Auckland Castle, palace of the Bishops of Durham has 12 paintings by Zurburán (+1 copy) with an interesting connection to the Portuguese Jews. The pictures represent Jacob and his 12 sons and were painted by Zurburán in the 1630s for export to South America (the subject matter may be connected to the legend that the native Americans were descendants of the lost tribes, a legend accepted by Manasseh ben Israel). As it was the paintings were captured by an English pirate and bought in London by Fernando Mendez (Jewish physician to Queen Catherine Braganza). After the death of his son, James, Mendez's grandchildren who were by now good Anglican Englishmen wanted rid of them (they were too Jewish?) and put them up for sale.During the 1745 Jacobite invasion, another Portuguese Jew, Sampson Gideon (born Abudiente) has been of immense help to the government financially and as a sign its gratitude the government sponsored the 1753 'Jew Bill' to allow Jews to petition for naruralization and so receive full rights as British citizens. The Anglican bishops supported the law including the Bishop of Durham Richard Trevor who sat in the House of Lords. The bill was passed but faced such massive opposition in the country that it was immediately repealed. In protest Bishop Trevor bought the Zurburán paintings in protest and in solidarity with the Jews and hung them in the lnog dining room of his palace which he had suitably remodelled to fit the massive 8ft high paintings.Sampson Gideon married a gentile wife and had his children baptised although he remained a practicing Jew. On his death he left £1,000 to Bevis Marks on condition that he be buried as a Jew, having kept up his subscriptions to thesynagogue under the name 'Almoni Peloni' (from Hebrew Peloni Almoni 'so and so' (see Ruth 4:1, I Samuel 21:3).