The Duke of Normandy was a bold man, and was not disposed to attempt any thing that he was not prepared to pursue to the end. He knew that Harold, with the power of England at his disposal, was no despicable enemy, and he resolved to fortify his cause in every possible way. The sea was to him an object of great dread, as he knew it would be to his followers. “If,” he said, “he could attack and punish them without crossing the sea, he would willingly have done so; but he would rather cross the sea than not revenge himself and pursue his right.”

William sent messengers to Harold demanding the crown, and reminding him of his oath. He would not have done this had he lost any time by it. Harold’s reply was worthy of a constitutional monarch. “It is true that I took an oath to William; but I took it under constraint. I promised what did not belong to me; a promise which I could not in any way perform. My royal authority is not my own; I could not lay it down against the will of my country; nor can I, against the will of the country, take a foreign wife.”[69] William referred the case to the Pope. Harold, conscious that he was acting inconsistently with his oath, fearing that the cause would not be impartially heard, or not choosing to submit the destinies of England to the decision of a foreigner, made no appeal to the Holy Father. The result of William’s application was, that the Pope “granted his request, and sent him a gonfanon, and a very precious, rich, and fair ring, which, he said, had under the stone one of St. Peter’s hairs. With these tokens he commanded, and in God’s name granted to him, that he should conquer England, and hold it of St. Peter.”[70]

William, however, relied neither upon the tenderness of Harold’s conscience nor upon the Pope’s sense of justice—he looked mainly to his barons and retainers. He summoned all who owed him suit and service to meet him in his castle at Lillebone. He there opened to them his design of invading England, and urged them to double for this occasion the amount of their usual contributions of men and money. The account given of this meeting affords us a good idea of the noisy nature of the parliaments of that day—a feature which they still occasionally exhibit. “They remained long in council, and the debate lasted a great while; for they hesitated long among themselves what they should say, what answer they should give, and what aid they would afford. They complained much to each other, saying that they had been often aggrieved; and they murmured much, conferring together in small parties; here five, there fifteen, here forty, there thirty, sixty, a hundred. Some said they feared the sea, and were not bound to serve beyond it. Some said they were willing to bring ships and cross the sea with the Duke; others said that they would not go, for they owed much, and were poor. Some would, others would not, and there was great contention among them.”

William on this occasion acted upon his usual maxim, “divide and conquer.” He dealt privately with such as he was most likely to influence, and having induced them to enter zealously into his plans, others were led by shame or sympathy to follow. He was lavish of his promises. To the barons he proffered numerous manors, to the clerks he held out the bait of rich benefices; to these who were amorously inclined he promised wives with ample dowries; to such as were not to be allured by prospective advantages he gave at once large sums of money. It is said that he offered much more than he could possibly perform; for he was well aware that the Saxon battle-axes would cancel many of his bonds. Meanwhile the Pope’s sanction of the scheme arrived in Normandy, and it inspired the invading hosts with fresh zeal. “The Duke rejoiced greatly at receiving the gonfanon, and the license which the Apostle [Pope] gave him. He got together carpenters, smiths, and other workmen; so that great stir was seen in all the ports of Normandy, in the collecting of wood and materials, cutting of planks, framing of ships and boats, stretching sails, and rearing masts, with great pains and at great cost. They spent all one summer and autumn in fitting up the fleet and collecting the forces; and there was no knight in the land, no good serjeant, archer, nor peasant of stout heart, and of age for battle, that the Duke did not summon to go with him to England.”

The Tapestry represents these preparations. In the compartment which we last noticed William is accompanied by his half-brother Odo, who is busily employed in issuing orders to the master carpenter. This functionary holds a peculiarly shaped axe in his hand, of which there are some examples in the illustrations to CÆdmon’s Paraphrase. The superscription is, HIC WILLELM DUX JUSSIT NAVES EDIFICARE—Here Duke William issues orders for the building of ships.

Next we see the execution of the orders. Trees are being felled, and the planks prepared. Presently the ships have assumed their proper shape, and then we see them being drawn down to the shore. This operation is effected by means of a rope passed through a pulley inserted in a post driven into the shore below the water mark. The legend is HIC TRAHUNT NAVES AD MARE—Here they draw the vessels to the sea. Afterwards the stores and ammunition are taken on board, and when all is ready the horses and troops embark.

This may be a fitting place in which to introduce some observations upon the ships and armour of the Normans.

