Chapter XVIII: Conclusion (1)

'History is philosophy teaching by examples.' In one sense the period of the Conquest was, as Mr Freeman asserted in his preface, 'a period of our history which is full alike of political instruction and of living personal interest'. In one sense, it is an object-lesson never more urgently needed than it is at the present hour. Only that lesson is one which Mr Freeman could never teach, because it is the bitterest commentary on the doctrines he most adored. In the hands of a patriot, in the hands of a writer who placed England before party, the tale might have burned like a beacon-fire, warning us that what happened in the past, might happen now, today. The Battle of Hastings has its moral and its moral is for us. An almost anarchical excess of liberty, the want of a strong centralized system, the absorption in party strife, the belief that politics are statesmanship, and that oratory will save a people--these are the dangers of which it warns us, and to which the majority of Englishmen are subject now as then. But Mr Freeman, like the Bourbons, never learnt, and never forgot. A democrat first, an historian afterwards, History was for him, unhappily, ever 'past politics'. If he worshipped Harold with a blind enthusiasm, it was chiefly because he was a _novus homo_, 'who reigned purely by the will of the people'. He insisted that the English, on the hill of battle, were beaten through lack of discipline, through lack of obedience to their king; but he could not see that the system in which he gloried, a system which made the people 'a co-ordinate authority' with their king, was the worst of all trainings for the hour of battle; he could not see that, like Poland, England fell, in large measure, from the want of a strong rule, and from excess of liberty. To him the voice of 'a sovereign people' was 'the most spirit-stirring of earthly sounds'; but it availed about as much to check the Norman Conquest as the fetish of an African savage, or the yells of Asiatic hordes. We trace in his history of Sicily the same blindness to fact. Dionysius was for him, as he was for Dante, merely--

Dionisio fero
Che fe' Cicilia aver dolorosi anni.

But, in truth, the same excess of liberty that left England a prey to the Normans had left Sicily, in her day, a prey to Carthage: the same internal jealousies paralysed her strength. And yet he could not forgive Dionysius, the man who gave Sicily what she lacked, the rule of a 'strong man armed', because, in a democrat's eyes, Dionysius was a 'tyrant'. That I am strictly just in my criticism of Mr Freeman's attitude at the Conquest, is, I think, abundantly manifest, when even so ardent a democrat as Mr Grant Allen admits that

a people so helpless, so utterly anarchic, so incapable of
united action, deserved to undergo a severe training from
the hard task-masters of Romance civilization. The nation
remained, but it remained as a conquered race, to be drilled
in the stern school of the conquerors.[159]

Such were the bitter fruits of Old-English freedom. And, in the teeth of this awful lesson, Mr Freeman could still look back with longing to 'a free and pure Teutonic England',[160] could still exult in the thought that a democratic age is bringing England ever nearer to her state 'before the Norman set foot upon her shores'.

But the school of which he was a champion has long seen its day. A reactionary movement, as has been pointed out by scholars in America, as in Russia[161] has invaded the study of history, has assailed the supremacy of the Liberal school, and has begun to preach, as the teaching of the past, the dangers of unfettered freedom.

Politics are not statesmanship. Mr Freeman confused the two. There rang from his successor a truer note when, as he traversed the seas that bind the links of the Empire, he penned those words that appeal to the sons of an imperial race, sunk in the strife of parties or the politics of a parish pump, to rise to the level of their high inheritance among the nations of the earth. What was the Empire, what was India--we all remember that historic phrase--to one whose ideal, it would seem, of statesmanship, was that of an orator in Hyde Park? Godwine, the ambitious, the unscrupulous agitator, is always for him 'the great deliverer'. Whether in the Sicily of the 'tyrants', or the England of Edward the Confessor, we are presented, under the guise of history, with a glorification of demagogy.

No man ever deserved a higher or a more lasting place in
national gratitude than the first man who, being neither King
nor Priest, stands forth in English history as endowed with
all the highest attributes of the statesman. In him, in
those distant times, we can revere the great minister, the
unrivalled parliamentary leader, the man who could sway
councils and assemblies at his will, etc., etc.[162]

We know of whom the writer was thinking, when he praised that 'irresistible tongue';[163] he had surely before him a living model, who, if not a statesman, was, no doubt, an 'unrivalled parliamentary leader'. Do we not recognize the portrait?--

The mighty voice, the speaking look and gesture of that old
man eloquent, could again sway assemblies of Englishmen at his
will.[164]

The voice which had so often swayed assemblies of Englishmen,
was heard once more in all the fulness of its eloquence.[165]

But it was not an 'irresistible tongue', nor 'the harangue of a practised orator', of which England stood in need. Forts and soldiers, not tongues, are England's want now as then. But to the late Regius Professor, if there was one thing more hateful than 'castles', more hateful even than hereditary rule, it was a standing army. When the Franco-German war had made us look to our harness, he set himself at once, with superb blindness, to sneer at what he termed 'the panic', to suggest the application of democracy to the army, and to express his characteristic aversion to the thought of 'an officer and a gentleman'.[166] How could such a writer teach the lesson of the Norman Conquest?

'The long, long canker of peace' had done its work--'vivebatur enim tunc pene ubique in Anglia perditis moribus, et pro pacis affluentia deliciarum fervebat luxus.'[167] The land was ripe for the invader, and a saviour of Society was at hand. While our fathers were playing at democracy, watching the strife of rival houses, as men might now watch the contest of rival parties, the terrible Duke of the Normans was girding himself for war. _De nobis fabula narratur._

[Footnote 1: Mr T. A. Archer (_Contemporary Review_, March
1893, p. 336).]

[Footnote 2: Mr Freeman saw nothing grotesque in Orderic's
description of Exeter, as 'in plano sita' (_Norm. Conq._, iv.
153), though its site 'sets Exeter distinctly among the hill
cities' (Freeman's _Exeter_, p. 6).]

[Footnote 3: That I may not be accused of passing over any
defence of Mr Freeman, I give the reference to Mr Archer's
letter in _Academy_ of November 4, 1893, arguing, as against
Mr Harrison, that the story of a great 'naval engagement' in
1066 may probably be traced 'to the seaside associations of
the name Hastings'. Unfortunately for him, Mr Freeman himself
had quoted this wild story (iii. 729) and suggested quite a
different explanation, namely, that it originated, not in the
Battle of Hastings, but in some real 'naval operations'.]

