The room is still pointed out in the roofless donjon keep of Falaise, in which Arlotte, the tanner’s daughter, gave birth to William the Conqueror. It is a small comfortless apartment. When the newborn babe was laid upon the floor, he grasped the straw which covered it with a vigour that induced the bystanders to predict that he would ere long take a foremost place amongst the ambitious potentates of his age. In the course of our worsted narrative we have followed our hero to a point in which he is about to justify the correctness of these surmisings.

Harold, painfully conscious of the inferiority of his military equipments, resolved to act on the defensive. He took up his position on a round-topped hill, having on its summit a circular platform just sufficient to contain his troops drawn up in close order. This hill was anciently called Senlac; it afterwards became the site of the Abbey of Battle. Harold further strengthened his position by earthen ramparts crowned with palisades of wood. Wace, speaking of these precautions, says, “They had built up a fence before them with their shields, and with ash and other wood; and had well joined and wattled in their whole work, so as not to leave even a crevice; and thus they had a barricade in their front, through which any Norman who would attack them must first pass. Being covered in this way by their shields and barricades, their aim was to defend themselves; and if they had remained steady for that purpose, they would not have been conquered that day; for every Norman who made his way in lost his life in dishonour, either by hatchet or bill, by club or other weapon.” In addition to these defences, Wace tells us that Harold “made a fosse, which went across the field, guarding one side of their army.” This was probably lower down the hill than the position occupied by his camp, and was chiefly intended to incommode the cavalry.

Harold further feeling that he had not the power to prevent the enemy’s horse outflanking him, ordered “that all should be ranged with their faces towards the enemy”—that they should front three sides at least of the square. We see them (Plate XIV.) sustaining an attack from opposite quarters, and in both cases fronting the foe. He moreover issued directions “that no one should move from where he was; so that whoever came might find them ready; and that whatever any one, be he Norman or other, should do, each should do his best to defend his own place.” He planted his standard—the dragon of Wessex—on the most elevated part of the hill, and there he resolved to defend it to the last. Nobly Harold fulfilled his purpose—nothing could tempt him from his post—and ere the Saxon ensign bowed to the banner blessed by the Pope, his blood had drenched the soil.

Harold’s men consisted but in part of regularly trained troops. Amongst them were many “villains called together from the villages, bearing such arms as they found—clubs and great picks, iron forks and stakes.” These undisciplined Saxons exhibited no lack of that indomitable energy for which the English race is famous; but, as Harold’s brother, Gurth, remarked, “a great gathering of vilanaille is worth little in battle.”

The numbers of the two armies have been variously stated. Probably Wace is right in saying that they were nearly equal. He sets down the army of William at sixty thousand, and speaks thus of his opponent’s: “Many and many have said that Harold had but a small force, and that he fell on that account. But many others say, and so do I, that he and the Duke had man for man. The men of the Duke were not more numerous, but he had certainly more barons, and the men were better. He had plenty of good knights, and great plenty of good archers.”

The Norman forces, having finished their devotions by an early hour in the morning, were ordered to form in three divisions, the Duke himself commanding the centre, which consisted of Normans. William then addressed his army, saying, “If I conquer, you will conquer; if I win lands, you shall have lands”—telling them, at the same time, that he came not merely to establish his own claims, but also to punish the English for the massacre of the Danes, and other felonies which they had committed against his people. Then they began to cry out, “You will not see one coward; none here will fear to die for love of you if need be.” And he answered them, “Strike hard at the beginning; stay not to take spoil; all the booty shall be in common, and there will be plenty for every one. There will be no safety in peace or flight. The English will neither love nor spare Normans. Felons they were, and are; false they were, and false they will be.”

William was continuing his speech, when Fitz-Osborne, who had been one of his principal advisers in the whole business, interrupted him: “Sire, said he, we tarry here too long; let us arm ourselves. Allons! Allons!”