The vessels of this period were of small burden. This is proved by the fact that they were drawn down to the sea, after being built, in the manner shown in the Tapestry. The Domesday Book establishes the same thing. There we find it stated that Dover and Sandwich (and probably the other Cinque Ports also) were severally

obliged to furnish the King with twenty ships for fifteen days, once every year, each vessel having a crew of twenty-one persons.[71] The gunwale of the vessels was low. In the Tapestry (Plate X.) we see them landing the horses, by making them leap over the sides of the ships on to the shore. On the voyage the gunwale was practically heightened by placing the shields of the soldiers along the sides of the vessel, one shield partly lying over another. The prow and stern of the ships, which are the same in form, are a good deal elevated, and are usually decorated with the head of a dragon, lion, bull, or some fanciful figure. We have several descriptions of the ship in which William sailed on his ever-memorable expedition. Wace says, “The Duke placed a lantern on the mast of his ship, that the other ships might see it, and hold their course after it. At the summit was a vane of brass gilt. On the head of the ship, in the front which mariners call the prow, there was a figure of a child in brass, bearing an arrow with a bended bow. His face was turned towards England, and thither he looked, as though he was about to shoot.”[72] In an ancient MS. preserved in the British Museum, and printed in the Appendix of Lyttleton’s Henry II.,[73] we are told that this figure pointed towards England with his right fore-finger, and held to his mouth an ivory horn with his left hand. With this description the Tapestry nearly agrees; the figure is, however, placed not on the prow, but at the stern of the vessel. The lamp would only be required at night. On the top of the mast of William’s vessel the sacred banner given him by the Pope is fixed, surmounted by a cross. The banner, as it appears here and in other parts of the Tapestry, would be described by heralds as “argent, a cross or in a bordure azure.” The vessels have one mast, which is lowered forward as the land is approached. To the mast, supported by a few shrouds, or rather stays, a large square sail is suspended. The modern rudder was not known for some time after the period of the Conquest;[74] the vessels are steered by a paddle fixed to the quarter. The steersman, who was also the captain and pilot, holds the paddle in one hand, and the sheet in the other. This was exactly the position of Palinurus in the Æneid of Virgil.

The larger vessels of the ancients were provided with two paddle rudders, one on each quarter. This arrangement is shown in the recently-discovered sculptures of Nineveh and in many Roman coins. The ship in which St. Paul was wrecked on the shore of Malta had two rudders. The vessels in the Tapestry have only one paddle, probably on account of their inferior size. It is perhaps worthy of the consideration of modern navigators, whether, in cases where the hinged rudder is displaced in a storm, the paddle-rudder might not advantageously be resorted to as a temporary expedient. The anchors of the Tapestry resemble those in modern use. The anchor of the ship in which the spies of William sail to Normandy (Plate VIII.) has no stock—but this is probably merely an oversight of the draftsman, for in an earlier case (Plate II.) the stock is represented.

The sides of the ships are painted of various colours in longitudinal stripes, each stripe probably representing a plank. The sails of the ships are also variously coloured. Roger of Wendover tells us that the Conqueror’s ship had a crimson sail; probably this is nearly correct, for in the Tapestry it is painted red, with a yellow stripe in the middle.

The effect of the whole fleet must have been very striking, and well calculated to make a powerful impression upon spectators of that or any age.

Writers differ much as to the number of the vessels in William’s fleet, as well as of the men they carried. Wace says, “I heard my father say—I remember it well, though I was but a lad—that there were seven hundred ships less four, when they sailed from St. Valeri; and that there were, besides these, ships’ boats and skiffs for the purpose of carrying harness. I have found it written (but I know not whether it be true) that there were in all three thousand vessels bearing sails and masts. Any one will know that there must have been a great many men to have furnished out so many vessels.”

The different computations of the chroniclers probably arise from some of them including the small transport vessels in their reckoning and others not. Most modern historians set down William’s army at sixty thousand strong. The transport of so large a body of troops would require a flotilla more numerous than had sailed upon any waters since the decline of the Roman empire.

The armour of the combatants in the Tapestry may now engage our attention.