[Footnote 4: Since this passage appeared in print my opponents
themselves have written of the Battle of Hastings [_sic_], and
Mr Archer has admitted that 'to speak of Senlac in ordinary
conversation, or in ordinary writing, is a piece of pedantry'
(_Academy_ _ut supra_). On my own use of the word before I had
examined Mr Freeman's authority, see p. 273.]

[Footnote 5: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 444.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 757.]

[Footnote 7: Mr Archer writes: '_Pel_ is literally "stake",
and originally, of course, represented the upright or
horizontal stakes which go to make a palisade' (_English
Historical Review_, ix. 6).]

[Footnote 8: _Ibid._, p. 10. The word which Mr Freeman (and
others) rendered 'ash' is rendered 'windows of farm dwellings'
by Mr Archer (see below, p. 308).]

[Footnote 9: Mr Archer would have us believe that 'Mr Freeman
really had in his mind ... a real wall of real shields and
stakes' (_English Historical Review_, 16), and that the
English would 'strap up their shields to the stakes', would
combine 'their shields and poles', and so forth (20).]

[Footnote 10: This is Mr Oman's third and (up to now) final
explanation (_Academy_, June 9, 1894).]

[Footnote 11: _English Historical Review_, ix. 232.]

[Footnote 12: _Ibid._, ix. 232-3, 237-8, 240.]

[Footnote 13: The difficulty of hauling timber even a short
distance over broken and hilly ground 'in an October of those
days' (_N.C._, iii. 446) must not be forgotten.]

[Footnote 14: The italics are Mr Freeman's own.]

[Footnote 15: He even spoke of it as 'the main castle' (_Arch.
Journ._, xl. 359).]

[Footnote 16: Miss Norgate (_Angevin Kings_) follows him,
speaking of their assailants striving 'to assault them as if
besieging a fortress'. One is reminded of Mr Freeman's remark
as to Hastings, that Harold turned 'the battle as far as
possible into the likeness of a siege' (see above).]

[Footnote 17: 'Men ranged so closely together in the thick
array of the shield-wall' (iii. 471).]

[Footnote 18: _Cont. Rev._, March 1893.]

[Footnote 19: _English Historical Review_, ix. 12.]

[Footnote 20: My detailed reply to Mr Archer's attempt to
confuse the 'fosse' and the palisade will be found in _ibid._,
ix. 213, 214.]

[Footnote 21: He paraphrased 'escuz de fenestres è d'altres
fuz' as 'firm barricades of ash and other timber'.]

[Footnote 22: I supply the passage in square brackets (the
italics are my own) from the earlier volume to explain Mr
Freeman's reference.]

[Footnote 23: _Quarterly Review_, July 1892, p. 14.]

[Footnote 24: I am loth to introduce into the text the
wearisome details of controversy, especially where they are
_nihil ad rem_, and have no bearing on my argument. But, lest
I should be charged with ignoring any defence of Mr Freeman, I
will briefly explain in this note the attitude adopted by his
champions.

In the _Contemporary Review_ of March 1893, Mr T. A. Archer
produced a reply to my original article (_Quarterly Review_,
July 1892), or rather, to that part of it which dealt with the
Battle of Hastings. Declaring my attack on the palisade to
be my 'only definite and palpable charge against Mr Freeman's
account' (p. 273) which, it will be found, is not the case--he
undertook to 'show Mr Freeman to have been entirely right in
the view he took of the whole question' (p. 267). To do this,
he deliberately suppressed the fatal passage (iii. 763-4) I
have printed above--to which, in my article, I had prominently
appealed--in order to represent me as alone in seeing a
description of the shield-wall in Wace's lines (p. 267).
He then insisted that 'there are six distinct objections to
translating this passage as if it referred to a shield-wall'
(p. 270).

Instantly reminded by me (_Athenæum_, March 18, April 8,
1893), that Mr Freeman himself had taken it as a description
of the shield-wall, and challenged to account for the fact,
again charged (_Quarterly Review_, July 1893, p. 88), with
'ignoring a fact in the presence of which his elaborate
argument collapses like a house of cards', further challenged
(_Academy_, September 16, 1893) to reconcile Mr Freeman's
words (iii. 763-4), with his representation of the historian's
position, Mr Archer continued to shirk the point, till in the
_English Historical Review_ of January 1894, he grudgingly
confessed that 'the discovery that a shield-wall (of some sort
or other) was implied in this so-called "crucial passage", is
due to Mr Freeman' (p. 3), but he and Miss Norgate endeavoured
to urge that it could not be as I imagined, the shield-wall
that he had always spoken of (pp. 3, 16, 62). Even this
feeble evasion, now seems to be dropped since I disposed of it
(_ibid._, 225-7).]

[Footnote 25: _Quarterly Review_, July 1892, p. 15.]

[Footnote 26: See below, p. 284.]

[Footnote 27: _Quarterly Review_, July 1893, p. 84.]

[Footnote 28: _Athenæum_, March 18, 1893.]

[Footnote 29: _English Historical Review_, ix. 40.]

[Footnote 30: _Ibid._, p. 58.]

[Footnote 31: _Cont. Rev._, 351.]

[Footnote 32: _Quarterly Review_, July 1893, pp. 93-4.]

[Footnote 33: _Ibid._, ix. 27, 28.]

[Footnote 34: _English Historical Review_, 219-25.]

[Footnote 35: _Ibid._, ix. 607. The italics are Mr Archer's
own. His own trusted authority, Wace, posts the English in 'un
champ' (ii. 7729, 7769)!]

[Footnote 36: _Norman Conquest_, iii. 419, 420.]

[Footnote 37: No one, of course, would treat the Tapestry like
a modern illustrated journal; but if it be fairly treated,
in Mr Freeman's spirit, one's real wonder is that, under
such obvious limitations, the designer should have been so
successful as he has. Nowhere, perhaps, is the painstaking
accuracy of the Bayeux Tapestry better seen than in its
miniature representation of the fortress at Dinan. It shows us
the _motte_, or artificial mound, surrounded by its ditch,
and even the bank beyond the ditch, together with the wooden
bridge springing (as we know it did in such castles) from that
bank to the summit of the mound.

As to Mr Archer's attempts to show that Mr Freeman in one or
two instances did not value so highly as he did what he deemed
the supreme authority for the battle, I need only print Mr
Freeman's words, parallel with his own comments, to show how
their character is distorted.

