Chapter XV: The Norman Invasion and the Campaign of Hastings.1055 (4)

The English had thus far stood their ground well and wisely. The tactics of Harold had thus far completely answered. Not only had every attack failed, but the great [Sidenote: Flight of the Bretons on the left; the light-armed English pursue.] mass of the French army altogether lost heart. The Bretons and the other auxiliaries on the left were the first to give way. Horse and foot alike, they turned and fled. A body of English troops was now rash enough, in direct defiance of the King’s orders, to leave its post and pursue. These were of course some of the defenders of the English right. They may have been, as is perhaps suggested by a later turn of the battle, the detachment which guarded the small outlying hill. Or they may have been the men posted at the point just behind the outlying hill, where the slope is easiest, and where the main Breton attack would most likely be made. They had succeeded in beating back their assailants, and the temptation to chase the flying enemy must have been almost irresistible. And it may even be that old differences of race added keenness to the encounter, and that Englishmen felt a special delight in cutting down _Bret-wealas_ even from [Sidenote: Panic of all William’s army.] beyond sea. At any rate, the whole of William’s left wing was thrown into utter confusion. The central division could hardly have seen the cause of that confusion; the press of the fugitives disordered their ranks, and soon the whole of the assailing host was falling back; even the Normans themselves, as their historian is driven unwillingly to confess, were at last carried away by the contagion.[1379] For the moment the day seemed lost; men might well deem that the Bastard had no hope of being changed into the Conqueror, the Duke of the Normans [Sidenote: William and Odo recall the fugitives.] into the King of the English. But the strong heart of William failed him not, and by his single prowess and presence of mind he recalled his flying troops. Like Brihtnoth at Maldon,[1380] like Eadmund at Sherstone,[1381] he was himself deemed to have fallen or to have fled.[1382] He tore his helmet from his head,[1383] and with his look and his voice[1384] he called back his men to the attack. “Madmen,” he cried, “behold me. Why flee ye? Death is behind you, victory is before you. I live, and by God’s grace I will conquer.”[1385] With a spear, snatched, it may be, from some comrade, he met or pursued the fugitives, driving them back by main force to the work.[1386] Yet one version tells us that at this very moment a counsellor of flight was at his side. One Norman poet has sung how Eustace of Boulogne bade William turn his rein, and not rush on upon certain death.[1387] If such counsels were ever given, they were cast aside with scorn; the bold words and gestures of the Duke restored the spirits of his men, and his knights once more pressed on, sword in hand,[1388] round him. His brother the Bishop meanwhile rode, mace in hand, to another quarter, and called back to their duty another party of fugitives.[1389] [Sidenote: The Bretons turn on their pursuers.] Encouraged by this turn in the fight, the Breton infantry themselves, chased as they were across the field by the over-daring English, now turned and cut their pursuers in pieces.[1390] Order was soon again established throughout the whole line of the assailants, and William and Odo, with all their host, pressed on to a second and more terrible attack.

[Sidenote: Second great attack; personal exploits of William.]