When William began to prepare for battle, he called first for his good hauberk, and a man brought it on his arm and placed it before him; but, in putting his head in to get it on, he inadvertently turned it the wrong way, with the back in front. He quickly changed it; but when he saw that those who stood by him were sorely alarmed, he said, “I never believed in omens, and I never will. I trust in God. The hauberk which was turned wrong and then set right, signifies that I who have hitherto been but duke, shall be changed into a king. Then he crossed himself, and straightway took his hauberk, stooped his head, and put it on aright; and laced his helmet and girt his sword, which a varlet brought him.”

There is something poetical in the error which William made. He was too good a general to be boastful—he had been too often in the field not to know the difference between the putting on and the putting off of the armour—he knew too well, moreover, the serious nature of the venture which he had made to pay much attention to the duties of his military toilet. His capacious mind

was weighing the chances of victory or defeat, and for the last time reviewing all the arrangements which he had made for either alternative. The Norman Duke, notwithstanding his usual exemption from superstitious influences, did not consider his preparation for battle complete until he had strung around his neck a portion of the relics over which Harold had taken his faithless vow. William entrusted the standard which the Pope had given him to Turstin Fitz-Rou. His demeanour, rendered even more than usually commanding by the greatness of the occasion, seems to have attracted the attention of his companions in arms;—“Never (said the Viscount of Toarz), never have I seen a man so fairly armed, nor one who rode so gallantly, or bore his arms or became his hauberk so well; neither any one who bore his lance so gracefully, or sat his horse or manoeuvred so nobly. There is no such knight under heaven! a fair knight he is, and a fair king he will be!”

We are now prepared for examining the Tapestry. Under the compartment inscribed HIC MILITES EXIERUNT DE HESTENGA—Here the soldiers have departed from Hastings—we see the Duke, armed cap-a-pie, preparing to mount his charger, which is brought him by an attendant. Next we have a well arranged group of horsemen, representing the whole Norman army, proceeding onward at a steady pace. Some scouts in advance scour the country, and guard against surprise. The inscription proceeds, ET VENERUNT AD PRELIUM CONTRA HAROLDUM REGEM—And march to battle against Harold the King.

The country between Hastings and Battle is of an undulating nature. The Duke had many defiles of a dangerous nature to pass, in which Harold might have harassed him if he had possessed cavalry, and if he had had troops to spare. As it was, he was allowed to proceed unmolested; nevertheless, both parties sent out scouts to watch each other’s movements. The horseman, Vitalis, seems to have been sent on this errand by William. In the Tapestry he is represented as galloping up to his chieftain with the news which he has gathered respecting the enemy, towards whom his spear is pointed. The group is labelled, HIC WILLELM: DUX INTERROGAT VITAL: SI VIDISSET EXERCITUM HAROLDI—Here Duke William asks Vitalis, whether he had seen Harold’s army.

Harold’s scout is next seen, on foot, endeavouring to obtain a glimpse through the forests of the approaching foe; he then informs his king of their advance. The legend is, ISTE NUNTIAT HAROLDUM REGEM DE EXERCITU WILLELM: DUCIS—This man brings word to Harold the King respecting Duke William’s army. “The line of the Normans’ march from the camp of Hastings to the battle-field, must have lain on the south-western slope of the elevated ridge of land extending from Fairlight to Battle; that is, to the north of the village of Hollington, through what is now Crowhurst Park, to the elevated spot called Hetheland, but now known as Telham Hill.”[94] This hill is about a mile south of the one occupied by Harold. Its ancient name seems to imply that it was covered with heath rather than with wood; this circumstance, together with the fact of its elevated position, would enable

William’s host for the first time clearly to descry their enemy from its summit, and render it a fitting place on which to make the final preparations for the onslaught. This spot, according to local tradition, derived its name of Telham, or Telman Hill, from William’s having told off his men before advancing to the fight.

