Chapter XVII: Part II: Historical Studies (3)

Though, by leaving out here and there the discrepancies, the
residue may be worked up into a consecutive and consistent
series of events, such a process amounts to making history,
not writing it. Amidst a mass of contradictory evidence, it
is impossible to arrive at any sure conclusion.... It is,
however, comparatively easy to piece together such details
as will fit of the various stories, and still more easy to
discover reasons for the results which such mosaic work
produces ... [but] it cannot be reasonably regarded as real
history. The method by which the results are obtained bears
too close a resemblance to that by which ... some of the
legends described in the fifth chapter have come to be
accepted as historical narratives.[127]

That is the danger. Such a narrative as that which Mr Freeman has given us must 'come to be accepted as historical' if allowed to pass current without a grave warning. It will doubtless be replied that in his appendices, he frankly admits that 'it is often hard to reconcile the various accounts'; but the question at issue is whether one is justified when, as here, the various accounts are not only 'hard' but impossible to reconcile, in constructing a definite narrative at all, instead of honestly admitting that the matter must be left in doubt.

THE GREAT FEIGNED FLIGHT

There is no feature of the famous battle more familiar or more certain than that of the feigned retreat. It is necessary here to grasp Mr Freeman's view, because he discovers in this man[oe]uvre and its results the decisive turning point of the day.[128]

That there was a great feigned flight, which induced a large portion of the English to break their formation and pursue their foes, is beyond question.[129] But Mr Freeman, on this foundation, built up a legend, for which, we shall find, there exists no evidence whatever. He first assumed that it was 'most likely' the left wing of the assailants which 'turned in seeming flight'[130] (p. 488), and that it was, consequently, 'the English on the right wing' who 'rushed down and pursued them'. Thus:

Through the rash descent of the light-armed on the right,
the whole English army lost its vantage ground. The pursuing
English had left the most easily accessible portion of the
hill open to the approach of the enemy (p. 490).

The result, of course, was that 'the main body of the Normans made their way on the hill, no doubt by the gentle slope' at this point (_ibid._).

The great advantage of the ground was now lost; the Normans
were at last on the hill. Instead of having to cut their way
up the slope, and through the palisades, they could now
charge to the east right against the defenders of the standard
(_ibid._).

These words are most important. They set forth Mr Freeman's theory that Harold now found the Normans charging down upon his right flank instead of attacking him in front. It was in this sense I wrote 'that his weak point was forced, and the English right turned', as the natural result of the 'insane' tactics attributed to him by his champion.[131] The man[oe]uvre assigned by Mr Freeman to the Duke is, in fact, that by which Marlborough won the battle of Ramillies, where he got on to the hill by dislodging the French right, and then wheeled to his own right, outflanking the French centre.

When we turn from this elaborate theory to the authorities on which it is supposed to be based, we find, with some astonishment, that it is all sheer imagination. William of Poitiers, on whom the writer seemed mainly to rely for the feigned flight, states that:

Normanni sociaque turba ... terga dederunt, fugam ex industriâ
simulantes--

words which distinctly imply that this feigned flight was general. Henry of Huntingdon merely writes: 'Docuit Dux Willelmus _genti suæ_ fugam simulare.' No one, certainly, says or implies that it was restricted to the left wing. As for the theory that 'the main body of the Normans' were, by this man[oe]uvre, enabled to seize the western portion of the hill, and thus attack Harold on his flank, it is more imaginary, if possible, still.

The fact is that, as I explained in my original article,[132] Mr Freeman had wholly misconceived the nature of William's man[oe]uvre. The feigned flight was not a simple (as he supposed), but a combined movement. The best account of that movement is found in the Battle Chronicle:

Tandem strenuissimus Boloniæ comes Eustachius clam, callida
præmeditata arte--fugam cum exercitu duce simulante--super
Anglos sparsim agiliter insequentes cum manu valida a tergo
irruit, _sicque et duce hostes ferociter invadente ipsis
interclusis utrinque_ prosternuntur innumeri.