MR FREEMAN MR ARCHER

The testimony of Florence is He rejects the Tapestry's account
confirmed by a witness more of Harold's coronation,
unexceptionable than all, by following Florence of Worcester's
the earliest and most statement--that Harold was
trustworthy witness on the crowned by Aldred, Archbishop
Norman side, by the of York--in avowed
contemporary Tapestry ... in opposition to his own reading of
every statement but one.... the Tapestry, i.e. that Harold
The Tapestry implies--_it can was crowned by Stigand.
hardly be said directly to
affirm_--that the consecrator
was Stigand (iii. 582). The
representation in the
Tapestry is singular. _It
does not show Stigand
crowning or anointing Harold_
(iii. 620).

It has been remarked by Mr He rejects _in toto_ the
Planché and others, that at Tapestry's version of Edward the
this point the order of time Confessor's death, for that
is forsaken; the burial of 'priceless record' makes _Edward
Eadward is placed before his buried before he died!_ Mr
deathbed and death. On this Freeman, and perhaps not
Dr Bruce says _very truly_: altogether without reason,
'the seeming inconsistency follows the saner notion of other
is very easily explained', authorities, that Edward died
etc., etc. (iii. 587) ... I before he was buried (_English
do not think that any one Historical Review_, ix. 607).
who makes the comparison
minutely (between the
Tapestry and the Life) will
attach much importance to
the sceptical remarks of Mr
Planché (_ibid._).

One would hardly imagine from Mr Archer's sneers that Mr Freeman
had really vindicated the Tapestry from its 'seeming inconsistency',
did one not know him, as a writer, to be _capable de tout_.]

[Footnote 38: _Cont. Rev._, p. 351.]

[Footnote 39: _English Historical Review_, ix. 607.]

[Footnote 40: I wish, as I have done throughout, to make
it absolutely clear that I am here concerned only with Mr
Freeman's rendering of Wace. If we are to go outside that
rendering and discuss Wace _de novo_, it is best to do so in a
fresh section. This I hope to do below, when I shall discuss
the question of his authority (which has not yet arisen),
and shall also propound my own explanation of the now famous
disputed passage.]

[Footnote 41: In my first article (_Quarterly Review_, July
1892, pp. 15-16) I pointed out that the great weight attached
to Mr Freeman's statements had of course 'secured universal
acceptance' for the palisade, and that it figures 'now in
every history'. Mr Archer, in his latest paper, refers to
these remarks (_English Historical Review_, ix. 602) and
triumphantly charges me with self-contradiction in having
myself once accepted it, like every one else. He refers to
an incidental allusion by me in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_ so many years ago that I was unaware of its
existence. I am particularly glad to be reminded of the fact
that I did allude, in early days, to the 'palisade' and to
'Senlac', for it emphasizes the very point of my case, namely,
that that mischievous superstition of Mr Freeman's unfailing
accuracy must be ruthlessly destroyed lest others should be
taught, as I was, to accept his authority as supreme.

My opponent writes:

'Mr Round ... in direct contradiction to the _Quarterly_
reviewer, has found for it [the palisade] an authority in
William of Poitiers, and _has gone far beyond Mr Freeman
himself in giving us the name of the man who first broke it
down_.'

How has Mr Archer produced the alleged 'contradiction'? He has
taken a passage from my notice of Robert de Beaumont, written
years before I had made any independent investigation of the
Battle of Hastings, and when I thought, like the rest of
the world, that I might, here at any rate, safely follow Mr
Freeman, when it was only a matter of a passing allusion to
the fight. The following parallel passages will prove, beyond
the shadow of doubt, that I here merely followed Mr Freeman,
accepting his own authority--William of Poitiers--for the
incident. Any one in my place would have done the same. But
Mr Archer asserts that, on the contrary, I went 'far beyond
Mr Freeman himself in giving us the name of the man who first
broke it down'. Let us see if this definite statement is true:

MR FREEMAN MY ARTICLE

The new castle was placed in Of these [sons] Robert fought at
the keeping of Henry, the Senlac ... [and] was _the first
younger son of Roger of to break down the English
Beaumont. A great estate in palisade_ ... he was rewarded
the shire also fell to with large grants in
Henry's elder brother, Warwickshire, and Warwick Castle
Robert, Count of Melent, who, was entrusted to his brother
at the head of the French Henry--_Dict. Nat. Biog._, iv. 64.
auxiliaries, had been _the (Mr Freeman's works, of course,
first to break down the are given among the authorities
English palisade_ at for the article.)
Senlac--_Norman Conquest_,
iv. [1871] 191-2. See also
iii. 486, and _Will. Rufus_,
i. 185, ii. 135, 402.

So much for Mr Archer's assertion that I made an independent
statement not found in Mr Freeman's pages. It is obviously
impossible to conduct a controversy with an opponent who does
not restrict himself to fact.]

[Footnote 42: _William the Conqueror_ (1888), p. 90.]

[Footnote 43: 'Had they done so, they must have been set so
close that they could not have used their weapons with any
freedom' (_Cont. Rev._, p. 346).]

[Footnote 44: _Short History_, p. 79.]

[Footnote 45: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 763, _ut supra_.]

[Footnote 46: _Ibid._, iii. p. 471.]

[Footnote 47: _Ibid._, i. 271; cf. _W.R._, ii. 411.]

[Footnote 48: _Ibid._, iii. 732.]

[Footnote 49: _Cont. Rev._, 348.]

[Footnote 50: _Norman Britain_ (S.P.C.K.), p. vi.]

[Footnote 51: _Ibid._, pp. 79, 80.]

[Footnote 52: _Dict. Nat. Biography_ (1890), xxx. 424.]

[Footnote 53: _English Historical Review_, ix. 2.]

[Footnote 54: _Cont. Rev._, p. 348.]

[Footnote 55: _Ibid._, p. 346.]

[Footnote 56: _Quarterly Review_, July 1893, p. 90.]

[Footnote 57: _Old English History_, p. 335.]

[Footnote 58: Wace, of course, is the only one worth
mentioning of the three last, and even his 'decisive words'
prove to be only a personal opinion ('_ço me semble_') that
the axeman's shield must have hampered him (see _Cont. Rev._,
348, and _Norm. Conq._, iii. 765).]

[Footnote 59: _Q.R._, July 1893, p. 91.]

[Footnote 60: _English Historical Review_, ix. 607.]

[Footnote 61: Oman's _Art of War in the Middle Ages_, 24 (see
_Q.R._, July 1893, p. 90).]

[Footnote 62: Compare (as Mr Freeman does) Æthelred's
description of the English array of the Battle of the
Standard: 'lateribus latera conseruntur'.]

