Britain and Ireland
In England the pawnbroker, like so many other distinguished personages, came in with William the Conqueror. Yet, despite the valuable services which the class rendered, not infrequently to the Crown itself, the usurer was treated with studied cruelty. Sir Walter Scott's Isaac of York was no mere creation of fiction. These barbarities began, by diminishing the number of Jews in the country, long before Edward's decree of banishment, to make it worth the while of the Lombard merchants to settle in England. In 1338 Edward III pawned his jewels to the Lombards to raise money for his war with France. An equally great king Henry V did much the same in 1415.
Read more about this topic: History Of Pawnbroking
Famous quotes containing the words britain and/or ireland:
“The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.”
—Roy Hattersley (b. 1932)
“No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)