Threat ened the Jews. answer. or code of laws to govern the newly-founded community, was drawn up; it was published in April, 1664, and in the same month a Haham, or Chief Rabbi, was appointed; the whole organization being completed by April 19, 16641. It was not likely that the public exercise of a strange religion should long remain unnoticed, and the passing of the Conventicle Act, which expressly declared that the Elizabethan legislation against Recusants was still in force and ought to be put into execution, invited an attack upon the Jews. It was not long delayed. The Conventicle Act came into force on July 1, 1664. And 1664. immediately afterwards we hear of a Mr. Rycaut molesting the heads of the congregation, suggesting that they were attack on liable to all sorts of penalties and forfeitures, and what Petition was worse, the Earl of Berkshire, the second son of that to the king. His Earl of Suffolk in fear of whom the Jews had fled the gracious country in the reign of James I, who held a high position at court, being a gentleman of the bedchamber and privy councillor 2, intervened, saying he was verbally authorized by the king to protect them, but threatening that unless they came to a speedy agreement with him, he would himself prosecute them and procure the seizure of their estates. In these circumstances the wardens of the synagogue, the first that had been yet appointed, took the only course open to them, and petitioned the throne direct. With great wisdom they omit all mention of the religious question and the infringement of the newly-enacted law, but say they know of no law to hinder their residence in the kingdom, and ask to be allowed to remain under the protection of the law until his majesty should think fit to order them to depart, and promise to be loyal and obedient subjects of the king. The petition was referred to the Privy Council on August 22, 1664. A most generous answer was returned. The king declared that he had 1 Gaster's History of the Ancient Synagogue, pp. 7, 9-11, 17; Wolf's Jewry of the Restoration, pp. 13-15. 2 See Cockayne's Peerage, vol. I, p. 343. Inquiry concern ing the given no orders for molesting or disquieting the petitioners, and that they might "promise themselves the effects of the same favour as formerly they had had, so long as they demeaned themselves peaceably and quietly with due obedience to his Majesty's Laws, and without scandal to his government1." The concession was of great importance; it was a formal recognition of a system of public worship which had been established for more than a year in open defiance of the Elizabethan statutes enforcing uniformity, and was given at the very time when Parliament had declared that those statutes should be carried out, and had even added to their severity by the enactment of the Conventicle Act. The king's claim to grant dispensations from penal laws had not yet been questioned in Parliament, and this particular dispensation granting the Jews the same favours they formerly had had, and by implication including the right of public worship which they had of late openly exercised, was never disputed in the legislature. Even assuming an express dispensation had been given to the Jews after Christmas, 1662, the new declaration was necessary to enable them to escape the severe penalties of the new Act which had just come into force. For some years the synagogue was kept open and the services regularly held without molestation. On February 6, Jews or 167, the House of Commons thought fit to take this matter into their consideration. There was a scheme on foot to of Com- prevent the growth of Roman Catholicism, and in case dered by the House mons. legislation should be introduced, it was thought a good opportunity to aim a blow at Judaism also. It was accordingly ordered "that a Committee be appointed to inquire into the causes of the growth of Popery; to prepare and bring in a bill to prevent it, and also to inquire touching the number of the Jews and their Synagogues, and upon what terms they are permitted to have their residence here, and report it with their opinions to the 1 S. P. Dom. Car. II, ent. Book 18, pp. 78-9; Calendar, 1663-4, p. 672. House 1." Either from want of time or knowledge, or because the subject was not thought of sufficient importance, the part of the reference relating to the Jews does not seem to have been proceeded with; the Committee's report, which was presented to the House on February 17, dealt only with the causes of the increase of Popery, and it was resolved that an address requesting a proclamation for the banishment of priests and Jesuits, and the enforcement of the laws against Recusants, should be drawn up and presented to the king; whose answer to this address excepting those who served his father and himself faithfully in the late wars has been already mentioned. of the meeting of their For the time being, then, the Jews were left undisturbed; 1673. Pronor were they concerned with the publication of the Declara-secution tion of Indulgence in the spring of 1672, for, for nearly Jews for nine years before that time they had openly exercised the for the right of public worship which was conferred by that in- exercise strument on all Nonconformists except Papists. But the religion. cancelling of the declaration in the following year gave occasion for a new attack upon the synagogue; the organizers of it no doubt argued that the