‘Persecutions of the Jews, which had taken place at the beginning of the reign of Edward, had little power to check the increase or destroy the prosperity of that extraordinary people. Having no country; living among strangers and enemies; deprived of all political standing – of all the legitimate objects of ambition, even of reasonable security for his life – the Jew devoted those intellectual qualities, in which he was seldom deficient, to the one agent of power within his reach. Wealth alone could not raise him from a condition of utter misery and contempt gave him a certain standing and importance among his fellow men, and offer employment for his energies. If the favour of the law was to be bought, the wealthy Jew might have hoped to buy it, while for the poor there was no mercy. If he was derided and persecuted by the haughty sons of a happier race, he returned scorn for scorn and revenged himself where he could by trading upon their necessities. If he became grovelling and avaricious, absorbed in a mean and unworthy passion, perhaps the fault should be ascribed less to him than to those unconquerable prejudices isolated him in the midst of his kind and condemned him to the fate of Ishmael.’ Cassells Illustrated History of England, Vol 1, p.314