Chapter VII. Henry II. (1154-1189). When King Henry II. ascended the throne in 1154, he was the most powerful monarch that had ever reigned in England, and one of the most powerful in Christendom. To his hereditary possessions, Anjou, Normandy, and Maine, and his beautiful kingdom of England, he had added by his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, Poitou, and Aquitaine, which comprised Saintonge, Auvergne, Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, and Guienne. {147} He was ambitious and greedy of power. His father, who knew him well, had provided by his will that Anjou should return to his second son Geoffrey, if the eldest should become King of England, and in order to secure this arrangement he had forbidden his own interment before Henry should have sworn to conform to it. The prince hesitated long, then took the oath, and Count Geoffrey Plantagenet was consigned to the tomb. But Henry had become king and his brother had claimed the execution of his promise. The monarch contrived to be relieved of his oath by Nicholas Breakspeare, who had been raised to the pontifical dignity under the name of Adrian IV., the only Englishman who has ever become Pope. Henry Plantagenet retained Anjou, the cradle of that family which he was destined to render so powerful. When the new king landed in England, six weeks after the death of Stephen, he found his kingdom a prey to horrible anarchy. In the intervals of their power Maud and Stephen had both endeavored to attach to themselves the great nobles by important grants of lands and castles: hence the royal domains were reduced to insignificance and were surrounded on all sides by menacing fortresses guarded by resolute soldiers who recognized no authority but that of their chiefs. Many of these fortresses were in the hands of Flemish and Brabantine mercenaries whom each party in turn had summoned to their assistance. It was by dealing with these men that Henry began the reform which he reckoned upon introducing into the condition of territorial property. On a given day, to the great joy of the Normans and Saxons, he ordered all foreigners to leave the kingdom. "We saw them (says a chronicler), we saw all those Brabantines and Flemings recross the sea to return to their plough-tails, and from being lords become serfs again." {148}