The consolidation of the nation was the great work of Henry of Anjou. He brought to it great gifts, sagacity, masterful courage, a legal and judicial mind; while his training, as the prince of widely extending countries, prevented the intrusion of petty local interests into his views for his people’s good. The lessons of the last reign were not lost on him. Before all things he desired a strong government and good order. In pursuing these objects he took for his model his grandfather and great-grandfather, and worked out in greater and more systematic detail the policy they had begun. And though in his efforts to subordinate the Church he may seem to have run counter to the legislation of his great-grandfather, it will be seen that in many points his policy was really the same. In the earlier part of his reign work lay ready to his hand, and the compromise at Winchester had already marked out his line of action. He could not immediately come to England, being detained by an insurrection in Guienne. But when he had settled this, and, by a humility of bearing he knew well how to feign, secured the friendship of Louis VII., he crossed the Channel, and at once proceeded with his reforms. [Sidenote: He restores order in the State.] He renewed the charter of the City of London; fixed a short period during which the Flemish auxiliaries, who had already probably begun to return home, should leave the country; recalled grants of the royal domains which had been made in Stephen’s reign; re-established the old number of limited earldoms; and proceeded to lay hands on both the royal castles which individual barons had appropriated and those private fastnesses with which the country had become covered. Their number is variously estimated, by some it is put as high as 1150. It was not without some opposition that he carried out this work. It was chiefly in the North and West that difficulty occurred. Before the year was over he had received the submission of William of Albemarle, who was nearly independent in Yorkshire. In February of the next year he expelled Peveril, who had been guilty among other things of poisoning the great Earl of Chester, from his Earldom of Nottingham. He followed up his success by compelling the border barons, Roger, son of Milo, Earl of Hereford, and Hugh Mortimer, a descendant of the same family as Robert de Belesme, to surrender their fastnesses. To complete his dominion at home he marched against Malcolm of Scotland, who was occupying the three Northern counties. These he compelled him to resign, obliging him to do homage for the county of Huntingdon, which he claimed as a descendant of the old Earl Waltheof. Throughout all the earlier part of the reign the Scotch King appears as a great English baron, following the King to his wars. [Sidenote: Friendship of Adrian IV.]