A new act in the awful drama of that day has now begun. The Duke himself, at the head of his own Normans, again pressed towards the Standard. Now came what was perhaps the fiercest exchange of handstrokes in the whole battle. As in the old Roman legend,[1391] the main stress of the fight fell on three valiant brethren on either side. William, Odo, and Robert pressed on to the attack, while Harold, Gyrth, and Leofwine stood ready to [Sidenote: William seeks out Harold;] defend. The Duke himself, his relics round his neck, spurred on right in the teeth of the English King. A few moments more, and the mighty rivals might have met face to face, and the war-club of the Bastard might have clashed against the lifted axe of the Emperor of Britain. That Harold shrank from such an encounter we [Sidenote: but is unhorsed by the spear of Gyrth.] may not deem for a moment. But a heart, if it might be, even loftier than his own beat high to save him from such a risk. In the same heroic spirit in which he had already offered to lead the host on what seemed a desperate enterprise,[1392] the Earl of the East-Angles pressed forward to give, if need be, his own life for his King and brother. Before William could come to handstrokes with Harold, perhaps before he could even reach the barricade, a spear, hurled by the hand of Gyrth, checked his progress. The weapon so far missed its aim that the Duke was himself unhurt. But his noble Spanish horse, the first of three that died under him that day, fell to the ground.[1393] But Duke William could fight on foot as well as on horseback.[1394] Indeed on foot he had a certain advantage. He could press closer to the barricade, and could deal a nearer and surer [Sidenote: Hand to hand fight at the barricades; William kills Gyrth with his own hand.] blow. And a near and sure blow he did deal. William rose to his feet; he pressed straight to seek the man who had so nearly slain him. Duke and Earl met face to face, and the English hero fell crushed beneath the stroke of the Duke’s mace.[1395] The day might seem to be turning against England, when a son of Godwine had fallen; nor did the blow come singly. Gyrth had fallen by a fate worthy of such a spirit, a fate than which none could be more glorious; he had died in the noblest of causes and by the hand of the mightiest of enemies. Nor did he fall alone; close at his side, and almost at the same moment, [Sidenote: Death of Leofwine.] Leofwine, fighting sword in hand, was smitten to the earth by an unnamed assailant, perhaps by the mace of the Prelate of Bayeux or by the lance of the Count of Mortain.[1396] A dark cloud indeed seemed to have gathered over the destinies of the great West-Saxon house. Of the valiant band of sons who had surrounded Godwine on the great day of his return, Harold now stood alone. By a fate of special bitterness, he had seen with his own eyes the fall of those nearest and dearest to him. The deed of Metaurus had been, as it were, wrought beneath the eyes of Hannibal;[1397] Achilleus had looked on and seen the doom of his Patroklos and his Antilochos. The fate of England now rested on the single heart and the single arm of her King.

But the fortune of the day was still far from being determined. The two Earls had fallen, but the fight at the barricades went on as fiercely as before. The men of the Earldoms of the two fallen chiefs relaxed not because of the loss of their captains. The warriors of Kent and Essex [Sidenote: William takes a horse from a knight of Maine.] fought manfully to avenge their leader.[1398] As for the Duke, we left him on foot, an enemy as dangerous on foot as when mounted on his destrier. But Norman and horse could not long be severed. William called to a knight of Maine to give up his charger to his sovereign. Was it cowardice, was it disloyalty to the usurper of the rights of the old Cenomannian house, which made the knight of Maine refuse to dismount at William’s bidding?[1399] But a blow from the Duke’s hand brought the disobedient rider to the ground,[1400] and William, again mounted, was soon again dealing wounds and death among the defenders of England.[1401] But the deed and the fate of Gyrth were soon repeated. The spear of another Englishman brought William’s second horse to the ground, and he too, like the East-Anglian Earl, paid the penalty of his exploit by death at the Duke’s own hand.[1402] Count Eustace had by this time better learned how to win the favour of his great ally. His horse was freely offered to the Duke; a knight of his own following did him the same good service, and Duke and Count pressed vigorously on against the English lines.[1403] The struggle was hard; but the advantage [Sidenote: Partial success of the Frenchmen on the right;] still remained with the English. The second attack had indeed to some extent prevailed. Not only had the English suffered a personal loss than which one loss only could have been greater, but the barricade was now in some places broken down.[1404] The French on the right had been specially active and successful in this work. And specially distinguished among them was a party under the command of a youthful Norman warrior, Robert the son of the old Roger of Beaumont.[1405] They had perhaps met with a less vigorous resistance, while the main hopes and fears of every Englishman must have gathered round the great personal struggle which was going on beneath the Standard. Still those who were most successful had as yet triumphed only over timber, and not over men. The shield-wall still stood behind the palisade, and every Frenchman who had pressed within the English enclosure had paid [Sidenote: but the general attack repulsed.] for his daring with his life.[1406] The English lines were as unyielding as ever; and though the second attack had been less completely unsuccessful than the first, it was still plain that to scale the hill by any direct attack of the Norman horsemen was a hopeless undertaking.