We can readily conceive what would be the feelings of the two forces, as on the morning of the 14th of October, 1066, they came in sight of each other;—“Some with their colour rising, others turning pale; some making ready their arms, others raising their shields; the brave man raising himself to the fight, the coward trembling at the approaching danger.” Who can stand upon the ground occupied by either party without sympathizing, in part, with their fierce emotions? Happily, such sympathy is vain. Not only have victor and vanquished long ceased to be moved by earth’s concernments, but the descendants of each have long been blended into one race, having common interests, common feelings.

Before commencing the onslaught, William again addressed his troops. He is represented in the Tapestry (Plate XIII.) beside a tree, representing probably the edge of the forest, with the baton of command in his right hand. The legend here is, HIC WILLELM: DUX ALLOQUITUR SUIS MILITIBUS UT PREPARARENT SE VIRILITER ET SAPIENTER AD PRELIUM CONTRA ANGLORUM EXERCITUM—Here Duke William exhorts his soldiers to prepare manfully and prudently for battle against the army of the English. Wace says that the battlecry of the Normans was Dex aie! (God help!), that of the English, Ut! (out!—begone!)

Harold was not less diligent than his antagonist in making preparations. “He ordered the men of Kent to go where the Normans were likely to make the attack; for they say that the men of Kent are entitled to strike first, and that whenever the king goes to battle, the first blow belongs to them. The right of the men of London is to guard the king’s body, to place themselves around him, and to guard his standard; and they were accordingly placed by the standard to watch and defend it.” “Each man had a hauberk on, with his sword girt, and his shield at his neck. Great hatchets were also slung at their necks, with which they expected to strike heavy blows. They were on foot in close ranks, and carried themselves right boldly. Olicrosse (holy cross) they often cried, and many times repeated Godamite (God Almighty).”[95] “And now behold! that battle was gathered whereof the fame is yet mighty.”

Nearly all the chroniclers tell us that the minstrel-warrior Taillefer was the first to begin the battle, and some of them inform us that as he approached the English lines, he produced a sort of panic amongst them by his juggling tricks. It says not a little for the correctness of the delineations of the Tapestry, and of the authenticity of the Roman de Rou, that neither of them refers to these improbable stories, however great the pictorial effect of them might have been. As, however, the verses of Gaimar, describing the

apocryphal exploits of Taillefer, possess considerable interest, it may be well to introduce them here in the garb in which they have been clothed by Mr. Amyot, in the ArchÆologia,[96]

The charge of Taillefer roused the mettle of both parties. “Forthwith arose the noise and cry of war, and on either side the people put themselves in motion.” “Some were striking, others urging onwards; and all were bold, and cast aside fear.”

“Loud and far resounded the bray of the horns and the shocks of the lances; the mighty strokes of clubs, and the quick clashing of swords. One while the Englishmen rushed on, another while they fell back; one while the men from over the sea charged onwards, and again, at other times, retreated. Then came the cunning manoeuvres, the rude shocks and strokes of the lance, and blows of the sword, among the sergeants and soldiers, both English and Norman. When the English fall the Normans shout. Each side taunts and defies the other, yet neither knoweth what the other saith; and the Normans say the English bark, because they understand not their speech.” In this way the struggle proceeded for several hours. The Saxons had an arduous part to sustain; for, as shewn in the Tapestry, they were attacked on all sides.

Early in the battle the brothers of Harold, Gurth and Leofwin fell. The fact is indicated by the superscription, HIC CECIDERUNT LEWINE ET GURTH FRATRES HAROLDI REGIS—Here fell Leofwin and Gurth, the brothers of Harold the King. Bravely had they sustained their brother in his efforts to resist the invader, and doubtless they had, in the excess of their zeal, needlessly hazarded their lives. According to Wace, they did not fall until after Harold had been slain. This is one of the points in which the worsted chronicle differs from the Roman de Rou. In a battle, where all is confusion—where few can obtain a general view of what passes—and where each is intensely occupied with his own foeman—it is exceedingly difficult for any one to give a just account of the whole scene, or to reconcile the conflicting statements of others. All our historians agree that both the brothers of Harold were slain in the battle of Hastings;—had it been otherwise William would not have been crowned at Westminister that Christmas.

