A.D. 1254. HENRY DB LBXINTON CONSECRATED BT BONIFACE. 335 About this time, the lord John, prior of Newburgh, was sent into those parts on the business of the kingdom of England ; and he being certified of these events, committed them to writing in a full detail, and in regular order ; and the number of nobles, and knights, and esquires, and men-at-arms who were taken prisoners or slain in that battle, is said to have amounted to more than a hundred thousand men. In the course of the fortnight after Easter, the nobles of England, being assembled in Parliament, in London, waited for the arrival of earl Richard for three weeks to no purpose ; and the king intimated to them that he stood in need of money and a reinforcement to his army ; and they all replied that they would, under no circumstances, delay to come in person to the succour of the lord their king, if, as they said, they received fuller information of the hoetile arrival of the king of Spain, who threatened such a proceeding ; and they marvelled that the aforesaid king had never laid claim to Guienne during the time that Simon, earl of Leicester, was governor of it. These, then, were their arguments. But afterwards the nobles, having learnt the real state of affairs from the aforesaid earl, who just at that time returned from foreign parts, and told them the real truth, and finding that the message which they received had no foundation, returned home in great indignation. When earl Richard required of the Jews a sum of money of no inconsiderable amount for the service of the king, who was in great want of it, Elias of London, the high priest of the Jews, made answer on behalf of them all : " My lords, we see that the lord the king proposes to wipe us all out from before the face of heaven ; we ask, therefore, that he will give us his royal licence ; behold, we are prepared to depart from the kingdom, and we will depart and never return." This he said with sobs and most bitter tears, on which account the nobles, pitying them, allowed them to depart. Another fierce battle took place between the French and Germans. The Fries landers, who had previously observed a neutrality, were at tacked in a hostile manner by William of Holland. About this time, that is to say, on the seventeenth of May, Henry de Lezinton, bishop elect of Lincoln, was consecrated and installed in his diocese by Boniface, archbishop of Canter bury, while he was in a foreign land. As some Welchmen, who were serving in the king's army in Guienne, were pu nished by the king's brothers and the people of Poitou, without