[Sidenote: William’s stratagem of the feigned flight.]

But the generalship of William, his ready eye, his quick thought, his dauntless courage, never failed him. In the Norman character the fox and the lion were mingled in nearly equal proportions;[1407] strength and daring had failed, but the object might perhaps still be gained by stratagem.[1408] William had marked with pleasure that the late flight of his troops had beguiled a portion of the English to forsake their firm array and their strong position.[1409] He had marked with equal pleasure that some impression had at last been made on the English defences. If by any means any large portion of the English army could be drawn down from the heights, an entrance might be made at the points where the barricade was already weakened. He therefore ventured on a daring stratagem. If his army, or a portion of it, pretended flight, the English would be tempted to pursue; the pretended fugitives would turn upon their pursuers, and meanwhile another division might reach the summit through the gap thus left open. He gave his orders accordingly, and they were faithfully and skilfully obeyed. A portion of the army, seemingly the left wing[1410] which had so lately fled in earnest, now again [Sidenote: The English on the right come down and pursue.] turned in apparent flight.[1411] Undismayed by the fate of their comrades who had before broken their lines, the English on the right wing, mainly, as we have seen, the irregular levies, rushed down and pursued them with shouts of delight.[1412] But the men of Britanny, Poitou, and Maine [Sidenote: The Bretons turn.] had now better learned their lesson. They turned on the pursuing English; the parts of the combatants were at once reversed, and the pursuers now themselves fled in earnest.[1413] Yet, undisciplined and foolhardy as their conduct had been, they must have had some wary leaders among them, for they found the means to take a special revenge for the fraud which had been played off upon them. [Sidenote: Stand of the English at the detached hill.] The importance of the small outlying hill now came into full play. Either its defenders had never left it, or a party of the fugitives contrived to rally and occupy it. At all events it was occupied and gallantly defended by a body of light-armed English.[1414] With a shower of darts and stones they overwhelmed a body of French who attacked [Sidenote: Great slaughter of the French in the western ravine.] them; not a man of the party was left. Another party of English, evidently consisting of the levies of the neighbourhood, had the skill to use their knowledge of the country to the best advantage. They made their way to the difficult ground to the west of the hill, to the steep and thickly-wooded banks of the small ravine. Here the light-armed English turned and made a stand; the French horsemen, recklessly pursuing, came tumbling head over heels into the chasm, where they were slaughtered in such numbers that the ground is said to have been made level by their corpses.[1415]

[Sidenote: Fatal error of the pursuit.]

The men who had committed the great error of pursuing the apparent fugitives had thus, as far as they themselves were concerned, retrieved their error skilfully and manfully. But the error was none the less fatal to England. The Duke’s great object was now gained; the main end of Harold’s skilful tactics had been frustrated by the inconsiderate ardour of the least valuable portion of his troops. 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.[1416] While French and English were scattered over the lower ground, fighting in no certain order and with varied [Sidenote: The Normans ride up the hill to the west. 3 P.M.?] success, the main body of the Normans made their way on to the hill, no doubt by the gentle slope at the point west of the present buildings.[1417] 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, with a slight inclination of the ground in their favour, directly against the defenders of the Standard. Still the [Sidenote: The battle now on the hill.] battle was far from being over. The site had still some advantages for the English. The hill, narrow and in some places with steep sides, was by no means suited for the evolutions of cavalry, and, though the English palisade was gone, the English shield-wall was still a formidable hindrance in the way of the assailants. In short the position which the keen eye of Harold had chosen stood him in good stead to the last. Our Norman informants still speak with admiration of the firm stand made by the [Sidenote: Close combat of the Normans against the English shield-wall.] English. It was still the hardest of tasks to surround their bristling lines. It was a strange warfare, where the one side dealt in assaults and movements, while the other, as if fixed in the ground, withstood them. The array of the English was so close that they moved only when they were dead, they stirred not at all while they were alive. The slightly wounded could not escape, but were crushed to death by the thick ranks of their comrades.[1418] That is to say, the array of the shield-wall was still kept, though now without the help of the barricades or the full advantage of the ground. The day had now turned decidedly in favour of the invaders; but the fight was still far from being over. It was by no means clear that some new chance of warfare might not again turn the balance in favour of England.[1419]