This precise statement, which Mr Freeman omits,[133] affords the clue we seek, explaining the words of William of Poitiers, 'interceptos et inclusos undique mactaverunt'. The retreat of the pursuing English was cut off by the Count's squadrons, and, caught 'between two fires', they were cut down and butchered. The supposition that, while this was going on, the main body of the Normans was riding on to the hill is baseless. The whole host, we have seen, were below, surrounding the English who had left the hill. Had Mr Freeman kept in mind, as he had intended to do, the employment of this old Norman device at the relief of Arques (1053), he would have seen more clearly what really happened. But this, precisely as with his Sherstone precedent, he failed to do.

THE RELIEF OF ARQUES

To illustrate the feigned flight by analogy, I append this passage relating to the stratagem at Arques.

A plan was speedily devised; an ambush was laid; a smaller
party was sent forth to practise that stratagem of pretended
flight which Norman craft was to display thirteen years later
[1066] on a greater scale. The Normans turned; the French
pursued; presently the liers-in-wait were upon them, and the
noblest and bravest of the invading host were slaughtered or
taken prisoners before the eyes of their king (iii. 133).

The man[oe]uvre is elaborately described by Wace (ll. 3491-514) in a passage which ought to be compared, in places, with that on the great 'feinte fuie' itself (ll. 8203-70).

He carefully distinguishes the two parties essential to the stratagem:[134]

Partie pristrent des Normanz,
Des forz e des mielz cumbatanz,
. . . . .
Puis pristrent une autre partie, etc., etc.

The latter detachment turned in flight and decoyed some of the leading Frenchmen past the spot where the ambush was laid. Then, facing round, they caught their rash pursuers 'between two fires'. I have shown above, from the 'precise statement' which is found in the 'Battle Chronicle', that the great man[oe]uvre which deceived the English was a similarly combined one. Mr Freeman, completely missing this point, makes the Norman 'division', which did not take part in the flight 'ride up the hill' (p. 490), where its slopes were deserted, whereas, on the contrary, they thrust themselves between the pursuers and the hill, and then charged on their rear, riding, of course, not on to, but away from the hill.

So close is the Arques parallel that in Wace we find the same words occurring in both cases:

A cels kis alouent chazant Engleis les aloent gabant
E quis alouent leidissant E de paroles laidissant
Sunt enmi le vis tresturne, ....
E Franceis sunt a els mesdle (ll. Torne lor sunt enmi le vis
3501-4); ....
E as Engleis entremesler (ll.
8241-2, 8262-4);

while William of Malmesbury describes the French king as thus 'astutia insidiis exceptus', just as he describes Harold, in turn as thus 'astutiâ Willelmi circumventus'. Mr Freeman quoted both passages, yet failed to note the parallel.

I speak, it will be seen, of 'the relief of Arques'. As my critic so rashly assumed that in my original article I exhausted Mr Freeman's errors,[135] I may point out that this subject introduces us, at once, to fresh ones. Our author, for instance, held that Arques was not relieved. Let us see. We are first rightly told, on the authority of William of Poitiers, that the Duke blockaded the stronghold (_munitio_) by erecting a _castellum_ at its foot (p. 128). On the next page we are told that the latter was 'a wooden tower'--which is precisely what it was not--and that it 'is described as a _munitio_' by William of Poitiers, whereas that term, as we have just seen, denoted, on the contrary, the rebel stronghold itself. Then we are told that the French king marched to the relief of the rebels, bringing with him 'a good stock of provisions, of corn, and of wine' for the purpose, but 'was far from being successful in his enterprise' (p. 131). In fact, he 'went home, having done nothing towards the immediate object of his journey--the relief of the besieged' (p. 137). Mr Freeman added in a note: 'So I understand the not very clear statement of William of Poitiers that the King went away.' Now, William's statement (which is quoted by him) is absolutely clear:

_Perveniens tamen quo ire intenderat_, Rex exacerbatissimis
animis summâ vi præsidium attentavit: Willelmum ab ærumnis uti
eriperet, pariter decrementum sui, stragem suorum vindicaret.

