Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/100

92 so great an awe and reverence for him among the people, that upon his arrival he found the whole kingdom in a profound peace. He landed at Hostreham, about the beginning of December, was received at Winchester by a great number of the nobility, who came there to attend and swear fealty to him, and three weeks after was crowned at Westminster, about the twenty-third year of his age.

For the farther settling of the kingdom, after the long distractions in the preceding reign, he seized on all the castles which remained undestroyed since the last peace between him and king Stephen; whereof some he demolished, and trusted others to the government of persons in whom he could confide.

But that which most contributed to the quiet of the realm, and the general satisfaction of his subjects, was a proclamation published, commanding all foreigners to leave England; enforced with a most effectual clause, whereby a day was fixed, after which it should be capital for any of them to appear; among these was William d'Ypres earl of Kent, whose possessions the king seized into his own hands.

These foreigners, generally called Flemings by the writers of the English story, were a sort of vagabond soldiers of fortune, who in those ages, under several denominations, infested other parts of Europe as well as England: they were a mixed people, natives of Arragon, Navarre, Biscay, Brabant, and other parts of Spain and Flanders. They were ready to be hired to whatever prince thought fit to employ them; but always upon condition to have full liberty of plunder and spoil. Nor was it an easy matter to get rid of them, when there was no farther need of their service. In England they were always hated