Next to these his most important measure was the institution or expansion of what is called Scutage. According to the ancient English law every freeman was bound to serve in arms for the defence of his country. That principle Henry only meddled with so far as to direct and improve it. But, according to the feudal custom, quite irrespective of this, every man who held land to the amount of twenty pounds’ worth of annual value was obliged to perform or furnish the military service of a knight to his immediate lord. This kept the barons always at the head of bodies of trained knights, who might be regarded as ultimately a part of the king’s army, but in case of a rebellion would probably fight for their immediate lord. Henry, by allowing his vassals to commute their military service for a money payment, went a long way to disarm this very untrustworthy body; and with the money so raised he hired stipendiaries, with whom he fought his Continental wars. He began to act on this principle in the first year of his reign, when he made the bishops, notwithstanding strong objections from Archbishop Theobald, pay scutage for their lands held by knight-service. But in 1159 he extended the plan very widely, and took money instead of service from the whole of his dominions, compelling his chief lords to serve in person, but hiring, with the scutages of the inferior tenants, a splendid army of mercenaries, with which he fought the war of Toulouse. By thus disarming the feudal potentates, and forcing his judges into their courts, he completed the process by which he intended to humiliate them. Feudalism in England, after the reign of Henry II., never reared its head so high as to be again formidable. [Sidenote: Increase of national unity. ]