The King, that is, in spite of the ambush, reached his destination (the blockaded stronghold) and then furiously attacked the _castellum_ below, with the double object of raising the blockade and of avenging the death of his followers. Wace is, if possible, even more explicit. After describing the affair of the ambush, he proceeds thus:

Les somiers fist apareilier,
La garisun prendre e chargier,
_À la tur d'Arches fist porter_,
Il meisme fu al mener (II. ll. 3519-22).

Arques, therefore, was duly relieved; the blockading party being only strong enough to defend, when attacked, its own _castellum_.

We will certainly not say of Mr Freeman that he had not read his Wace 'with common care'--to quote from his criticism on Professor Pearson--but really, when _more suo_ he corrected _ex cathedrâ_ the faults of others, he might at least have made sure of his facts. We will take (from the narrative of the Battle of Hastings) the case of the knighting of Harold on the eve of the Breton war:

WACE MR FREEMAN

E Heraut out iloc geu, Mr Planché says that Wace lays
E par la Lande fu passez, the scene at Avranches. He probably
Quant il fu duc amenez, refers to the Roman de Rou, 13723,
Qui a Aurenches donc esteit but the knighthood is not there
E en Bretaigne aler deueit, spoken of (p. 229).
_La le fist li dus chevalier_
[ll. 13720-5].

But it is only the feigned flight that connects the Battle of Hastings with Arques and its blockade. We read, as the battle is about to begin, of 'the aged Walter Giffard, the lord of Longueville, the hero of Arques and Mortemer' (p. 457). As our author breaks the thread of his narrative (pp. 128-37) to tell us in detail about those whose names occur in it, we need not scruple in this instance to do the same. Turning back, therefore, we read:

The chief who now commanded below the steep of Arques lived
to refuse to bear the banner of Normandy below the steep
of Senlac ... and to found, like so many others among the
baronage of Normandy, a short-lived earldom in the land which
he helped to conquer (p. 123).

In the act of that refusal he is thus described:

Even in the days of Arques [1053] and Mortimer [1054] he was
an aged man, and now [1066] he was old indeed; his hair was
white, his arm was failing (p. 465).

Yet we meet the veteran again, a generation later, as 'old Walter Giffard, now [1090] Earl of Buckingham, in England ... the aged warrior of Arques and Senlac' (_W.R._, i. 231). 'Nor do we wonder,' we read, 'to find,' among the supporters of William Rufus in 1095, 'the name of Walter Giffard, him [_sic_] who appeared as an aged man forty years before' (_W.R._, i. 472). But even Mr Freeman admits that 'we are somewhat surprised to find', among the opponents of Henry I in 1101, 'now at the very end of his long life, the aged Walter Giffard, lord of Longueville, and Earl of Buckingham' (_W.R._, ii. 395). Surprised? We are indeed; for, if he was 'an aged man' half a century before, what must he have been when he joined the rebels in 1101? It reminds one of a delightful passage in the quaint 'Memorie of the Somervells', where the artless author, speaking of the action, in 1213, of his ancestor 'being then near the nyntieth and fourth year of his age', observes:

What could have induced him ... to join himself with the
rebellious barrons at such an age, when he could not act any
in all human probabilitie, and was as unfit for counsel, is a
thing to be admired, but not understood or knowne.

One need scarcely point out that Mr Freeman has confused two successive bearers of the name. The confusion is avoided by the Duchess of Cleveland in her work on 'The Battle Abbey Roll', as it had been by Planché and previous writers.

I here notice it chiefly as illustrating Mr Freeman's ready acceptance of even glaring improbabilities.