withdrawal of the general indulgence of itself annulled the particular dispensation granted to the Jews, which, though previously acted upon, was evidenced and confirmed by the king's answer to their petition given on August 22, 1664. Accordingly, at the winter quarter sessions of 1673 at the Guildhall, the leaders of the Jewish community were indicted of a riot for meeting together for the exercise of their religion in Duke's Place, and a true bill was found against them by the grand jury. The Jews again peti- The Jews tioned the king, referring to the favourable reply they petition the king had received in 1664; and, as was seen in the first of these and obtain articles 2, on February 11, 167, an order was made by the in King in Council "that Mr. Attorney General do stop all to stay proceedings at law against the Petitioners who have been ceedings an Order in Council the pro against them. 1 Com. Jour., vol. IX, p. 198. 2 Supra, p. 2. Entering indicted as aforesaid and do provide they may receive no further trouble in this behalf1." The method by which the Attorney General is able to stop proceedings in a criminal trial is by entering a nolle prosequi-a course which before these times was not unusual in the case of informations or prosecutions commenced by a representative of the crown. About this very time the system was extended to indictments or prosecutions ing Power. commenced by any member of the public without the indictment a new way of exercising the Dispens necessity of any intervention or permission from the representative of the crown as a convenient way of exercising that dispensing power which the king thought inherent in his office. It is somewhat remarkable that though Parliament was sitting at the time, and the king's power of suspending penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical had recently been questioned, no protest against this particular dispensation in favour of the Jews was made in either House; this may, however, be accounted for by the fact that Parliament was prorogued within a fortnight of the issue of the Order in Council, which may not have been generally known till some time afterwards. The measure of favour now shown the Jews was a distinct advance upon the proceedings of 1664. In the earlier year a vague promise of protection had been given upon condition that the laws of the land were duly obeyed. The formal Order in Council made ten years later effectually saved the young community from the consequences of undoubted infringements of the laws then in existence. The king could not make the celebration of an unauthorized religious service legal, but he could and did, by the exercise of his dispensing 1 Hag., Cons. Cas., vol. I, Appendix, p. 2. 2 In Goddard v. Smith (1764), 8 Mod. Rep., p. 264, Chief Justice Holt says that it began first to be practised in the latter half of King Charles the Second's reign, but that on informations it had been frequently done, and he ordered precedents to be searched if any were in Mr. Attorney Palmer's or Nottingham's time. And on another day he declared that in all King Charles the First's time there is no precedent of a nolle prosequi on an indictment. power in this formal way, render those who took part in it immune from the penalties of the law which they were habitually violating. Indeed, shortly after this event, the leaders of the community thought themselves so far secure that during this year they took the lease of a house in Creechurch Lane for a term of twenty-five years, and established there a larger and more commodious synagogue1. Nor was their confidence without justification, for no further attack was made upon them during the remainder of the reign. the Estab of a Jewish commu reign of It is well to pause here and glance at the progress Progress made since the king's return. The resettlement, towards made in which, in spite of several sustained but unsuccessful at- lishment tempts, no real advance had actually been made during the Commonwealth, was now actually effected, and, if the nity in the policy of Charles were confirmed by his successors, legally Charles II. complete. At the time of the Restoration, Jews, though they might enter the country as freely as other aliens, were yet in no better legal position than they had been in the days of James I; they were subject to heavy fines if they did not regularly attend the Christian services of their neighbours, and were under still severer penalties debarred from setting up a synagogue of their own. It was impossible to establish a settled community or even to meet together for Jewish religious purposes except under the cover of the strictest secrecy. Those who were here are rightly called by Mr. Wolf Crypto-Jews, for they were unable to openly profess their allegiance to Judaism. The king, who in his exile had promised to abate the rigour 1 Gaster's History of the Ancient Synagogue, p. 7. Creechurch Lane is in close proximity to Duke's Place, but the extreme accuracy required in an indictment shows that in 1673 the house of prayer was at Duke's Place itself. Neither Pepys nor Greenhalgh indicates the locality of the synagogue, but it was probably the same house in Duke's Place which was still used in 1673. In the old synagogue in Duke's Place, according to Greenhalgh, the women worshipped in an inner room; in the newer synagogue in Creechurch Lane there was a separate gallery and entrance for ladies. |