All this done, Henry appeared at Westminster on the 19th of December, and was there crowned with the ceremonies observed at his grandfather’s coronation, now more than half a century past, and bound himself by the same ancient and solemn promises which Ethelred had made to Dunstan, and which the Conqueror, Henry I., and Stephen had renewed. Nor, when crowned, did he lose a moment: he issued a charter, as Stephen had done, at his coronation, confirming his grandfather’s laws. The same week he held a great court and council at Bermondsey. At once he re-established the Exchequer, recalling to the head of it Bishop Nigel of Ely, whom Stephen had displaced in 1140, and setting at work at once with the business of the revenue. From this court at Bermondsey went forth the decree that the Flemish and other foreign mercenaries should leave the kingdom at once, and that the castles built under Stephen should be thrown down. The mercenaries fled forthwith. Their presence was perhaps the most offensive of all insults to the national pride, and the late reign had taught Normans and Englishmen that they had now a common nationality in suffering, if not in conquest. By this article of the agreement Henry faithfully stood. Although he fought all his foreign wars with mercenaries, he never but once--and that in the greatest emergency, and to repel foreign mercenaries brought against him by the rebellious earls in 1174--introduced any such force into England. Even Richard employed in the kingdom no more foreigners than formed his ordinary surroundings, and it is not until John’s reign that we find the country again oppressed and insulted by hired foreign soldiery. [Sidenote: Destruction of castles. ] The demolition of the castles, which one contemporary writer reckons at three hundred and seventy-five, another a little later at eleven hundred and fifteen, was a still greater boon; for these, had they been suffered to stand, would not only have fitted England to be a constant scene of civil war, but have continued to afford to their owners a shadow of claim for the exercise of those feudal jurisdictions which on the Continent made every baron a petty despot. Castles were unfortunately not entirely destroyed at this time; the older strongholds, which had been built under Henry, were untouched, and gave trouble enough in the one civil war that marks the reign; but the legal misuse of them was abolished, and they ceased to be centres of feudal lawlessness. [Sidenote: Fate of the new earls. ]