But one of the most singular flaws in the late Professor's work was his evident tendency to confuse two or more persons bearing the same name. Three or four Leofstans of London were rolled by him into one; Henry of Essex was identified with a Henry who had a different father and who lived in Cumberland; while a whole string of erroneous conclusions followed, we saw, from identifying Osbern 'filius Ricardi' with Osbern 'cognomine Pentecost'.[136] It is strange that one who was so severe on confusion of identity where places were concerned[137] should have been, in the case of persons, guilty of that confusion.

SUMMARY

I would now briefly recapitulate the points I claim to have established. We have seen, in the first place, that Mr Freeman's disposition of the English forces is, with all that it involves, nothing but a sheer guess--a guess to which he did not consistently adhere, and to which his own precedent, moreover, is directly opposed. Secondly, as to the 'palisade' which formed, according to him, so prominent a feature of the battle, we have found that of the passages he vouched for its existence only one need even be considered; and that one, according to himself, where he last quotes and deals with it, describes, not a palisade but the time-honoured 'array of the shield-wall'.[138] Then, passing to the battle and taking it stage by stage, I have shown that on its opening phase he went utterly astray in search of an imaginary assault on a phantom palisade; we have seen how another such guess transported to 'the western ravine' a catastrophe which, even on his own showing, must have happened somewhere else, and assigned it to a stage of the battle which is quite possibly the wrong one. We have watched him missing the point of the great feigned flight and failing to see how Norman craft caught the English in a trap. And lastly, the critical man[oe]uvre of the day, by which the Duke's great object was gained, and 'the great advantage of the ground lost' to the English, proves on inquiry--although introduced, like other assertions, as a historic fact--to be yet another unsupported guess: for the statement that by this man[oe]uvre 'the Normans were at last on the hill' and could thus 'charge to the east right against the defenders of the Standard' there is absolutely no foundation.

We have now--confining ourselves to points as to which there can be no question--examined Mr Freeman's account of the Battle of Hastings. It is, as I showed at the outset, the very crown and flower of his work, and it is, I venture to assert, mistaken in its essential points. Must it, then, be cast aside as simply erroneous and misleading? Hardly. In the words of his own criticism on Mr Coote's _Romans in Britain_: 'It ought to be read, if only as a curious study, to show how utterly astray an ingenious and thoroughly well-informed man can go.' For there is the true conclusion. The possession of exhaustive knowledge, the devotion of unsparing pains--neither of these were wanting. Then 'wanting is--what?' Men have differed and will always differ, as to how history should be written; but on one point we are all agreed. The true historian is he, and he only, who, from the evidence before him, can divine the facts. Other qualities are welcome, but this is the essential gift. And it was because, here at least, he lacked in that, in spite of all his advantages, in spite of his genius and his zeal, our author, in his story of this battle, failed as we have seen.

Mr Freeman held that his predecessors, Thierry and Sir Francis Palgrave, 'singularly resemble each other in a certain lack of critical power'. His own lack, as I conceive it, was of a somewhat different kind. For if he studied the text and weighed the value of his authorities, yet he was often liable to danger from his tendency to a _parti pris_. Setting out with his own impression, he read his texts in the light of that impression rather than with an open mind. Thus we might say of his 'very lucid and original account' of the great battle, as he said of Mr Coote's work: 'The truth of the whole matter is that all this very ingenious but baseless fabric has been built upon the foundation of a single error.' Had he not stumbled at the outset over that 'quasi castellum', he might never have erected that 'ingenious but baseless fabric'. As it is, while the battle should be largely rewritten, preserving only such incidents as are taken straight from the authorities, the accompanying plan must be wholly destroyed. Till then, as Dr Stubbs has said of the discovery that 'Ingulf' was a forgery, 'it remains a warning light, a wandering marshfire, to caution the reader not to accept too abjectly the conclusions of his authority'.