[Sidenote: The English array relaxed.]

It is hard to tell the exact point of time at which the Normans gained this great advantage. But it was probably about three in the afternoon, the hour of vespers.[1420] If so, the fight had already been raging for six hours, and as yet its result was far from certain. But the last stage of the battle was now drawing near. The English, though no longer entrenched, had still the fortress of shields to trust to, but gradually the line became less firmly kept, and the battle seems almost to have changed [Sidenote: Personal exploits.] into a series of single combats. It is probably at this stage that we should place most of the many personal exploits recorded of various warriors on both sides.[1421] The names of the Normans are preserved, while the English, though full justice is done to their valour, remain nameless. [Sidenote: Valour and conduct of Harold.] Of Harold himself, strange to say, we hear nothing personally, beyond the highest general eulogies of his courage and conduct. His axe was the weightiest; his blows were the most terrible of all. The horse and his rider gave way before him, cloven to the ground by a single stroke.[1422] He played the part alike of a general and of a private soldier. This is a praise which must have been common to every commander of those times; still it is given in a marked way both to William and to Harold.[1423] [Sidenote: Personal exploits of William;] But the two rivals never actually met. William, we are told, sought earnestly to meet his enemy face to face, but he never succeeded.[1424] He found however adversaries hardly less terrible. Like Gyrth earlier in the fight, another Englishman, whose axe had been dealing death around him, now met the Duke in single combat. William spurred on his horse, and aimed a blow at him with his mace; the Englishman swerved, he avoided the stroke, and lifted his own axe against William. The Duke bent himself; the axe fell, it beat in his helmet and nearly struck him from his horse. But William kept his seat; he aimed another blow at the Englishman, who now took shelter among his comrades. A party of the Normans pressed on, singled him out, and pierced him through and through with their lances.[1425] Another Englishman smote at the Duke with his spear, but William was beforehand with him; before the blow could be dealt, a stroke of the war-club had smitten him to the ground.[1426] Personal encounters of this sort were going on all over the hill. One gigantic Englishman, captain, we are told, of a hundred men,[1427] did special execution among the enemy. Beneath his blows, as beneath those of the King, horse and rider fell to the ground; the Normans stood aghast before him, till a [Sidenote: of Roger of Montgomery.] thrust from the lance of Roger of Montgomery left him stretched on the earth. Two other Englishmen, sworn brothers in arms, fought side by side, and many horses and men had fallen beneath their axes. A French knight met them face to face; for a moment his heart failed him and he thought of flight; but his courage returned; he raised his shield to save his head from the axes; he pierced one Englishman through with his lance; as the Englishman fell, the lance broke in his body; the Frenchman then seized a mace which hung at his saddle-bow, and smote down the comrade of the slain man, crushing head-piece [Sidenote: Death of Robert Fitz-Erneis.] and head with a single blow.[1428] One gallant Norman, Robert Fitz-Erneis, a near kinsman of Ralph of Tesson, died in a more daring exploit than all. He galloped, sword in hand, right towards the Standard itself. He sought for the honour of beating down the proud ensign beneath which the King of the English still kept his post. More than one Englishman died beneath his sword, but he was soon surrounded, and he fell beneath the axes of their comrades. On the morrow his body was found stretched in death at the foot of the Standard.[1429]