Following, on the Tapestry, the death of Gurth and Leofwin (Plate XV.) is a scene thus labelled: HIC CECIDERUNT SIMUL ANGLI ET FRANCI IN PRELIO. The scene is here most animated. Saxons and Normans are mingled in a close encounter. Horses and men exhibit the frantic contortions of dying agony. At the further end of the compartment a party of Saxons, posted on a hill, exposed to the enemy on one side, but protected by a forest (represented by a tree) on the other, seem to be making head against their assailants. The Normans had attacked the Saxon encampment with the utmost impetuosity in front and in flank. The Saxons maintained their ground well, but some, through fear or misadventure, were constrained to flee. The victorious Normans, strongly armed and well mounted, pursued the flying footmen. In doing so, they left not only their own army, but that of Harold in

the rear. Soon a swampy valley was to be encountered. The retreating English, climbing the opposite hill, paused, at once to take breath and to examine their position. Finding the Normans struggling with the difficulties of the morass, and conscious of the advantage which their elevated position gave them, they wheeled about, and became the attacking party. Their efforts were crowned with success; the invaders were thrown into a state of confusion nearly inextricable. But it is necessary now to refer to our authorities. The account given in the Roman de Rou of this important part of the events of that eventful day is the following: “In the plain was a fosse, which the Normans now had behind them, having passed it in the fight without regarding it. But the English charged, and drove the Normans before them, till they made them fall back upon this fosse, overthrowing into it horses and men. Many were to be seen falling therein, rolling one over the other, with their faces to the earth, and unable to rise. Many of the English also, whom the Normans drew down along with them, died there. At no time during the day’s battle did so many Normans die as perished in that fosse. So said they who saw the dead.” The account given in the Chronicle of Battle Abbey is similar. “There lay between the hostile armies a certain dreadful precipice.... It was of considerable extent, and being overgrown with bushes or brambles, was not very easily seen, and great numbers of men, principally Normans in pursuit of the English, were suffocated in it. For, ignorant of the danger, as they were running in a disorderly manner, they fell into the chasm, and were fearfully dashed to pieces and slain. And this pit, from this deplorable accident, is still called Malfosse.” With these statements that of William of Malmesbury agrees—“By frequently making a stand, they slaughtered their pursuers in heaps; for, getting possession of an eminence, they drove down the Normans, when roused with indignation and anxiously striving to gain the higher ground, into the valley beneath, when, easily hurling their javelins and rolling down stones on them as they stood below, they destroyed them to a man.” With these descriptions the delineation of the Tapestry agrees in a remarkable manner. The only point which remains for us is to identify the scene of this skirmish with some locality in the vicinity of Battle. This Mr. Lower enables us to do. “There is no place near Battle which can, with a due regard to the proprieties of language, be called a ‘dreadful precipice’ (miserabile prÆceipitium vaste patens), though, by comparing Malmesbury with the Monk of Battle, I think I have succeeded in identifying the locality of this ‘bad ditch.’[97] From all the probabilities of the case, it would seem that the flight and pursuit must have lain in a north-westerly direction, through that part of the district known as Mountjoy. Assuming this, the eminence alluded to must have been the ridge rising from Mount Street to Caldbeck Hill, and the Malfosse some part of the stream which, flowing at its feet, runs in the direction of Watlington, and becomes a tributary of the Rother. This rivulet occasionally overflows its banks, and the primitive condition of the adjacent levels was doubtless that of a morass, overgrown with flags, reeds, and similar bog vegetables. Thanks, however, to good drainage, this ‘bad ditch’ no longer remains. The name was corrupted, previously to 1279, to Manfosse, and a piece of land called Wincestrecroft, in Manfosse, was ceded to the Abbey of Battle in that year. Now Wincestrecroft is still well known, and lies in the direction specified, west by north of the present town of Battle.”[98]

The English, after having exterminated their pursuers, regained the eminence on which the main body was encamped.

