SELLING THE JEWELS.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1153, 15 November 1879, Page 1 (Supplement)

SELLING THE JEWELS.

[< All the Year Round.']

The Plantagenets were very rough and ready fiuaociers. \ When Richard I. r took it into his head to try conclusions with Saladin, he raised the .needful by turning the crown manors and the fortresses of Roxburg and Berwick into hard cash, selling offices of trust to the best bidders, and did not hesitate to avow that he would dispose of London itself if a purchaser were forthcoming. Strangely enough, Oceur do Lion never seems to have thought of doing the same by his crown jewels. Henry 111. was the first English monarch who had recourse to that undignified expedient The idea, indeed, did not originate with him; for it is recorded that when some person or peisons* unknown suggested the replenishment of the royal coffers by selling the crown plate and jewellery, the King hinted a doubt as to the likelihood of finding purchasers, and being assured that the citizens of London would gladly accomodate him, Henry exclaimed, "On my word, it the Treasury of Augustus were brought to sale, the citizens are able to be the purchasers. These clowns, who assume -to themselves the name of Barons, abound in everything, while we are reduced to necessities!" Notwithstanding his indignation, Henry, like other men in his predicament, was willing enough to deal with the full-pui-sed ones he abused, and so, in 1248, he sold fehe citizens of London all the jewellery he had not already mortgaged to the merchants of France. The relief afforded was, however, only a temporary one, for seven years later we find him demanding 8000 marks of the Jews and answering their remonstrance against the exaction by pleading that he was a beggar, spoiled and stripped of all his revenues, without a farthing wherewith to keep and therefore must have money from any hand and by any means.