Nearly all the combatants are provided with helmets. The precise shape of them we learn from those which are being brought to the shore to be placed with other military stores on board the fleet. The helmet has a conical form, and is provided with a projection in front called the nasal, to protect the face. In some of them there appears to be a smaller projection at the back. It is a remarkable circumstance that exceedingly few helmets have been found in the graves of the Franks and Saxons, which are usually replete with military implements. Two however have been found in this country, one near Cheltenham the other in Derbyshire.[75] From these specimens, as well as from the appearance of those in the Tapestry, we may suppose that the helmet consisted of a framework of iron, over which a covering of leather was stretched. From the fact, however, that so few helmets have been found in Saxon graves, we may perhaps infer that the framework of the earlier specimens was of wood. Wace makes express mention of one man who at the battle of Hastings wore a wooden helmet:—“On the other side (he says) was an Englishman who much annoyed the French, assaulting them with a keen-edged hatchet. He had a helmet made of wood, which he had fastened down to his coat and laced round his neck, so that no blows could reach his head. The ravage he was making was seen by a gallant Norman knight, who rode a horse that neither fire nor water could stop in its career when its lord urged it on. The knight spurred, and his horse carried him on till he charged the Englishman, striking him over the helmet, so that it fell down over his eyes; and as he stretched out his hand to raise it and uncover his face, the Norman cut off his right hand, so that his hatchet fell to the ground. Another Norman sprung forward, and eagerly seized the prize with both his hands, but he kept it little space and paid dearly for it; for as he stooped to pick up the hatchet, an Englishman with his long-handled axe struck him over the back, breaking all his bones, so that his entrails and lungs gushed forth. The knight of the good horse meantime retired without injury.”[76]

The helmet speedily underwent several changes after the period of the battle of Hastings. Flaps were affixed to the sides in order to protect the ears and the cheeks. These appear in the chess-men found in the island of Lewis, which, as already observed, belong to a period not later than the middle of the twelfth century. Soon after the Conquest the nasal being found to be inconvenient was frequently omitted; at length the contrivance called the ventaille was introduced, which when brought over the face fully protected it, and yet, as its name implies, admitted air to the nostrils of the wearer, and when his convenience required could be lifted up. That the ventaille was not known at the battle of Hastings appears from the helmets which are being taken on board the fleet. Another fact represented on the Tapestry (Plate XV.) shows the same thing; William, when he wishes to show himself in order to contradict the rumour that he has been killed, is obliged to lift his helmet almost off his head. And yet Wace, who lived at the period just subsequent to the Conquest, writes as though Harold’s helmet was provided with a ventaille. He says, “Harold was sorely wounded in his eye by the arrow, and suffered grievous pain from 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.” This passage shows how exceedingly difficult it is, when describing past events, to avoid anachronisms. Sir Samuel Meyrick, in commenting upon this passage, says, “By the ventaille is here meant merely the open part below his helmet. The ventaculum, or ventaille, strictly speaking, was not invented at this time, but was in full use when Wace lived; he adopts it therefore merely for the sake of the rhyme, and as familiar to his countrymen.”[77]

The body armour consisted of a tunic of leather or stout linen, on which was fastened some substance calculated to resist the stroke of a weapon. Occasionally, as we have already seen, overlapping flaps of leather, sometimes pieces of horn or horses’ hoofs, and not unfrequently plates or rings of iron were employed. When rings were used they were laid side by side, and not locked into each other, as was the case in the chain armour of a subsequent date. When small plates of iron were used they were generally lozenge-shaped; hence this species of armour has been termed mascled. The ingenuity of man has had recourse to these and similar contrivances in every age. Amongst the ruins of Nineveh scale armour has been discovered, and on Trajan’s column the Sarmatian cavalry and their horses are clad in it.

The coat of mail comprehended body, legs, and arms all in one piece; the legs and arms were however short and loose. It is difficult to understand the mode of putting it on. It seems to have been drawn over the head. We are expressly told that when William was preparing for the battle he had his hauberk brought; but in putting his head in, to get it on, he inadvertently turned it the wrong way, with the back part in front;” and that seeing his error, “he crossed himself, stooped his head, and put it on aright.” In the Tapestry (Plate XVI.) we see some persons stripping the slain; they uniformly draw the hauberk over the head. The legs of the dress must in this case have been made to open. When on, it was tightened by straps at the breast. This armour seems to have been occasionally provided with a hood of the same material, which covered the head. There are some examples of it in the Tapestry. The legs in the Tapestry are for the most part left unprotected; occasionally they are wrapped round with bandages of leather; in the case of a few of the leading personages they are covered with mascled or ring armour. The weight of the hauberk, or haubergeon, must have been considerable. In taking the dresses down to the ships we observe two men are employed to carry one; they bear it on a pole upon their shoulders. One of William’s nobles, whilst waiting at Hastings for the onset of Harold, complained of the weight of his armour. The Duke quietly desired him to put it off, and then putting it on himself over his own hauberk, mounted his horse without assistance, and rode off, to the great chagrin of the noble and the astonishment of all.[78]

The shields of the ancient knights formed an important part of their equipment. The shield of the early Saxons was circular, having a boss in the centre. The boss was concave on the inside of the shield, and of a size sufficient to contain the hand of the warrior, which grasped the shield by a handle put across the cavity. In the Tapestry we have some examples of the circular shield, but by far the larger part of the shields on the Saxon as well as the Norman side are of a different character. It would appear that the intercourse subsisting between Normandy and England during the reign of the Confessor had led to the abandonment of the old Saxon shield. The shield of the Tapestry is of large size, and of the shape of a kite. It is in every instance flat. Here again we have another opportunity of judging of the minute accuracy of the Tapestry. Towards the end of the eleventh century the shield of a French knight is described[79] as having its surface not flat but convex, so as to embrace the person of the wearer. Other changes were speedily introduced; towards the close of the twelfth century it became shorter, and the bow at the top was flattened into a straight line. Thus it formed the “heater shield” of the middle ages.

