The first act of the new king was to assemble a council, at which a royal decree was issued promising to the people of London 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 Ralph de Diceto, 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, conveniently enough 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 bear a favourable comparison in these respects with the later usurpers whom they delighted to revile. The English, however, did not forget the humble origin of their oppressors, and, according to Roger of Hoveden, they were accustomed to say of an arrogant earl or bishop of Norman origin, "He torments and goads us in the same manner that his grandfather used to beat the oxen at the plough." The grants of land which had been made during the reign of Stephen had impoverished the state to such an extent that the revenues were inadequate to the support of the crown. Various gifts also had been made during the brief reign of Matilda, who found it necessary to reward her followers in the same manner as had been done by Stephen. Soon after the truce between Henry and the late king, a treaty had been signed at Winchester, according to which Stephen agreed to resume possession of the royal domains, which had been given to the nobles or taken by them forcibly; the only exceptions being grants of land to the Church and to Prince William, the surviving son of the king.