[Footnote 63: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 491.]

[Footnote 64: _Ibid._, p. 471.]

[Footnote 65: _Old English History_, p. 334.]

[Footnote 66: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 764; cf. _English Historical
Review_, ix. 18.]

[Footnote 67: 'This is the _shield-wall_, the famous tactic
of the English and Danes alike. We shall hear of it in all
the great battles down to the end.' (Freeman's _Old English
History_, p. 112.)]

[Footnote 68: _Ibid._, p. 155.]

[Footnote 69: _Ibid._, p. 196.]

[Footnote 70: _Norm. Conq._, iii. viii.]

[Footnote 71: _Ibid._, pp. 445-6.]

[Footnote 72: _Ibid._, p. 472.]

[Footnote 73: _Ibid._, p. 480.]

[Footnote 74: _Norm. Conq._, iii. pp. 488, 490.]

[Footnote 75: _Ibid._, p. 490.]

[Footnote 76: 'The battle was lost through the error of those
light-armed troops who, in disobedience to the King's orders,
broke their line to pursue' (_Ibid._, 505).]

[Footnote 77: 'The day had now turned decidedly in favour of
the invaders' (_Ibid._, 491). I am obliged to quote these two
passages, because my opponents have not shrunk from impugning
(_Cont. Rev._, 353; _English Historical Review_, ix. 70) the
accuracy of the words in the text (which are from _Q.R._, July
1892, p. 17).]

[Footnote 78: _Q.R._, July 1893, 101.]

[Footnote 79: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 472.]

[Footnote 80: To have placed some of them as an advanced post
on the 'small detached hill' in front would have been to leave
them _en l'air_, exposed to certain destruction from an attack
which they could not check. For Mr Freeman held that, even if
occupied by an outpost, it was only by the 'light-armed'. (See
_Q.R._, July 1893, pp. 99, 100.)]

[Footnote 81: On what ground are the Bretons so described?
Guy, quoted by Mr Freeman (iii. 459) writes of them here:
'Gensque Britannorum quorum decus exstat in armis, Tellus ni
fugiat est fuga nulla quibus'.]

[Footnote 82: I have replied in _English Historical Review_
(ix. 255) to Miss Norgate's characteristic quibble (_ibid._,
p. 75) that these quotations apply to the Scottish army
alone--for the principle applies alike to 'armati' and
'armatos', to 'milites' and to 'militibus'.]

[Footnote 83: Down to this point the present section is all
reprinted from my original article (_Q.R._, July 1892), as not
calling for any alteration or correction.]

[Footnote 84: 'The general mass of the less well-armed troops
of the shire in the rear.' (_England under the Angevin Kings_,
i. 290.)]

[Footnote 85: _English Historical Review_, ix. 611.]

[Footnote 86: When the Scotch, he writes, 'amentatis
missilibus et lanceis longissimis super aciem equitum
nostrorum loricatam percutiunt, quasi muro ferreo offendentes,
impenetrabiles [compare the 'impenetrabiles' ranks of
the English at Hastings, _supra_, p. 276] invenerunt....
Equitantes enim nulla ratione diu persistere potuerunt
contra milites loricatos pede persistentes et immobiliter
coacervatos' (pp. 264-5). Miss Norgate follows him, writing:
'The wild Celts of Galloway dashed headlong upon the English
front, only to find their spears and javelins glance off from
the helmets and shields of the knights as from an iron wall.']

[Footnote 87: 'Tota namque gens Normannorum et Anglorum in una
acie circum Standard conglobata, persistebant immobiles'
(Hen. Hunt). 'Australes, quoniam pauci erant, in unum cuneum
sapientissime glomerantur' (_Æth. Riv._).]

[Footnote 88: It is no less interesting than curious that
the Bayeux Tapestry enables us to see how the archers
were combined with the mailed knights at the Battle of the
Standard. It shows us (on its principle of giving a type) an
English archer of whom Mr Freeman has well observed: 'He is a
small man without armour crouching under the shield of a tall
Housecarl, like Teukros under that of Aias' (iii. 472). So
Æthelred writes that the mailed warriors 'sagittarios ita sibi
inseruerunt ut, _militaribus armis protecti_, tanto acrius
quanto securius vel in hostes irruerent, vel exciperent
irruentes'.]

[Footnote 89: 'Proceres qui maturioris ætatis fuerunt ...
circa signum regium constituuntur, quibusdam altius ceteris
in ipsa machina collatis' (_Æth. Riv._). 'Circum Standard in
pectore belli condensantur' (_Ric. Hex._).]

[Footnote 90: 'Reliqua autem multitudo undique conglomerata
eos circumvallabat' (_ibid._).]

[Footnote 91: _Norm. Conq._, i. 383.]

[Footnote 92: _Ibid._, iii. 472.]

[Footnote 93: _Old English History_, p. 331.]

[Footnote 94: _English Historical Review_, ix. 75.]

[Footnote 95: _Old English History_, p. 333.]

[Footnote 96: Miss Norgate, unable to deny the glaring
'self-contradiction' involved in Mr Freeman's words, dismisses
it as a 'matter of secondary importance' (_English Historical
Review_, ix. 74).]

[Footnote 97: _English Historical Review_, ix. 74.]

[Footnote 98: _Q.R._, July 1892, p. 19.]

[Footnote 99: _Q.R._, July 1893, pp. 102-3; cf. _Q.R._, July
1892, p. 18; _English Historical Review_, ix. 254.]

[Footnote 100: It might, for all we know, have formed a
crescent or semi-circle, its wings resting strongly on the
rear-slopes of the hill; or even a 'wedge', as, indeed, Mr
Freeman twice described it (i. 271, iii. 471).]

[Footnote 101: _English Historical Review_, ix. 74.]

[Footnote 102: _Cont. Rev._, p. 353.]

[Footnote 103: _Q.R._, July 1892, p. 19.]

[Footnote 104: Since this passage appeared (as it stands) in
my original article (_Q.R._, July 1892, p. 19), I have noted
a curious confirmation in Æthelred's words where he speaks
of the archers at the Battle of the Standard as 'militaribus
armis protecti [ut] tanto acrius quanto securius vel in hostes
irruerent, vel exciperent irruentes'. For, as I wrote (p. 20),
'it would naturally be they who, like cavalry in modern times,
would harass and follow up a retreating foe'.]

[Footnote 105: _Old English History_, p. 334.]

