opening words of which it will not be out of place to cite here:-"That about the Year 1654 there came Six Jew Families into this Kingdom, which have (since King Charles the Second's Restauration) been increased to the Number of between Three and Fourscore Families."

no power

To this then all the statements about Cromwell's protection Cromwell did not of the Jews amount, that he knowingly allowed some halfgrant dozen families to remain in the country, even utilizing their and had services for the purpose of carrying out his political aims. to grant The only favour granted was that he did not, as head of special privileges the executive, put in force the power at that time claimed to the by the executive of expelling foreigners who might choose respect

1

Jews in

to come and reside here. If this can be called a resettle- of their religion. ment he may be said to have connived at it, but if a resettlement implies, as it is in common parlance supposed to imply, the creation of some communal organization, the foundation of a synagogue, and the open worship of God according to Jewish rites, there is no reliable evidence that Cromwell ever encouraged, or even connived at, or permitted it. If he had, as is sometimes suggested, granted the Jews a charter or other document conferring special privileges upon them in respect of their religion; the charter would have been absolutely void even during the Protector's lifetime, and certainly could have been of no avail after his death. For Cromwell was a constitutional monarch; his powers, especially in religious matters, were strictly defined and circumscribed by written constitutions, the Instrument of Government from December 16, 1653, to May 25, 1657, the Humble Petition and Advice from the latter date till the day of his death. Neither of these permitted any sort of toleration or religious liberty to be

'Subject no doubt to the provisions of clause 30 of Magna Charta. It is said that the last time when the right was exercised on a large scale was by Elizabeth in 1575, but it was claimed by the Crown till the Revolution (see the argument of Sir Robert Sawyer, Attorney-General, in the East India Company . Sandys, and Howell's State Trials, 457 sqq.), and there is some doubt whether it is even now abolished (see Musgrove v. Chun Teeong Toy, L. R. [1891], A. C. 272).

Position

at the time

well's death. Previous intrigues of the Jews in Holland

extended to any persons professing doctrines contrary to Christianity, and the Protector had no power under either to alter or interfere with the religious settlement thereby established. Therefore even assuming-and the assumption must be made not only without any evidence, but in contradiction to all the known facts-that a charter of some kind was given, but has been accidentally lost or purposely destroyed, from a legal and historical point of view the Jews could not be said to owe their re-establishment to Cromwell, not merely because he was a usurper, and in consequence all his acts, unless confirmed by a subsequent sovereign, were void, but because he had never at any time arrogated to himself the right of introducing any strange religion, or mitigating the law in favour of its adherents.

This was the situation of the Jews in the early days of Crom- of September, 1658; it was almost precisely the same as it had been ten years before, save that the hopes which were then formed had been disappointed, and succour was no longer expected from the statesman whose tolerant words, however sincerely spoken, had not been followed with the by any measure of relief. And thus it was that the news Royalists. that "the powerful devil is dead," brought hope and comfort to the Jews, both here and abroad, as well as to the exiled monarch. Even before Menasseh's mission the assistance of the important congregation of Amsterdam had been sought by the Royalists, as is made manifest by the following extract from a letter of Sir Marmaduke Langdale to Sir Edward Nicholas, the Secretary of State of the fugitive king, written at Brussels on September 20, 1655: "For that clause of Mr. Overton's letter which mentions the Jews, it proceeded from some discourses I had with Mr. Brokes [Saxby] about them, who seemed much to favour them as necessary to a kingdom, and I believe their tenets do not much differ. I desired Mr. Overton to sound their intentions by some of his party in Holland. I am very sorry they agree with Cromwell. The Jews are

considerable all the world over, and the great masters of money. If his Majesty could either have them or divert them from Cromwell, it were a very good service. I heard of this three years agone, but hoped the Jews that understand the interest of all the princes in the world, had been too wise to adventure themselves and estates under Cromwell, where they may by his death or other alteration in that kingdom run the hazard of an absolute ruin: but they hate monarchy and are angry for the patent that was granted by King James to my Lord of Suffolk for the discovery of them, which made most of the ablest of them fly out of England 1."