The Norman shield when in use was carried by the arm, not the fist alone; two loops were placed on the inner side of it for the reception of the arm; when not wanted it was slung from the neck of the warrior; this is seen in several instances in the Tapestry. Many of the shields were ornamented with studs of metal, which were kept bright, so as to dazzle the sight of an antagonist. Others bear badges or devices, by which the bearer might be distinguished in the field.

From the earliest days, devices, answering the purpose of coats of arms, have been adopted. The tribes of Israel had their insignia. The armorial bearings of several Grecian chiefs are minutely described by the poets. The Roman legions had their characteristic symbols.[80] It was probably with this view that the shields in the Tapestry were painted in the way in which we see them. A dragon is a common device; so also is a cross, the four arms of which proceed from the central stud in a sigmoidal curve.

Besides the insignia on the shields, ensigns and banners guided the movements of the armies and their various detachments.[81] The banner of the Norman army is invariably argent, a cross or in a bordure azure. This is repeated over and over again. We meet with it in the war against Conan, as well as at Pevensey and Hastings. There is no trace of the leopards or lions which shortly afterwards made their appearance in the arms of Normandy.

The different chieftains assembling under the Norman standard had each his pennon, gonfanon, or banner. None of these subsidiary standards are square, as the banner of a baron always was when the feudal system was developed. All the flags in the Tapestry have streamers attached to them, like those of a knight’s pennon. It is not impossible, however, that these may represent the ribbons given to the Norman lords, as keepsakes by their ladies. Wace, in describing the battle of Val-des-dunes, says of Raol Tesson, that “he stood on one side afar off, having six score knights and six in his troop—all with their lances raised, and trimmed with silk tokens.” It would thus appear that the practice was not unusual, even in ordinary wars; how much more proper and becoming in a hazardous undertaking like the present. We know that the Norman lords had great difficulty in getting the leave of their ladies to embark in the undertaking. Some feared the battle axes of the Saxon men, others dreaded the influence of the bright eyes of the Saxon ladies—a shrewd fear.[82]

Harold also had a standard. He planted it on the highest part of the eminence on which he marshalled his army for the fight, and by it he fought unflinchingly until cut down by the overpowering strength of the Norman chivalry. William of Malmesbury and several other writers tell us that Harold’s standard was “in the form of a man fighting.”[83] In the Tapestry it is a dragon. Wace does not describe it, but says, “His gonfanon was in truth a noble one, sparkling with gems and precious stones; after the victory William sent it to the Apostle to prove and commemorate his great conquest and glory.”

A glance at the Tapestry will shew that the Saxons were entirely destitute of cavalry.[84] The comparatively limited size of the kingdom had rendered cavalry unnecessary for police purposes, and the Danes, the foreign enemies with whom the English had hitherto to contend, had too wide and stormy an ocean to cross, to attempt the transport of horses for the purposes of war. The great strength of the Norman army consisted in cavalry. William had been accustomed to contend with the King of France and other powerful chiefs in his immediate neighbourhood, and was thus compelled to avail himself of every device which human ingenuity had contrived for maintaining his cause.

The saddles of the horses are peculiar, having a high peak before and behind. We can readily understand how William, when he had become corpulent, received a mortal injury by coming down with violence upon the pommel of such a saddle. No horse armour is used, neither have any of the horses a saddle-cloth. “On the seal of Henry I. is the first representation of a saddle-cloth, and either during that reign or the preceding one, the high peak behind the saddle was altered for a back of greater breadth.”[85] Most of the riders are provided with stirrups and with prick spurs. William’s own horse was either an Arabian or a cross from an Arabian. It was presented to him by the King of Spain.

The Normans were strong in another force, of which the Saxons were almost entirely destitute—bowmen. In the Saxon lines there appears but one solitary bowman, whilst on the Norman side there are many. The Norman archers must have plied their shafts most diligently, for their arrows are sticking in the shields, and to some extent in the bodies of the Saxons, like pins in a lady’s pincushion. In the battle of Hastings the great event of the day turned upon an arrow skilfully sped. Had Harold’s eye not been pierced, the battle would have been a drawn one, and in William’s peculiar circumstance such a result was defeat.