This was the most critical period of the day’s fight. The varlets who had been set to guard the harness of the Normans, began to abandon it. The priests who had confessed and blessed the army in the morning, and had meanwhile retired to a neighbouring height, began to take themselves off. In this extremity Odo interfered, and turned the fate of the battle. The description in the Roman de Rou precisely corresponds with the drawing in the Tapestry. Wace says, “Then Odo, the good priest, the Bishop of Bayeux, galloped up, and said to them ‘Stand fast, stand fast! be quiet and move not! fear nothing, for if it please God, we shall conquer yet.’ So they took courage, and rested where they were; and Odo returned galloping back to where the battle was most fierce, and was of great service on that day. He had put a hauberk on, over a white aube, wide in the body, with the sleeves tight; and sat on a white horse, so that all might recognize him. In his hand he held a mace, and wherever he saw most need, he led up and stationed the knights, and often urged them on to assault and strike the enemy.” With this description the Tapestry exactly accords, except in the colour of the horse; it however represents it as being sufficiently conspicuous.

The inscription is HIC ODO EPISCOPUS TENENS BACULUM CONFORTAT PUEROS—Here Odo holding a staff exhorts the soldiers.[99] The staff which Odo wields is, I suspect, the badge of command—the marshal’s baton as it were—and not a weapon, as some writers suppose. William himself, in the next group, is represented with a similar implement. During the middle ages the priests of the sanctuary were not unfrequently to be found in the battle-field. Some of them were much more at home in the midst of the melÉe than in guiding sin-stricken souls to a Saviour. The bold Bishop of Durham, Anthony Beck, never left the precincts of his castle but in magnificent military array. He fought personally at the battle of Falkirk, and drew from a soldier, who felt perhaps a superstitious dread at aiming a deadly blow at one invested with the sacred office, the merited rebuke, “To your mass, O priest.” Richard I., when at war with Philip of France, took a French Bishop prisoner. The Pope sent to demand his liberation, claiming him as a son of the church. Richard upon this sent the Bishop’s coat of mail to the Pope, just as it was, besmeared with the blood of the slain, employing the words of Jacob’s sons, “This have we found; know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.” The canon laws indeed forbade a priest to shed blood; but this was evaded, it is said, by the use of a mace instead of a sword. The warrior-priest did not stab a man; he only brained him. It is on this ground that the baton held by Odo has been considered by some writers to be a weapon.

In consequence of the confusion and panic which attended the disasters in the Malfosse, a report was spread among the Normans that William was dead. At the same time, too, according to one writer,[100] Eustace Count of Boulogne strongly urged the Duke to withdraw his forces from the field, considering the battle to be lost beyond recovery. A Saxon shaft at that moment laid Eustace low, and delivered William from his importunity. The Duke, nothing daunted by this disaster, rushed among his troops, encouraged his men to maintain the combat, and to assure them of the falsehood of the report of his death, raised his helmet and exhibited himself to his people. This act is exhibited in the Tapestry (Plate XV.); at the same time, his standard-bearer, who never left him throughout the day, draws attention to the circumstance. The group is labelled, HIC EST DVX WILEL:—Here is Duke William. By these energetic means the Normans returned to the onset.

The Tapestry shows us the fearful slaughter which took place on that hard-fought field. The border is filled with dead men and horses lying in every conceivable position; a head is not unfrequently deposited at some distance from the body to which it once belonged. We can scarcely look upon the drawing without being impressed with the idea that the designer of the Tapestry had been the witness of some fight. It is said that when a man receives a mortal wound, his body is thrown for the moment into violent spasmodic action. So much is this the case, that you may tell the effect of a death-bringing volley by noticing how many unhappy wretches make a sudden leap. In the Tapestry something of this spasmodic action is manifested, and some of the men are coming to the ground in such a posture as they could only do after having sprung up from it.[101]

