served them with a plentiful dinner: she then presented each with six nobles, and had them escorted out of the camp in safety. PENITENTS AND JEWS (1349). SOURCE.--Froissart's _Chronicle_ (Hafod Press, 1803), i. 391, 392. [Addition from two manuscripts in the Hafod Library.] This year of our Lord 1349 there came from Germany persons who performed public penitencies by whipping themselves with scourges having iron hooks, so that their backs and shoulders were torn: they chaunted also, in a piteous manner, canticles of the nativity and sufferings of our Saviour, and could not, by their rules, remain in any town more than one night; they travelled in companies of more or less in number, and thus journeyed through the country, performing their penitence for thirty-three days, being the number of years Jesus Christ remained on earth, and then returned to their own homes. These penitencies were thus performed, to entreat the Lord to restrain his anger and withhold his vengeance; for, at this period, an epidemic malady ravaged the earth, and destroyed a third part of its inhabitants. They were chiefly done in those countries the most afflicted, whither scarcely any could travel, but were not long continued, as the Church set itself against them. None of these companies entered France, for the King had strictly forbidden them, by desire of the Pope, who disapproved of such measures, by sound and sensible reasons, but which I shall pass over. All clerks, or persons holding livings, that countenanced them were excommunicated, and several were forced to go to Rome to purge themselves. About this time the Jews throughout the world were arrested and burnt, and their fortunes seized by those lords under whose jurisdiction they had lived, except at Avignon, and the territories of the Church dependent on the Pope. Each poor Jew, when he was able to hide himself, and arrived in that country, esteemed himself safe. It was prophesied, that for one hundred years, people were to come, with iron scourges, to destroy them; and this would now have been the case had not these penitents been checked in their mad career, as has been related. A STATUTE OF LABOURERS (1350). SOURCE.--Statute, 25 Edward III., Statute I.