by societies of Italian bankers, whose admirable organisation and developed system of credit enabled them to undertake banking operations of a magnitude quite beyond the means of the Hebrews.  First brought into England as papal agents for remitting to Rome the spoils of the Church, they found means of evading the canonical prohibitions of usury, and became the loanmongers of prince and subject alike.  To the crown the Italians were more useful than the Jews had been.  The value of the Jews to the monarch had been in the special facilities enjoyed by him in taxing them.  The utility of the Italian societies was in their power of advancing sums of money that enabled the king to embark on enterprises hitherto beyond the limited resources of the medieval state.  The Italians financed all Edward’s enterprises from the crusade of 1270 to his Welsh and Scottish campaigns.  From them Edward and his son borrowed at various times sums amounting to almost half a million of the money of the time.  In return the Italians, chief among whom was the Florentine Society of the Frescobaldi, obtained privileges which made them as deeply hated as ever the Hebrews had been.[1]

[1] See on this subject E.A.  Bond’s article in Archaeologia, vol. xxviii., pp. 207-326; W.E.  Rhodes, Italian Bankers in England under Edward I. and II. in Owens Coll.  Historical Essays, pp. 137-68; and R.J.  Whitwell, Italian Bankers and the English Crown in Transactions of Royal Hist.  Soc., N.S., xvii. (1903), pp. 175-234.

Among the troubles which had called Edward back from Gascony was the condition of Scotland, where a long period of prosperity had ended with the death of Edward’s brother-in-law, Alexander III., in 1286.  Alexander III. attended his brother-in-law’s coronation in 1274, and the irritation excited by his limiting his homage to his English lordships of Tynedale and Penrith did not cause any great amount of friction.  But the homage question was only postponed, and at Michaelmas, 1278, Alexander was constrained to perform unconditionally this unwelcome act.  “I, Alexander King of Scotland,” were his words, “become the liege man of the lord Edward, King of England, against all men.”  But by carefully refraining from specifying for what he became Edward’s vassal, Alexander still suggested that it was for his English lordships.  Edward with equal caution declared that he received the homage, “saving his right and claim to the homage of Scotland when he may wish to speak concerning it”.  Both parties were content with mutual protestations.  Edward was so friendly to Alexander that he allowed him to appoint Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, his proxy in professing fealty, so as to minimise the king’s feeling of humiliation.  The King of Scots went home loaded with presents, and for the rest of his life his relations with Edward remained cordial.