The battle had now lasted the greater part of the day. “From nine o’clock in the morning till three in the afternoon the battle was up and down, this way and that, and no one knew who would conquer and win the land. Both sides stood so firm and fought so well that no one could guess which would prevail. The Norman archers with their bows shot thickly upon the English; but they covered themselves with their shields, so that the arrows could not reach their bodies.... Then the Normans determined to shoot their arrows upwards into the air, so that they might fall on their enemies’ heads and strike their faces. The archers adopted this scheme, and shot up into the air towards the English; and the arrows in falling struck their heads and faces, and put out the eyes of many, and all feared to open their eyes or leave their faces unguarded.” “The arrows now flew thicker than rain before the wind. Then it was that an arrow that had been thus shot upwards struck Harold above his right eye and put it out. In his agony he drew the arrow (Plate XVI.) and threw it away, breaking it with his hands; and the pain to his head was so great that he leaned upon his shield.” Still the English did not yield, and Harold, though grievously hurt, maintained his ground.

At length the device was adopted which put victory into the hands of the Normans. Harold, knowing William’s skill in strategy, exhorted his troops at the beginning of the fight to keep their ground, and not suffer themselves to be drawn into a pursuit. Had his troops been well-trained men, to whom obedience is a second nature, that battle had probably not been lost. Many of them however had been brought from the fields, and were unable to resist the prospect of inflicting deserved vengeance upon their adversaries. Harold’s troops were the more likely to fall into the snare laid for them, in consequence of the success which attended, in an earlier part of the day, the attack upon the pursuing Normans in the Malfosse.

William’s army fled by little and little, the English following them. “As the one fell back, the other pressed after; and when the Frenchmen retreated, the English thought and cried out that the men of France fled and would never return. ‘Cowards,’ said they, ‘you came hither in an evil hour, wanting our lands, and seeking to seize our property, fools that you were to come! Normandy is too far off, and you will not easily reach it ... your sons and daughters are lost to you!’ The Normans bore these taunts very quietly, as indeed they easily might, for they did not know what the English said.”

At length the time arrived for the assailants to come to a stand. The English had broken rank; the valley, too, had been crossed, and the Normans were now standing above the Saxons on the flank of the hill on the top of which they had formed in the morning.

At the word of command, Dex aie, the Normans halted, and turned their faces towards the enemy. Now commenced the fiercest part of that bloody day’s encounter. Neither party was wanting in courage. All the chroniclers do justice to the contending forces. “One hits, another misses; one flies, another pursues; one is aiming a stroke, while another discharges his blow. Norman strives with Englishman again, and aims his blows afresh. One flies, another pursues swiftly; the combatants are many, the plain wide, the battle and the melÉe fierce. On every hand they fight hard, the blows are heavy, and the struggle becomes fierce.”

As neither the horrors nor the gallantry exhibited on a battle-field can be comprehended by a general description, it may be well here to introduce an account of one or two of the individual encounters occurring at this period, with which Wace supplies us.

“The Normans were playing their part well, when an English knight came rushing up, having in his company a hundred men furnished with various arms. He wielded a northern hatchet, with the blade a full foot long; and was well armed after his manner, being tall, bold, and of noble carriage. In the front of the battle, where the Normans thronged most, he came bounding on swifter than a stag, many Normans falling before him and his company. He rushed straight upon a Norman, who was armed, and riding on a war-horse, and tried with a hatchet of steel to cleave his helmet; but the blow miscarried, and the sharp blade glanced down before the saddle-bow, driving through the horse’s neck down to the ground, so that both horse and master fell together to the earth. I know not whether the Englishman struck another blow; but the Normans who saw the stroke were astonished, and about to abandon the assault, when Roger de Montgomery came galloping up, with his lance set, and heeding not the long-handled axe which the Englishman wielded aloft, struck him down, and left him stretched upon the ground. Then Roger cried out ‘Frenchmen, strike; the day is ours!’ And again a fierce melÉe was to be seen, with many a blow of lance and sword; the English still defending themselves, killing the horses, and cleaving the shields.”