The Saxon javelin differed from the Norman: it was short, and was used as a missile. In the Tapestry we see that some of the English have a bundle of spears in their hands, and that others are in the act of throwing them at the enemy. The Norman spear was a long one, adapted for use on horseback, and was employed in giving a thrust; one only therefore was required by each horseman. The Saxons darted their javelins at an approaching foe, and, when they came to close quarters, relied chiefly upon the vigorous use of the dreadful battle axe. As however at the battle of Hastings the Normans were on horseback, and were armed with long spears, it was with no small difficulty that the English could get within battle axe reach of their foes. In this way many of the Saxons were picked off before they could strike a blow. In Wace we have many examples of this—thus, he speaks of the knight of Tregoz, who “killed two Englishmen; smiting the one through with his lance, and braining the other with his sword; and then galloped his horse back, so that no Englishman touched him.” In the Tapestry (Plate XVI.) we see a horseman thrusting Leofwin, the brother of Harold, through with his lance, who in vain whirls his battle axe around him.

The battle axe of the Saxons had one disadvantage. “A man,” says Wace, “when he wanted to strike with one of their hatchets, was obliged to hold it with both his hands, and could not at the same time, as it seems to me, both cover himself and strike with any freedom.” This fact will account for the disastrous consequences of the retreat of the English at the battle of Hastings, after having been lured by the Normans into a pursuit.

The statements of Agathias, a writer of the sixth century, throw some light upon the Saxon mode of fighting. Speaking of the Franks (a kindred race), he says, “The arms of the Franks are very simple: they wear neither coat of mail nor greaves, but their legs and thighs are defended by bands of linen or leather. Their cavalry is inconsiderable, but they are formidable on foot; they wear a sword on the left thigh and carry a buckler. They use neither bow nor sling, but they are armed with double axes and angones [spears] with which they do most execution. These angones are of a length that may be both used as a javelin or in close fight against a charge of the enemy. The staff of this weapon is covered with iron laminÆ or hoops, so that but very little wood appears, even down to the spike at the butt-end. On either side of the head of this javelin are certain barbs projecting downward close together as far as the shaft. The Frank soldier, when engaged with the enemy, casts his angon, which, if it enter the body, cannot be withdrawn in consequence of the barbs. Nor can the weapon be disengaged if it pierce the shield, for the bearer of the shield cannot cut it off because of the iron plates with which the staff is defended, while the Frank rushing forward jumps upon it as it trails on the ground, and thus bearing down his antagonist’s defence, cleaves his skull with his axe, or transfixes him with a second javelin.”[86]

In the Bayeux Tapestry the javelins in the hands of the Saxons are chiefly barbed, whilst the most of those in the hands of the Normans are lance-shaped, and are formed after the Roman model.

In CÆdmon’s Paraphrase and other Saxon illustrations the spears of the warriors are generally barbed. To what extent the hosts of Harold were armed with the true angon, the chief characteristic of which was a long iron shank, does not of course appear from the Tapestry, the scale being too small to allow of its minute delineation. The following cut exhibits the head of an angon, found in the well of the Roman station of Carvoran in Northumberland.

The sword of the combatants is chiefly remarkable for its great size. The Tapestry in this, as in other particulars, is strictly accurate. Mr. Akerman, after stating that several swords of large size had been found in Frank and Anglo-Saxon graves, says, “One of the finest examples which has ever come under my notice is that found at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, and recently exhibited by Mr. Wylie of that town. Its length, including the handle, is just three feet, the blade broad, two-edged, and pointed.”

The only weapon that remains to be noticed is the mace or club. This was a comparatively rude weapon, which ceased to be used as an instrument of offence after this period. At the battle of Hastings it seems to have been employed by the Saxons only. One is seen in the Tapestry (Plate XIV.), which has been thrown against the advancing line of the Normans, and at the close of the picture the retreating Saxons are seen to be armed with this weapon only.

From the review that we have taken of the equipment of the two armies, it is apparent that the English laboured under very great disadvantages. They were destitute of cavalry, with which the Normans were well provided; they had few archers, and they had no weapon that was a match for the long lance of the Normans. Strong in their insular position, they had neglected to adopt those improvements in the art of war which had been long adopted on the continent. We cannot wonder that, in despite of their native courage and astonishing personal prowess, the Saxons were overborne by the hosts of William on the field of Hastings.

It is time now to attend to the movements of the contending parties, and to trace them in their progress to the field on which their destiny was to be decided.