The king appointed Ralph de Sandwich _custos_ or warden of the city, enjoining him at the same time to observe the liberties and customs of the citizens, and for the next thirteen years (1285-1298) the city continued to be governed by a warden in the person of Sandwich or of John le Breton, whilst the sheriffs were sometimes appointed by the Exchequer and sometimes chosen by the citizens.(314)
In May, 1286, the king went to Gascony, leaving the country in charge of his nephew, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, and did not return until August, 1289. He was then in sore straits for money, as was so often the case with him, and was glad of a present of £1,000 which the citizens offered by way of courtesy (_curialitas_). The money was ordered (14th October) to be levied by poll,(315) but many of the inhabitants were so poor that they could only find pledges for future payment, and these pledges were afterwards sold for what they would fetch.(316) A twelve-month later (October, 1290) when Edward visited London, he was fain to be content with the smaller sum of 1,000 marks.(317)
The expulsion of the Jews in 1290 increased Edward's difficulties, for on them he chiefly depended for replenishing his empty exchequer. Their expulsion was not so much his own wish as the wish of his subjects, who, being largely in debt to the Jews, regarded them as cruel tyrants. The nation soon discovered that it had made a mistake in thus getting rid of its creditors, for in the absence of the Jews, Edward was compelled to resort to the Lombard merchants. It may possibly have been owing to some monetary transactions between them that the king was solicitous of getting a life interest in the city's Small Beam made over to a lady known as Jacobina la Lumbard. No particulars are known of this lady, but to judge from her name she probably came of a family of money-lenders, and if so, the king's action in writing from Berwick (28th June, 1291) to the warden and aldermen of the city--at a time when he was completely in the hands of the Italian goldsmiths and money-lenders--soliciting for her a more or less lucrative post is easily intelligible.(318) The king's request was refused, notwithstanding the city being at the time in charge of a _custos_ of his own choice instead of a mayor elected by the citizens themselves. Such requests produced friction between the king and the city, and the former's financial relations with the foreign merchants were fraught with danger to himself and to his son.(319)