[Footnote 106: For Baudri's poem see _Q.R._, July 1893, pp.
73-5. As to Baudri's authority, I need only repeat what I
wrote in the _English Historical Review_ (ix. 217): 'Mr Archer
endeavours, of course, to pooh-pooh it. Now I call special
attention to the fact that the test I apply to Baudri is that
which Mr Freeman applied to the Tapestry, the obvious test of
internal evidence. But Mr Archer's ways are not as those of
other historians: instead of examining, as I did, Baudri's
account in detail he dismisses it on the ground that the
writer's "description _of the world_" at that date could
not be accurate (_ibid._, 29). We are not dealing with his
"description of the world"; we are dealing with his lines on
the battle of Hastings.']

[Footnote 107: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 467, 477.]

[Footnote 108: _English Historical Review_, ix. 42-3, 603.]

[Footnote 109: Though I have already done so in _English
Historical Review_, ix. 250.]

[Footnote 110: _English Historical Review_, ix. 42.]

[Footnote 111: Mr Freeman rendered the 'sagittis armatos et
balistis' of William by 'archers, slingers, and crossbowmen'.
'Balistæ' can hardly mean slings _and_ crossbows, and I think,
on consideration, it is best referred to the latter; but the
question is not of much importance.]

[Footnote 112: So, too, in _Arch. Journ._, xl. 359: 'You
may call up the march of archers and horsemen across the low
ground between the hills.']

[Footnote 113: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 462. I regret that I must
call attention to the fact that I gave (_English Historical
Review_, ix. 250) this precise reference for my statement
that, according to Mr Freeman, the infantry were all archers,
explaining that in another passage (p. 467) William of
Poitiers had led him to take a somewhat different view. Mr
Archer, however, has printed (_English Historical Review_, ix.
603) the other passage (p. 467) in triumph by the side of my
statement. He further denies that Mr Freeman held, even on p.
462, that the infantry were all archers. Anyone can test the
value of Mr Archer's denial for himself by referring to
_Norm. Conq._, iii. 462, where he will find that Mr Freeman,
describing the Norman host, mentions no infantry but archers.]

[Footnote 114: As he had merely copied from the Tapestry on p.
462, so he copied William of Poitiers on p. 467.]

[Footnote 115: The distinction between archers and crossbowmen
is of little or no consequence, the missile being common to
both.]

[Footnote 116: My opponents complain that in the former
passage Mr Freeman assigns this task to 'the heavier foot'
only; but my point is that no palisade is here mentioned,
and no attack on it by _any_ infantry, heavy or light, and no
weapons assigned to that infantry of any use for the purpose.]

[Footnote 117: This is an excellent instance of what I said
as to Mr Freeman's 'imaginary' references to the now famous
palisade. I have challenged my opponents to disprove my
statement that none of Mr Freeman's own authorities says
anything here of a palisade. And, of course, they cannot do
so.

Here is another instance in point. We read on pp. 486-7 that
Robert of Beaumont was specially distinguished in the work of
breaking down the 'barricade' (see also _supra_, p. 273). But
when we turn to William of Poitiers, the authority cited,
we find no mention of a 'barricade', but read only of him
'irruens ac sternens magnâ cum audaciâ'. As the writer had
just described how the Duke '_stravit_ adversam gentem', we see
that Robert, in his charge, laid low, not a barricade, but
'adversam gentem'.

This brings me to an extraordinary case of mediaeval
plagiarism. The author of the Ely history has applied this
description of Robert's exploits to the Conqueror himself at
Ely (_Liber Eliensis_, pp. 244-5). The passages 'Exardentes
Normanni--deleverunt ea', 'Egit enim quod--magna cum audacia',
'Scriptor Thebaidos vel Æneidos', _et seq._, are all 'lifted'
bodily from William's narrative of the Battle of Hastings and
applied to the storming of the Isle of Ely!]

[Footnote 118: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 467.]

[Footnote 119: 'The Norman infantry had now done its best, but
that best had been in vain' (_ibid._, 479).]

[Footnote 120: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 481.]

[Footnote 121: _Ibid._, 767-8.]

[Footnote 122:

'Un fosse ont d'une part fait
Qui parmi la champaigne vait

* * * *

En la champaigne out un fosse:
Normanz l'aueient adosse
En beliuant l'orent passé
Ne l'aueint mie esgarde.'

I had followed Taylor in my rendering of this passage; but
Miss Norgate (_English Historical Review_, ix. 46) would
prefer to say that the Normans did not heed, than that they
did not notice the fosse. 'The passage,' as she says, 'is
somewhat obscure.']

[Footnote 123: Miss Norgate has rightly pointed out (ix.
47) that Henry places the disaster during the great feigned
flight.]

[Footnote 124: _Cont. Rev._, p. 348.]

[Footnote 125: Compare the death of Robert Marmion, at
Coventry, under Stephen, when he fell into one of the ditches
he had dug to entrap the enemy's horse. The passage quoted by
Andresen in his Wace (ii. 713) from Michel's notes to Benoit
is very precise: 'Fecerant autem Angli foveam quandam caute et
ingeniose, quam ipsi ex obliquo curantes maximam multitudinem
Normannorum in ea præcipitaverant. Et plures etiam ex eis
insequentes et tracti ab aliis in eadem perierunt.']

[Footnote 126: See below, p. 292.]

[Footnote 127: _Early Oxford_, pp. 191, 192. And see my
preface.]

[Footnote 128: See above, p. 278, for Mr Freeman's view.]

[Footnote 129: 'Angli vero, illos putantes vere fugere,
c[oe]perunt post eos currere volentes eos si possent
interficere' (_Brevis Relatio_). 'Ausa sunt, ut superius,
aliquot millia quasi volante cursu, quos fugere putabant
urgere' (_Will. Pict._).]

[Footnote 130: Though admitting, in a footnote, that the
'Brevis Relatio' was opposed to this assumption.]

[Footnote 131: _Supra_, p. 278.]

[Footnote 132: _Q.R._, July 1892, p. 20.]

[Footnote 133: Miss Norgate has indignantly retorted (_English
Historical Review_, ix. 50) that Mr Freeman 'only' omitted
the words from 'sicque' onwards. But it is precisely on these
words that my statement is based. Mr Freeman, moreover, did
not even quote the rest _à propos_ of the feigned flight,
where we should look for it.]

[Footnote 134: So does Will. Gem., as quoted by Mr Freeman
(iii. 133): 'de suis miserunt si quos forte hostium a regio
c[oe]tu abstraherent, quos illi in latibulis degentes incautos
exciperent.' See also my Addenda.]