What then remains, it may be asked, of Mr Freeman's narrative? When one remembers its superb vividness, carrying us away in spite of ourselves, one is tempted to reply, in his own words on the saga of Stamfordbridge:

We have, indeed, a glorious description which, when critically
examined, proves to be hardly more worthy of belief than a
battlepiece in the Iliad.... Such is the magnificent legend
which has been commonly accepted as the history of this famous
battle.... And it is disappointing that, for so detailed and
glowing a tale, we have so little of authentic history to
substitute (pp. 365-8).

For, as he has so justly observed, when dismissing as 'mythical' this 'famous and magnificent saga' (pp. 328-9), 'a void is left which history cannot fill, and which it is forbidden to the historian to fill up from the resources of his own imagination'.

Accepting the principle here enunciated by Mr Freeman himself, I do not merely reject demonstrably erroneous statements. I protest against his giving us a narrative drawn 'from the resources of his own imagination'. It is no answer to say that his guesses cannot be actually proved to be wrong; the historian cannot distinguish too sharply between statements drawn from his authorities and guesses, however ingenious, representing imagination alone. No one I am sure, reading Mr Freeman's brilliant narrative, could imagine how largely his story of the battle is based on mere conjecture.

What the battle really was may be thus tersely expressed--it was Waterloo without the Prussians. The Normans could avail nothing against that serried mass.

Dash'd on every rocky square,
Their surging charges foam'd themselves away.

As Mr Oman has so well observed, the Norman horse might have surged for ever 'around the impenetrable shield-wall'.[139] It was only, as he and Mr Hunt[140] have shown, by the skilful combination of horsemen and archers, by the maddening showers of arrows between the charges of the horse, that the English, especially the lighter armed, were stung into breaking their formation and abandoning that passive defence to which they were unfortunately restricted. 'While no mode of array could be stronger so long as the line remained unbroken, it made it hard to form the line again.'[141] Dazzled by the rapid movements of their foes, now advancing, now retreating, either in feint or in earnest, the English, in places, broke their line, and then the Duke, as Mr Oman writes, 'thrust his horsemen into the gaps'.[142] All this is quite certain, and is what the authorities plainly describe. Let us, then, keep to what we know. Is it not enough for us to picture the English line stubbornly striving to the last to close its broken ranks, the awful scene of slaughter and confusion, as the Old Guard of Harold, tortured by Norman arrows, found the horsemen among them at last, slashing and piercing right and left. Still the battle-axe blindly smote; doggedly, grimly still they fought, till the axes dropped from their lifeless grasp. And so they fell.

Mr Archer, when he first came forward to defend 'Mr Freeman's account of the great battle',[143] observed that I claimed 'here to prove the entire inadequacy of Mr Freeman's work', that I held him 'wrong, completely wrong in his whole conception of the battle'.[144] And he admitted that

'such a contention, it will at once be perceived, is very
different from any mere criticism of detail; it affects the
centre and the very heart of Mr Freeman's work. If he could
blunder here in the most carefully elaborated passage of his
whole history, he could blunder anywhere; his reputation for
accuracy would be gone almost beyond hope of retrieving it'
(p. 336).

'Blunder', surely, is a harsh word. I would rather say that the historian is seen here at his strongest and at his weakest: at his weakest in his tendency to follow blindly individual authorities in turn, instead of grasping them as a whole, and, worse still, in adapting them, at need, to his own preconceived notions; at his strongest, in his Homeric power of making the actors in his drama live and move before us. Not in vain has 'the wand of the enchanter', as an ardent admirer once termed it, been waved around Harold and his host. We are learning from recent German researches how the narratives of early Irish warfare are 'perfectly surrounded with magic'; how, for instance, at the battle of Culdreimne 'a Druid wove a magic hedge, which he placed before the army as a hindrance to the enemy'. But spells are now no longer wrought

With woven paces and with waving hands;

and the Druid's hedge must go the way of our own magician's 'palisade'.