“There was a French soldier of noble mien, who sat his horse gallantly. He spied two Englishmen who were also carrying themselves boldly. They were both of them men of great worth, and had become companions in arms and fought together, the one protecting the other. They bore two long and broad bills, and did great mischief to the Normans, killing both horses and men. The French soldier looked at them and their bills, and was sore alarmed; for he was afraid of losing his good horse, the best that he had, and would willingly have turned to some other quarter, if it would not have looked like cowardice. Fearing the two bills, he raised his shield by the ‘enarmes,’ and struck one of the Englishmen with his lance on the breast, so that the iron passed out at the back. At the moment that he fell, the lance broke, and the Frenchman seized the mace that hung at his right side, and struck the other Englishman a blow that completely fractured his scull.”

The slaughter at this period of the day must have been fearful. The chronicler of Battle Abbey says, “Amid these miseries there was exhibited a fearful spectacle: the fields were covered with dead bodies, and on every hand nothing was to be seen but the red hue of blood. The dales around sent forth a gory stream, which increased at a distance to the size of a river! How great think you must have been the slaughter of the conquered, when the conquerors’ is reported, upon the lowest computation, to have exceeded ten thousand? Oh how vast a flood of human gore was poured out in that place where these unfortunates fell and were slain! What a dashing to pieces of arms, what a clashing of strokes; what shrieks of dying men; what grief; what sighs were heard! How many groans; how many bitter notes of direst calamity then sounded forth, who can rightly calculate! What a wretched exhibition of human misery was there to call forth astonishment! In the very contemplation of it our heart fails us.”[102]

Notwithstanding the horrors of the scene, and the hopelessness of their efforts, the courage of the Saxons failed not; sometimes fleeing, and sometimes making a stand, they slaughtered their pursuers in heaps.

The place where this havoc took place is probably the southern front of the eminence on which Battle Abbey was afterwards placed. The whole site of the contest has sometimes been denominated “Sanguelac,” or the “Lake of Blood,” but this designation properly belongs to that part in which the street of the modern town of Battle called “the Lake” is situated. Until a very recent period this place was supposed still occasionally to reek with human gore. “Thereabout,” says Drayton, “is a place which after rain always looks red, which some have attributed to a very bloody sweat of the earth, as crying to heaven for revenge for so great a slaughter.”

The truth is “the redness of the water here, and at many other places in the neighbourhood, is caused by the oxydation of the iron which abounds in the soil of the Weald of Sussex.”[103]

To return to the battle, “Loud was now the clamour, and great the slaughter; many a soul then quitted the body which it inhabited. The living marched over the heaps of dead, and each side was weary of striking. He charged on who could, and he who could no longer strike still pushed forward. The strong struggled with the strong; some failed, others triumphed; the cowards fell back, the brave pressed on; and sad was his fate who fell in the midst, for he had little chance of rising again; and many in truth fell who never rose at all, being crushed under the throng. And now the Normans pressed on so far that at last they reached the English standard.” The Tapestry represents the eager advance of a body of horsemen. The compartment is inscribed, HIC FRANCI PUGNANT ET CECIDERUNT QUI ERANT CUM HAROLDO—Here the French are fighting, and have slain the men who were with Harold. “There Harold had remained, defending himself to the utmost; but he was sorely wounded in the eye by the arrow, and suffered grievous pain by the blow. An armed man came in the throng of the battle, and struck him on the ventaille of his helmet and beat him to the ground; and as he sought to recover himself, a knight beat him down again, striking him on the thick of his thigh, down to the bone.” This is shown in the Tapestry (Plate XVI.) Harold first of all appears standing by his standard, contending with a horseman who is making a rush at him; then he is shown pulling the arrow out of his eye; and lastly he is seen, falling—

—his battle axe has dropped from his nerveless grasp, and a Norman,

stooping from his horse, inflicts a wound upon his thigh. The group is superscribed, HIC HAROLD REX INTERFECTUS EST—Here Harold the King is slain.[104]