At this time the hopes of the Jews centred in Cromwell's Menas

seh's failure made

1 The Nicholas Papers, vol. III, p. 51. It is evident that the Jews of the the Jews of Holland Low Countries had at this time great expectations from Cromwell's incline to readiness to receive Menasseh's mission, preparations for which were far Charles II. advanced. The letter here referred to was enclosed in the dispatch recited in the text, and was dated Delf, 13 Sept. 55, by Richard Overton to Sir Marm. Langdale. The material passage is: "I made inquiry into the condition of the Jewes, soe farr as was necessary. I find they are in conjunction with Cromwell; some of their Rabbies are learning English on purpose to live in England and must go speedily over. They have their meetings at London, and those Rabbies are to be sent thither for yt purpose, soe yt I am very glad I dealt with them by proxe; not one of them knowes anything of me or what my intentions were. Had they, Cromwell should have known it."-The Nicholas Papers, vol. III, p. 44. The reference to the patent granted by King James to my Lord of Suffolk is not very clear. Thomas Howard was created Earl of Suffolk on July 21, 1603, at which time he was Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household; on July 11, 1614, he was appointed Lord High Treasurer, but in the autumn of 1618 he was accused of extortion and dismissed. I have been unable to find any patent or commission directed against the Jews alone, but on September 5, 1604, the Earl of Suffolk was appointed one of several commissioners for the execution of the laws against Jesuits, seminary priests, or other religious persons "being corrupted and brought up seditiously beyond the seas or elsewhere," and authorizing their banishment; and on June 23, 1618, he was appointed a member of a similar commission (see Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1603-10, p. 148, and id. 1611-18, p. 547. The first commission is printed at length in Rymer's Foedera, vol. XVI, p. 597). It is probably one of these commissions that is referred to. In any case the passage corroborates the view expressed in the preceding article that the unbroken residence of Jews in England dates from the first years of Charles I and not earlier.

professions of universal toleration, and had been raised to fever heat by the invitation extended to Menasseh and his followers. But these hopes were destined to bitter disappointment. Before the year had ended, the Conference had been held, but nothing had come of it; the humble petition presented in the following spring remained unanswered, and though Menasseh still stayed in England his companions had departed to their homes abroad, despairing of success. And so the Jews in Holland now turned to the exiled Charles, peradventure they might obtain from him, in the event of his ever being restored to his kingdom, the boon which had been refused them by the all-powerful Protector. Little more than a year after they had been found so unapproachable by Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Mr. Overton, the failure of Menasseh's mission having occurred in the interval, the negotiations between the Jews and the king Commis- were complete, as may be seen from the copy of a commission of King Charles II, dated September 24, 1656, at the Middleton Court at Bruges, addressed to Lieutenant-General Middleton, to treat with the Jews of Amsterdam: "That whereas the Lieutenant-General had represented to his Majesty their good affection, and that they had assured the LieutenantGeneral, that the application which had been lately made to Cromwell on their behalf by some persons of their Nation, had been and was absolutely without their consent, the Lieutenant-General is impower'd to treat with them, that if in that conjunction they shall be ready to assist by any contribution of money, arms, or ammunition; they shall find when God shall restore his Majesty, that he would extend that protection to them, which they could reasonably expect, and abate that rigour of the Law, which was against them in his several Dominions, and repay them." Charles was at this time in Flanders, contem

sion to Lt.-Gen.

to treat

with them.

1 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 4,106, fol. 253. This paper, says Dean Tucker, was found among the original papers of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to Kings Charles I and II, and was communicated to him by a friend. Second letter to a friend concerning Naturalization, p. 29, published in 1753.

plating an expedition against England with the assistance of Spain, and being almost penniless the financial assistance that might be obtained from the Jews was of considerable importance to him. Such assistance he received, and he afterwards, as will be seen, scrupulously carried out the pledge, on the faith of which it had been rendered. But for the time being the prospect for resettlement was not a bright one. Charles was not ready to start until early Their hopes in 1658, but on March 1 of that year English frigates destroyed destroyed his ships at Ostend, and after the battle of the by the Dunes on June 8, all hope of help from Spain was gone, the Dunes. and the expedition had to be abandoned. The restoration of the king, and the fulfilment of his promise to the Jews, which depended upon it, seemed hopeless, when the news of Cromwell's death, less than three months later, made the first of these events almost certain, though a period of more than a year and a half was to elapse before the king came to his own again.

battle of

between

well and

Increase

the Jews

In this interval no great change can be proved to have Interval taken place in the condition of the Jews here, but the reins the death of government had become slacker, and the laws of intoler- of Cromance, though unaltered, were less uniformly enforced. the ReMoreover, as time went on, it became more and more cer- storation. tain that the monarchy would be restored, and the king's in the promise of protection, as well as his well-known tolerant number of views in matters of religion, filled with encouragement here. those who were here, and induced others to join them. Some of them, it is plain, did not think the situation sufficiently secure to bring over their wives and families with them, for the Petition to the King in Council, presented some six months after the Restoration by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, complains of the competition in the export trade of strangers, “both Christians and Jewes, who live here obscurely, free from family expences and charge of Public offices." The same petition also indicates their growing numbers by comparing them to a swarm of locusts "Who are now daily multiplied