But, as I foresaw, in his eagerness to prove, at least, the existence of a palisade, my critic was soon reduced to impugning Mr Freeman's own supreme authority, and at last to throwing over Mr Freeman himself. 'Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim.' Sneering[145] at what the historian termed his 'highest', his 'primary' authority, that 'precious monument', the Bayeux Tapestry--merely because it will not square with his views--he rejects utterly Mr Freeman's theory as to its date and origin,[146] and substitutes one which the Professor described as 'utterly inconceivable'.[147] He has further informed us that 'common sense' tells him that the English axemen cannot possibly have fought 'in the close array of the shield-wall', as Mr Freeman says they did.[148] And then he finally demolishes Mr Freeman's 'conception of the battle' by dismissing 'an imaginary shield-wall',[149] and assuring us that the absurd vision of 'an extended shield-wall vanishes like smoke'.[150]

It is impossible not to pity Mr Freeman's would-be champion. Scorning, at the outset, the thought that his hero could err 'in the most carefully elaborated passage of his whole history',[151] his attitude of bold defiance was a joy to Mr Freeman's friends.[152]

[Greek: amphi d' ar' autô baine leôn hôs alki pepoithôs,
prosthe de hoi dyry t' esche kai aspida pantos eisên,
ton ktamenai memaôs hos tis tou g' antios elthoi,
smerdalea iachôn.]

But his wildly brandished weapon proved more deadly to friend than foe: he discovered, as I knew, he could only oppose me by making jettison of Mr Freeman's views. Of this we have seen above examples striking enough; but the climax was reached in his chief contention, namely, that the lines in the _Roman de Rou_, which describe, Mr Freeman asserted, 'the array of the shield-wall',[153] cannot, on many grounds, be 'referred to a shield-wall'.[154] No contradiction could be more complete. So he now finds himself forced to write:

I do not say--I have _never_ said--that I agree with every
word that Mr Freeman has written about the great battle; but I
do regard his account of Hastings as the noblest battle-piece
in our historical literature--perhaps in that of the
world.[155]

'O most lame and impotent conclusion!' We are discussing whether that account is 'right', not whether it is 'noble'. To the splendour of that narrative I have borne no sparing witness. I have spoken of its 'superb vividness', I have praised its 'epic grandeur', I have dwelt on the writer's 'Homeric power of making the actors in his drama live and move before us', and have compared his tale with the 'glorious description' in the saga of Stamfordbridge. But the nearer it approaches to the epic and the saga, the less likely is that stirring tale to be rigidly confined to fact.

I will not say of Mr Archer, 'his attack must be held to have failed', for that would imperfectly express its utter and absolute collapse.

The whole of my original argument as to the narrative of the battle remains not merely unshaken, but, it will be seen, untouched. Mr Archer himself has now pleaded that 'the only' point he 'took up directly' was that of the disputed passage in Wace;[156] and here he could only make even the semblance of a case by deliberately ignoring and suppressing Mr Freeman's own verdict (iii. 763-4), to which, from the very first, I have persistently referred. In his latest, as in his earliest article, he adheres to this deliberate suppression, and falsely represents 'Mr Freeman's interpretation' as 'a palisade or barricade' alone.[157]

Those who may object to plain speaking should rather denounce the tactics that make such speaking necessary. When my adversary claims that his case is proved, if the disputed passage does not describe a shield-wall, he is perfectly aware that Mr Freeman distinctly asserted that it did. To suppress that fact, as Mr Archer does,[158] can only be described as dishonest.

Judging from the desperate tactics to which my opponent resorted, it would seem that my 'attack' on Mr Freeman's work cannot here be impugned by any straightforward means. The impotent wrath aroused by its success will lead, no doubt, to other attempts equally unscrupulous and equally futile. But truth cannot be silenced, facts cannot be obscured. I appeal, sure of my ground, to the verdict of historical scholars, awaiting, with confidence and calm, the inevitable triumph of the truth.