the most; a month, saith Brompton. [D.S.]]

[Footnote 47: At Hostreham, saith Gervase. This place is not easy to be
found; however, it must be on the Sussex or Hampshire coast, because the
King went directly from the place of his landing to Winchester. Carte
says he landed December 8th, near Hurst Castle in the New Forest.
[D.S.]]

For the further settling of the kingdom, after the long distractions in
the preceding reign, he seized on all the castles which remained
undestroyed since the last peace between him and King Stephen; whereof
some he demolished, and trusted others to the government of persons in
whom he could confide.

But that which most contributed to the quiet of the realm, and the
general satisfaction of his subjects, was a proclamation published,
commanding all foreigners to leave England, enforced with a most
effectual clause, whereby a day was fixed, after which it should be
capital for any of them to appear; among these was William d'Ypres Earl
of Kent, whose possessions the King seized into his own hands.

These foreigners, generally called Flemings by the writers of the
English story, were a sort of vagabond soldiers of fortune, who in those
ages, under several denominations, infested other parts of Europe as
well as England: they were a mixed people, natives of Arragon, Navarre,
Biscay, Brabant, and other parts of Spain and Flanders. They were ready
to be hired to whatever prince thought fit to employ them, but always
upon condition to have full liberty of plunder and spoil. Nor was it an
easy matter to get rid of them, when there was no further need of their
service. In England they were always hated by the people, and by this
prince in particular, whose continual enemies they had been.

After the expulsion of these foreigners, and the forcing a few
refractory lords to a surrender of their castles, King Henry, like a
wise prince, began to consider that a time of settled peace was the
fittest juncture to recover the rights of the crown, which had been lost
by the war. He therefore resumed, by his royal authority, all crown
lands that had been alienated by his predecessor; alleging that they
were unalienable in themselves, and besides, that the grants were void,
as coming from an usurper. Whether such proceedings are agreeable with
justice, I shall not examine; but certainly a prince cannot better
consult his own safety than by disabling those whom he renders
discontent, which is effectually don