The first work before the young king would be to select those who should aid him in the task of government in the chief offices of the state. He probably already had a number of these men in mind from his knowledge of England and of the leaders of his mother's party. In the peace with Stephen, Richard de Lucy had been put in charge of the Tower and of Windsor castle. He now seems to have been made justiciar, perhaps the first of Henry's appointments, as he alone signs the coronation charter though without official designation. Within a few days, however, Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, was apparently given office with the same title, and together they fill this position for many years, Robert completing in it the century and more of faithful service which his family had rendered to every successive king. The family of Roger of Salisbury was also restored to the important branch of the service which it had done so much to create, in the person of Nigel, Bishop of Ely, who was given charge of the exchequer. The most important appointment in its influence on the reign was that to the chancellorship. Archbishop Theobald, who was probably one of Henry's most intimate counsellors, had a candidate in whose favour he could speak in the strongest terms and whose services in the past the king would gratefully recall. This was the young Thomas Becket, who had done so much to prevent the coronation of Eustace. Immediately after his coronation, at Christmas time, Henry held at Bermondsey the first of the great councils of his reign. Here the whole state of the kingdom was discussed, and it was determined to proceed with the expulsion of Stephen's mercenaries, and with the destruction of the unlawful castles. The first of these undertakings gave no trouble, and William of Ypres disappears from English history. The second, especially with what went with it,--the resumption of Stephen's grants to great as well as small,--was a more difficult and longer process. To begin it in the proper way, the king himself set out early in 1155 for the north. For some reason he did not think it wise at this time to run the risk of a quarrel with Hugh Bigod, and it was probably on this journey at Northampton that he gave him a charter creating him Earl of Norfolk, the title which he had obtained from Stephen. The expedition was especially directed against William of Aumale, Stephen's Earl of Yorkshire, and he was compelled to surrender a part of his spoils including the strong castle of Scarborough. William Peverel of the Peak also, who was accused of poisoning the Earl of Chester, and who knew that there were other reasons of condemnation against him, took refuge in a monastery, making profession as a monk when he heard of Henry's approach, and finally fled to the continent and abandoned everything to the king. Some time after this, but probably during the same year, another of Stephen's earls, William of Arundel or Sussex, obtained a charter of confirmation of the