“The English were in great trouble at having lost their King, and at the Duke’s having conquered and beat down the standard; but they still fought on, and defended themselves long, and in fact till the day drew to a close. Then it clearly appeared to all that the standard was lost, and the news had spread throughout the army that Harold for certain was dead; and all saw now that there was no longer any hope, so they left the field and those fled who could.” Ingulph tells us that all the nobles that were in Harold’s army were slain;[105] we are hence led to infer that it was the untrained peasantry only who betook themselves to flight. The Tapestry is in consistency with this. The last compartment represents a group of men unprotected by body armour, and supplied only with a mace or club, retreating before a party of fully equipped horsemen. The inscription is, ET FUGA VERTERUNT ANGLI—And the English betake themselves to flight.

Happily the exact spot on which the final struggle of the day took place is clearly ascertained. The writer of the Battle Abbey Chronicle tells us, that the King having resolved to commemorate his victory by the erection of a Christian temple, the high altar was placed upon the precise spot where the standard was observed to fall.[106] Long after all traces of the Abbey Church had been obliterated, the finger of tradition faithfully pointed to the spot so interesting to all Englishmen. In the year 1817, the proprietor of the soil, anxious to test the truth of the popular belief, made the necessary excavations, and in the very place indicated, at the depth of several feet below the surface, found the remains of an altar in the easternmost recess of the crypt of the church.[107]

William on that day fought well—as well he might, for he had engaged in a desperate venture—“many a blow did he give, and many receive, and many fell dead under his hand.” Two horses were killed under him. After the English had been exterminated, or had forsaken the field, the Duke returned thanks to God, and ordered his gonfanon to be erected where Harold’s standard had stood. Here, too, he raised his tent. Amidst the dying and the dead he partook of his evening meal and passed the night.

The next morning which dawned upon that sad battle field was the Sabbath. On that first day of the week no heavenly choir sang of peace on earth and good will toward men. The human family was exhibited in its most painful aspect, “hateful and hating one another”—that field but recently covered over with the golden sheaves of harvest, now bore upon its surface the gory fruits of man’s ambition.

“When William called over the muster-roll, which he had prepared before he left the opposite coast, many a knight, who on the day when he sailed, had proudly answered to his name, was then numbered with the dead. The land which he had done homage for was useless to him now.”[108] He had come to win large domains and baronial honours—six feet of common earth was all he got. “The Conqueror had lost more than one-fourth of his army.”[109] Both parties spent the day in burying the dead. “The noble ladies of the land also came, some to seek their husbands, and others their fathers, sons, or brothers.”

The account given by Ordericus of the disposal of Harold’s body is the following: “Harold could not be discovered by his features, but was recognized by other tokens, and his corpse being borne to the Duke’s camp, was, by order of the Conqueror, delivered to William Mallet for interment near the sea-shore, which had long been guarded by his arms.”[110] William of Poictiers gives a similar statement. Later writers say that his body was interred with regal honours in Waltham Abbey. This tradition, which probably had its origin in the wish of the monks to attract visitors to the shrine at Waltham, cannot be entertained, in opposition to the express statements of contemporaries. Some venture, too, to assert that, though sorely wounded at Hastings, he was not killed, and that, on escaping from the field, he first fled to the continent, and afterwards led the life of a recluse at Chester. This is a statement which may at once be rejected.

The difficulty in discovering the body to which Ordericus refers was, it is generally believed, overcome by Edith, surnamed, from her beauty, the Fair. The keen eye of affection discerned his mangled form amidst heaps of dead, which appeared to common observers an undistinguishable mass. What will not woman’s love accomplish!

Many writers have done great dishonour to this lady by stating that she was the mistress of Harold. Sir Henry Ellis, in his Introduction to Domesday Book, has proved that she was his Queen; “Aldith, Algiva or Eddeva, being names which are all synonymous.” Unhappy Elfgyva, how different her feelings now from what they were when the clerk announced to her, in his own familiar way, the rescue of Harold from the capture of Guy!