[Footnote 135: _Cont. Rev._, p. 354.]

[Footnote 136: See above, p. 251.]

[Footnote 137: See above, p. 259.]

[Footnote 138: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 763-4.]

[Footnote 139: _Social England_, i. 299. 'Mr Oman, like Mr J.
H. Round, knows nothing of the famous "palisade", but only
of the "shield-wall" of the English' (_Speaker_, December 2,
1893).]

[Footnote 140: _Norman Britain_, p. 79.]

[Footnote 141: _Ibid._, p. 80.]

[Footnote 142: _Social England_, p. 300.]

[Footnote 143: _Cont. Rev._, p. 353.]

[Footnote 144: _Ibid._, p. 335.]

[Footnote 145: _English Historical Review_, ix. 607.]

[Footnote 146: _Ibid._, ix. 219-25.]

[Footnote 147: _Ibid._, 224, 257.]

[Footnote 148: _Norm. Conq._, ii. 469; and _supra_, p. 356.]

[Footnote 149: _Cont. Rev._, 352.]

[Footnote 150: _Ibid._, 348.]

[Footnote 151: _Cont. Rev._, 335-6.]

[Footnote 152: 'The Reviewer ... tells us that ... Mr Freeman
... is wrong, completely wrong, in his whole conception of the
battle.... His attack must be held to have failed' (_Cont.
Rev._, pp. 335, 353).]

[Footnote 153: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 763.]

[Footnote 154: _Cont. Rev._, p. 349. Cf. Mr Archer's articles
_passim_.]

[Footnote 155: _English Historical Review_, ix. 22.]

[Footnote 156: _English Historical Review_, ix. 607.]

[Footnote 157: _Ibid._, ix. 606. _Supra_, p. 269.]

[Footnote 158: _Ibid._, ix. 606, 607. My readers are invited
to refer to this article and to that in the _Cont. Rev._
(March 1893), and test my statement for themselves.]

[Footnote 159: _Anglo-Saxon Britain_, p. 172.]

[Footnote 160: _Norman Conquest_, iii. 454.]

[Footnote 161: e.g. Vinogradoff and Dr Andrews.]

[Footnote 162: _Norm. Conq._, ii. 352.]

[Footnote 163: _Ibid._, 327.]

[Footnote 164: _Ibid._, 326.]

[Footnote 165: _Ibid._, 332.]

[Footnote 166: 'We shall get rid of the talk about "an officer
and a gentleman".' (_Macmillan's_, xxiv. 10).]

[Footnote 167: _Vita Wlstani_.]

MASTER WACE

MR FREEMAN MR ARCHER

Of the array of the shield-wall Now, there are six distinct
we have often heard already as objections to translating this
at Maldon, but it is at Senlac passage [of Wace] as if it
that we get the fullest referred to a shield-wall. These
descriptions of it, all the objections are, of course, of
better for coming in the unequal value; but some of them
mouths of enemies. Wace gives would, by themselves, suffice to
his description, 12941:--(_Norm. overthrow such a theory (_Cont.
Conq._, iii. 763). Rev._, 349).

In discussing Mr Freeman's treatment of the great battle, we saw that the only passage he vouched for the existence of a palisade[1] consisted of certain lines from Wace's _Roman de Rou_, which he ultimately declared to be, on the contrary, a description of 'the array of the shield-wall'.[2] The question, therefore, as to their meaning--on which my critics have throughout endeavoured to represent the controversy as turning--did not even arise so far as Mr Freeman was concerned. Still less had I occasion to discuss the authority of Wace, Mr Freeman's explicit verdict on the lines (iii. 763-4) having removed them, as concerns his own narrative, from the sphere of controversy.

The case, however, is at once altered when Mr Archer insists on ignoring Mr Freeman's words, and makes an independent examination of the lines, quoting also other passages which were not vouched by Mr Freeman, as proving 'beyond the shadow of a doubt that Wace did mean to represent the English at Hastings as fighting behind a palisade'.[3] So long as I make it clearly understood that this question in no way affects the controversy as to Mr Freeman, I am quite willing to discuss the question thus raised by Mr Archer.

It is most naturally treated under these three heads:

(1) Did Wace believe and assert that there was a palisade?

(2) If so, what weight ought to be attached to his authority?

(3) If we reject it, can we explain how his mistake arose?

WACE'S MEANING

I have elsewhere[4] discussed 'the disputed passage' (_supra_, p. 267), and agreed with Mr Archer that there are 'four views which have been suggested' as to its meaning.[5] Two of them, I there showed, were successively held by Mr Freeman, and the two others successively advanced by Mr Archer. When I add (anticipating) that, according to M. Paris, 'le passage de Wace présente quelque obscurité',[6] and that M. Meyer introduced yet another element of doubt in a special kind of shield ('de grands écus') not previously suggested, it will be obvious, quite apart from any opinion of my own, that the passage presents difficulties.

So long as I only dealt with Mr Freeman's work, I found on his admission that the passage described the shield-wall.[7] Now that we are leaving his work aside, I fall back on my own conclusion, namely, that the passage is with equal difficulty referred either to a palisade or to a shield-wall. The word 'escuz', it will be seen, occurs twice in the passage. Mr Archer held, at first, that in neither case did it mean real 'shields',[8] but he afterwards assigned that meaning to the second of the two 'escuz', while still rendering the first 'in a metaphorical sense'.[9] It is obvious that when Mr Freeman took the lines to describe 'the array of the shield-wall', he must have done so on the ground that 'escuz' meant 'shields'. That is my own contention. While fully recognizing the obstacles to translating 'the disputed passage' as if it referred throughout to a shield-wall, I maintain that 'escu' means shield, as a term 'which is one of the commonest in Wace' and invariably means shield.[10] But to cut short a long story, it was decided by Mr Gardiner to settle this issue by submitting the disputed passage to the verdict of MM. Gaston Paris and Paul Meyer. In spite of my protest, this was done without my articles and my solution of the problem[11] being laid before them at the same time. A snap verdict was thus secured before they had seen the evidence. I am sure that Mr Gardiner must have thought this fair, and editors, we know, cannot err; but it seems to me quite possible that these distinguished French scholars were not familiar with the shield-wall, an Old English tactic, and were not aware that this information was the great feature of the battle. Had all this, as I wished, been duly set before them, their verdict would, of course, have carried much greater weight.

