Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/192

178 they knew that their own position was secure in the possession of wealth, power, and civil privileges. When Henry landed in England, attended by a splendid escort, the people flocked to meet him, and tendered their congratulations. The cavalcade entered the royal city of Winchester amidst the acclamations of the crowd, the Queen Eleanor riding at the king's side. Having received the homage of the barons, the royal party proceeded to London, and on the 19th of December the coronation took place at Westminster.



The first act of the new king was to assemble a council, at which a royal decree was issued, promising to the people those rights which they had enjoyed under the reign of Henry I., and the laws which that king had restored. Stephen was declared to have been a usurper, and all the institutions originated by him were at once abolished. Measures were taken to suppress the practice of false coining, which had become very common during the late reign; and the general currency having deteriorated, a new coinage was issued of standard weight and purity.

The Brabançons and other foreign mercenaries who had become established in England during the civil war, had in many cases obtained possession of the castles and domains of the Norman adherents of Matilda, and had been confirmed in their titles by Stephen. The Norman nobles found themselves driven out, and their mansions fortified against them in the same manner that they themselves had seized the dwellings of the Saxons. When, therefore, the Brabançons and the Flemings were expelled by Henry, the whole of the Anglo-Normans experienced great exultation. "We saw them," says a contemporary writer, "re-cross the sea, called back from the camp to the field, and from the sword to the plough; and those who had been lords were compelled to return to their old condition of serfs. The Normans who thus made a jest of the humble origin of the Flemings, forgot that their own fathers had quitted occupations of a similar kind to follow the fortunes of the Conqueror not a hundred years before. The men of the dominant race, who had acquired titles and estates in England, had driven from their minds all recollection of their former condition, and of the means by which their present eminence was obtained, although few of them could