Opening paragraphs..................

Benjamin Disraeli's career was an extraordinary one; but there is no need to make it seem more extraordinary than it really was.  His point of departure, though low by the standards of nineteenth-century Prime Ministers, was neither as humble nor as alien as some people have believed.  It is possible to overestimate the obstacles in his way and underestimate the assets he possessed.
-Robert Blake, Disraeli
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In the year 1290, on All Saint's Day, King Edward I. expelled the Jews from England.  There, up till that day, they had been tolerated.  But those were days of the Crusades; in every village, monks were preaching against the Infidels; and the peoples were demanding a Crusade at home.  About sixteen thousand Jews left the country.  The King insisted on their being allowed to go in peace, without molestation, and his word was obeyed in the main.  The sole exception was one master-mariner who disembarked his passengers on a sea-bound sandbank, bade them "Cry our for Moses!" and raised his anchor.  A few dozen Jews were thus drowned, but the mariner was hanged.
-Andre Maurois,  Disraeli