But having said this much, I frankly admit that their verdict is in favour of Mr Archer's contention, and, so far as the first 'escuz' is concerned, against my own.[12] They may not agree in detail with each other, or with either of Mr Archer's views, but, on the broad issue, he has a perfect right to claim that their verdict is for him so long as he does not pretend that it also confirms 'Mr Freeman's interpretation', by ignoring the historian's own latest and explicit words.[13] It must also be remembered that this admission in no way diminishes the obscurity of the passage, which, as we have seen, is beyond dispute, and which forms an important element in my own solution of the problem.[14]

Having now shown how the matter stands with regard to 'the disputed passage', I need not linger over those which Mr Freeman ignored, and which Mr Archer adduced to strengthen his views as to the main passage. I have dealt with these elsewhere,[15] and need here only refer to ll. 8585-90, because that passage raises a point of historical interest quite apart from personal controversy. I have maintained that it can only be accepted at the cost of 'throwing over Mr Freeman's conception of the battle',[16] and have proved, by quoting his own words, that he placed the standard with Harold at his foot 'in the very forefront of the fight'.[17] I do not say that he was right in doing so: he was, I think, very probably wrong, and was influenced here, as elsewhere, by his dramatic treatment of Harold. But as this can only be matter of opinion, I have not challenged his view; I only say that those who accept it cannot consistently appeal to a passage in Wace which places the standard in the rear of the English host.

WACE'S AUTHORITY

Assuming then, for the sake of argument, that Wace mentions a defence of some kind,[18] even though not consistently[19] in front of the English troops, let us see whether his statement is corroborated, whether it is in harmony with the other evidence, and whether, if it is neither corroborated nor in such agreement, his authority is sufficient, nevertheless, to warrant its acceptance.

As to corroboration, Mr Archer undertook 'to produce corroborative evidence from other sources';[20] but this at once dwindled down to one line--'tending in the same direction'[21]--from Benoît de St Maur, who does not even mention a palisade.[22] There is therefore, on his own showing, not a shred of corroborative evidence.

As to the second point, I may refer to my arguments against the palisade,[23] where I showed that none of our authorities is here in agreement with Wace.

We come, therefore, to our third point, namely, the weight to which Wace's testimony, when standing alone, is entitled. Here, as elsewhere, I adhere to my position. As I have written in the _Quarterly Review_:

Even if Wace, clearly and consistently, mentioned a palisade
throughout his account of the battle, we should certainly
reject the statement of a witness, writing a century after it,
when we find him at variance with every authority (for that
is our point), just as Mr Freeman rejected the bridge at
Varaville,[24] or the 'falsehood' of the burning of the ships,
or the 'blunder' of making the Duke land at Hastings, or his
anachronisms, or his chronology. For, 'of course', in the
Professor's own words, 'whenever he [Wace] departs from
contemporary authority, and merely sets down floating
traditions nearly a hundred years after the latest events
which he records, his statements need to be very carefully
weighed'.[25]

Let me specially lay stress upon the points on which, when Wace and the Tapestry differ, the preference is given by Mr Freeman himself to the Tapestry as against Wace:

Had the tapestry been a work of later date, it is hardly
possible that it could have given the simple and truthful
account of these matters which it does give. A work of the
twelfth or thirteenth century[26] would have brought in, _as
even honest Wace does in some degree_, the notions of the
twelfth or thirteenth century. One cannot conceive an artist
of the time of Henry II, still less an artist later than the
French conquest of Normandy, agreeing so remarkably with the
authentic writings of the eleventh century (iii. 573).

[In the Tapestry] every antiquarian detail is accurate--the
lack of armour on the horses (iii. 574). [But] Wace speaks of
the horse of William fitz Osbern as 'all covered with iron'
(iii. 570).

Wace again, is 'hardly accurate' (iii. 765), we read, as to the English weapons, because he differs from the Tapestry. As to Harold's wound, 'Wace places it too early in the battle' (iii. 497); Mr Freeman follows the Tapestry. As to the landing of the Normans at Pevensey:

_Venit ad Pevenesæ_, says the Tapestry ... Wace ... altogether
reverses the geography, making the army land at Hastings, and
go to Pevensey afterwards' (iii. 402).

As to the 'Mora', the Duke's ship, the Tapestry shows 'the child with his horn'; Wace describes him 'Saete et arc tendu portant'. Mr Freeman adopts the 'horn' (iii. 382). Harold, says Mr Freeman, was imprisoned at Beaurain.

This is quite plain from the Tapestry: 'Dux eum ad Belrem et
ibi eum tenuit'. Wace says, 'A Abevile l'ont mené....' This I
conceive to arise from a misconception of the words of William
of Jumièges (iii. 224).

This illustrates, I would remind Mr Archer, the difference between a primary authority and a mere late compiler.

To these examples I may add Wace's mention of Harold's _vizor_ (_ventaille_). Mr Freeman pointed out the superior accuracy of the Tapestry in 'the nose-pieces' (iii. 574), and observed that 'the vizor' was a much later introduction (iii. 497).[27] Here again we see the soundness of Mr Freeman's view that Wace could not help introducing 'the notions' of his own time into his account of the battle. Miss Norgate admits that he 'transferred to his mythical battles the colouring of the actual battles of his own day', but urges that these narratives illustrate the 'warfare of Wace's own ... contemporaries'.[28] Quite so. But the battle of Hastings belonged to an older and obsolete style of warfare. That is what his champions always forget. If Miss Norgate's argument has any meaning, it is that the men who fought in that battle were 'Wace's own contemporaries'.

But, even where Wace's authority is in actual agreement with the Tapestry, Mr Freeman did not hesitate to reject, or rather, ignore it, as we saw in the matter of the fosse disaster.

As to Wace's sources of information, and the _prima facie_ evidence for his authority, a question of considerable interest is raised. Mr Archer discusses it from his own standpoint.[29] On Wace's life, age and work, facts are few and speculations many. These have been collected and patiently sifted in Andresen's great work, with the following result:

Wace was certainly living not merely in 1170,[30] but in 1174, for he alludes to the siege of Rouen (August 1174) in his epilogue to the second part of the 'Roman'.[31] It is admitted on all hands, though Mr Archer does not mention it, that he did not even begin the third part till after the coronation of the younger Henry (June 14, 1170).[32] Allowing for its great length, he cannot have come to his account of the battle _at the very earliest_ till 1171, 105 years after the event. For my part, I think that it was probably written even some years later. But imagine in any case an Englishman, ignorant of Belgium, writing an account of Waterloo, mainly _from oral tradition_, in 1920.

