Page:The Queens of England.djvu/103

ELEANOR OF PROVE-NCE. 85 measures but too common during his reign whenever his coffers required replenishing. He sought a quarrel with the Jews, in order to have a pretext for extorting a large sum from them in the shape of a peace-offering, and lavished on the marriage festival alone an enormous portion of the money thus shamefully acquired. Some notion of the profusion of this feast may be formed from the statement of Rapin, that no less than thirty thousand dishes were served. Nor was the cost occasioned to Henry confined solely to the mar- riage ; for the Countess of Provence, before she left England, levied a heavy contribution, in the shape of a loan, from her royal son-in-law. The death of Isabella, the queen-mother, wife of the Earl of Marche, who died in 1246, entailed fresh expense on her son, King Henry ; for her daughters and her sons by the Earl of March forthwith came to England, to claim, at the hands of their half-brother, that provision of which they stood in the greatest need, they being in want of the means of subsistence, their father having, to get rid of them, thrown them wholly on the generosity of the king. These half-brothers were Guy de Lusignan, William, and Athelmar. The arrival of these needy and ambitious claimants occasioned considerable embar- rassment to Henry, and dissatisfaction to his subjects. Ambi- tious and vain-glorious, the pretensions of these three young men were not easily to be gratified; and the English looked with anger on the expenses incurred for this purpose, which they considered as so much taken from themselves. The disagreements between Henry and his barons had now reached that point that when he again applied to parliament for money he met with stern reproaches only; and finding he had little to hope for, he prorogued the parliament, and threw himself more than ever on his foreign favorites for advice and support. Being in great want of money, he determined on the sale of his jewels and plate, which were soon purchased by the citizens of London, to his 'great anger and mortification, they having pleaded ^poverty when he required their aid ; and, to punish them, he"established a fair at Westminster, to last fifteen days, during which time all trading was strictly prohibited in Lon- don. His next measure was to decide on keeping his Christ- mas in the city, at the expense of the citizens, and to compel them to present him with valuable gifts on the new year's day, in addition to which he extorted from them two thousand pounds.