Other tales of the same sort, characteristic at least, whether verbally true or not, abound in the pages of the Norman poet. All bear witness to the enduring valour displayed on both sides, and to the fearful execution which was [Sidenote: The English resistance slackens.] wrought by the national English weapon. But at last the effects of this sort of warfare began to tell on the English ranks. There could have been no greater trial than thus to bear up, hour after hour, in a struggle which was purely defensive. The strain, and the consequent weariness, must have been incomparably greater on their side than on that of their assailants. It may well have been in sheer relief from physical exhaustion that we read, now that there was no artificial defence between them and their enemies, of Englishmen rushing forward from their ranks, bounding like a stag, and thus finding opportunity for the personal encounters which I have been describing.[1430] Gradually, after so many brave warriors had fallen, resistance grew fainter;[1431] but still even now the fate of the battle seemed doubtful. Many of the best and bravest of England had died, but not a man had fled; the Standard still waved as proudly [Sidenote: The battle undecided while Harold lived.] as ever; the King still fought beneath it.[1432] While Harold lived, while the horse and his rider still fell beneath his axe, the heart of England failed not, the hope of England had not wholly passed away. Around the two-fold ensigns the war was still fiercely raging, and to that point every eye and every arm in the Norman host was directed. The battle had raged ever since nine in the morning, and evening-was now drawing in.[1433] New efforts, new devices, were needed to overcome the resistance of the English, diminished as were their numbers, and wearied as they were [Sidenote: The archers shoot in the air.] with the livelong toil of that awful day. The Duke ordered his archers to shoot up in the air, that their arrows might, as it were, fall straight from heaven.[1434] The effect was immediate and fearful. No other device of the wily Duke that day did such frightful execution. Helmets were pierced; eyes were put out; men strove to guard their heads with their shields,[1435] and, in so doing, they were of course less able to wield their axes. And now the supreme moment drew near. There was one point of the hill at which the Norman bowmen were bidden specially to aim with their truest skill. As twilight was coming on, a mighty shower of arrows[1436] was launched on its deadly errand against the defenders of the Standard. There Harold still fought;[1437] his shield bristled with Norman shafts; but he was still unwounded and unwearied. At last another arrow, more charged with destiny than its fellows, went still [Sidenote: Harold wounded in the eye and disabled. 6 P.M.] more truly to its mark. Falling like a bolt from heaven, it pierced the King’s right eye; he clutched convulsively at the weapon, he broke off the shaft, his axe dropped from his hand, and he sank in agony at the foot of the Standard.[1438] The King was thus disabled, and the fate [Sidenote: Fight round the Standard.] of the day was no longer doubtful. Twenty knights now bound themselves to lower or to bear off the ensigns which still rose as proudly as ever while Harold lay dying beneath them. But his comrades still fought; most of the twenty paid for their venture with their lives, but [Sidenote: The Dragon borne off and the Standard beaten down.] the survivors succeeded in their attempt. Harold’s own Standard of the Fighting Man was beaten to the earth; the golden Dragon, the ensign of Cuthred and Ælfred, was carried off in triumph.[1439] But Harold, though disabled, still breathed; four knights rushed upon him and [Sidenote: Harold despatched by Eustace and three others.] despatched him with various wounds.[1440] The Latin poet of the battle describes this inglorious exploit with great glee. One of the four was Eustace; in such a cowardly deed of butchery he might deem that he was repeating his old exploit at Dover. Nor are we amazed to find the son of Guy of Ponthieu foremost in doing despite to the man who had once been his father’s prisoner. But one blushes to see men bearing the lofty names of Giffard and Montfort, names soon to be as familiar to English as to Norman ears, taking a share in such low-minded vengeance on a fallen foe.[1441] The deeds of the four are enumerated, but we know not how to apportion them among the actors. One thrust pierced through the shield of the dying King and stabbed him in the breast; another assailant finished the work by striking off his head with his sword. But even [Sidenote: Insults offered to his dead body.] this vengeance was not enough. A third pierced the dead body and scattered about the entrails;[1442] the fourth, coming, it would seem, too late for any more efficient share in the deed, cut off the King’s leg as he lay dead.[1443] Such was the measure which the boasted chivalry of Normandy meted out to a prince who had never dealt harshly or cruelly by either a domestic or a foreign foe. But we must add, in justice to the Conqueror, that he pronounced the last and most brutal insult to be a base and cowardly act, and he expelled the perpetrator from his army.[1444]

[Sidenote: The Thegns and Housecarls still resist.]