Mr Archer contends that Wace was born 'probably between the years 1100 and 1110' (_ante_, p. 31). Andresen holds that the earliest date we can venture to assign is 1110,[33] forty-four years after the battle. Special stress is laid by Mr Archer on Wace's oral information:

He had seen and talked with many men who recollected things
anterior to Hastings and the Hastings campaign. Among his
informants for this latter was his own father, then, we may
suppose, a well-grown lad, if not an actual participator in
the fight (_ante_, p. 32).

'We may suppose'--where all is supposition--exactly the contrary. If Wace was born, as we may safely say, more than forty years after the battle, 'we may suppose' that his father was not even born before it. All this talk about Wace's father is based on ll. 6445-7, of which Andresen truly remarks, 'Die Verse "Mais co oi dire a mon pere, Bien m'en souient mais Vaslet ere, Que set cenz nes, quatre meins, furent", u.s.w., sind viel zu unbestimmt gehalten, so dass wir aus ihnen streng genommen nicht einmal entnehmen können, ob der Vater im Jahre 1066 schon auf der Welt war oder nicht' (p. lxx). I venture to take my own case. Born within forty years of Waterloo, I can say with Wace that I remember my father telling me, as a boy, stories of the battle. But he was born after it. The information was second-hand. Over and over again does Mr Archer lay stress on the fact (_ut supra_) that Wace gives us 'the reminiscences of the old heroes who fought at Hastings as no one else has cared to do'.[34] I must insist that Wace himself nowhere mentions having seen or spoken to them. He does mention having seen men who remembered the great comet (Mr Archer italicizes the lines[35]); but this exactly confirms my point. For when Wace _had_ seen eyewitnesses he was careful, we see, to mention the fact. Men would remember the comet, though little children at the time. One of my own very earliest recollections is that of a great comet, even though it did not create the sensation of the comet in 1066. Wace had talked with those who had been children, not with those who had been fighting men, in 1066.

I need only invite attention to one more point. Mr Archer assures us that 'Wace is a very sober writer', with 'something of the shrewd scepticism' of modern scholars.[36] What shall we say then, of his long story (ll. 7005-100) of the night visit, by Harold and Gyrth, to the Norman camp, to which Mr Archer appeals as evidence for the _lices_ (l. 7010)? 'Nothing,' replies Mr Freeman (iii. 449), 'could be less trustworthy.... No power short of divination could have revealed it.'[37] Mr Archer tells us he has only space for one instance[38] of Wace's conscientiousness. That instance is his story of the negotiation between William and Baldwin of Flanders on the eve of the Conquest. Of this story Mr Freeman writes:

Of the intercourse between William and Baldwin in his
character of sovereign of Flanders Wace has a tale which
strikes me as so purely legendary that I did not venture to
introduce it into the text.... The whole story seems quite
inconsistent with the real relations between William and
Baldwin (iii. 718-19).

Comment is superfluous.

Having now shown that Wace's evidence is not corroborated, is not in accordance with that of contemporary witnesses, and cannot on the sound canons of criticism recognized by Mr Freeman himself, be accepted under these circumstances, I propose to show that my case can be carried further still, and that I can even trace to its origin the confused statement in his 'disputed passage' which is said to describe a palisade or defence of some sort or other.

WACE AND HIS SOURCES[39]

In studying the authorities for the Battle of Hastings, I was led to a conclusion which, so far as I know, had never occurred to any one. It is that William of Malmesbury's 'Gesta Regum' was among the sources used by Wace. Neither in Korting's elaborate treatise, 'Ueber die Quellen des Roman de Rou', nor in Andresen's notes to his well-known edition of the 'Roman' (ii. 708), can I find any suggestion to this effect. Dr Stubbs, in his edition of the 'Gesta Regum', dwells on the popularity of the work both at home and abroad, but does not include Wace among the writers who availed themselves of it; and the late Mr Freeman, though frequently compelled to notice the agreement between Wace and William, never thought, it appears, of suggesting the theory of derivation; indeed, he speaks of the two writers as independent witnesses, when dealing with one of these coincidences.[40] The more one studies Wace, the more evident it becomes that the 'Roman' requires to be used with the greatest caution. Based on a _congeries_ of authorities, on tradition, and occasionally of course, on the poetic invention of the _trouveur_ it presents a whole in which it is almost impossible to disentangle the various sources of the narrative. Before dealing with the passage which led me to believe that the 'Gesta Regum' must have been known to Wace, I will glance at some other coincidences. We have first the alleged landing of William at Hastings instead of Pevensey. On this Mr Freeman observed:

_Venit ad Pevenesæ_, says the Tapestry. So William of
Poitiers and William of Jumièges. William of Malmesbury says
carelessly, _Placido cursu Hastingas appulerunt_. So Wace,
who altogether reverses the geography, making the army land at
Hastings and go to Pevensey afterwards.[41]

Here William of Malmesbury, who was probably using 'Hastingas' as loosely as when he applied that term to Battle, appears to be responsible for the mistake of Wace, who may have tried to harmonize him with William of Jumièges by making the Normans proceed to Pevensey after having landed. Take again the hotly disputed burial of Harold at Waltham. On this question Mr Freeman writes:

William of Malmesbury, after saying that the body was given to
Gytha, adds _acceptum itaque apud Waltham sepelivit_.... Wace
had evidently heard two or three stories, and, with his usual
discretion, he avoided committing himself, but he distinctly
asserts a burial at Waltham.[42]

This, then, is another coincidence between the two writers, while, as before, Wace found himself in the presence of a conflict of authorities. On yet another difficult point, the accession of Harold, I see a marked agreement, though Mr Freeman did not. Harold, according to William of Malmesbury, _extorta a principibus fide, arripuit diadema_, and _diademate fastigiatus, nihil de pactis inter se et Willelmum cogitabat_. Wace's version runs:

Heraut ki ert manant è forz
Se fist énoindre è coroner;
Unkes al duc n'en volt parler,
Homages prist è féeltez
Des plus riches è des ainz nes.

Not only is the attitude of Wace and William towards Harold's action here virtually identical, but the mention of his exaction of homage seems special to them both.

The passages, however, on which I would specially rest my case are those in which these two writers describe the visit of Harold's spies to the Norman camp before the battle of Hastings. This legend is peculiar to William of Malmesbury and Wace, and though it may be suggested that they had heard it independently, the correspondence--it will, I think, be admitted--is too close to admit of that solution.

I print these passages side by side:

WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY WACE