The blow had gone truly to its mark; but still all was not over. Harold had fallen, as his valiant brothers had fallen before him. The event too truly showed that England had fallen with the sons of Godwine; that, as ever in this age, everything turned on the life of one man, and that the one man who could have guarded and saved England was taken from her. The men who fought upon the hill of Senlac may have been too deeply occupied with the duty of the moment to look forward to the future chances of their country. But they knew at least that with their King’s death that day’s battle was lost. Yet even when Harold had fallen, resistance did not at once cease. As long as there was a ray of light in the heaven, as long as an English arm had strength to lift axe or javelin, the personal following of King Harold continued the unequal [Sidenote: Utter slaughter of the King’s personal following.] strife.[1445] Worn out by the strain of a long resistance, while the Normans, as assailants, seemed to draw fresh vigour from the conflict,[1446] they, the highest nobility, the most valiant soldiery of England, were slaughtered to a man.[1447] Quarter was neither given nor asked;[1448] not a man of the _comitatus_ fled; not a man was taken captive. There, around the fallen Standard, we may call up before our eyes the valiant deaths of those few warriors of Senlac whose names we know. There fell Thurkill and Godric beside their friend and former Earl. There Ælfwig died by his royal nephew, leaving an inheritance of sorrow to the house over which he ruled. And there the East-Anglian deacon lay in death by the side of the lord whom, from his early days, he [Sidenote: Leofric and Esegar escape wounded.] had served so faithfully.[1449] Those alone escaped, who, smitten down by wounds, were on the morrow thrown aside as dead,[1450] but who still breathed, and who in time recovered strength to seek their homes and still to serve their [Sidenote: Leofric dies. November 1.] country. Abbot Leofric, sick and weary, made his way home to die in his own Golden Borough;[1451] and Esegar, the valiant Staller, was borne back to London, his body disabled by honourable wounds, but his heart still stout and his wit still keen to keep up resistance to the last.[1452]

Few however could those have been who escaped by accidents like these. As a rule, no man of Harold’s following who marched to Senlac found his way back from that fatal hill. The nobility, the warlike flower, of southern and eastern England were utterly cut off. But we cannot blame men of meaner birth and fame for not showing the same desperate valour. Night was now [Sidenote: Flight of the light-armed.] coming on, and, under cover of the darkness,[1453] the light-armed took to flight.[1454] Some fled on foot, some, like the two traitors at Maldon,[1455] on the horses which had carried [Sidenote: Pursuit of the Normans; great slaughter of the pursuers in Malfosse.] the fallen leaders to the battle.[1456] The Normans pursued, and, as in an earlier stage of the day, the fleeing English found means to take their revenge upon their conquerors. On the north side of the hill the descent is steep, almost precipitous, the ground is irregular and marshy. No place could be less suited for horsemen, unaccustomed to the country, to pursue, even by daylight, light-armed foot, to many of whom every step of ground was familiar. In the darkness or imperfect light of the evening, their case was still more hopeless than in the similar case earlier in the day. In the ardour of pursuit horse and man fell headforemost over the steep, where they were crushed by the fall, smothered in the morass, or slain outright by the swords and clubs of the English. [Sidenote: Eustace bids William retreat.] For the fugitives, seeing the plight of their pursuers, once more turned and slaughtered them without mercy. Count Eustace, deeming that a new English force had come to the rescue, turned with fifty knights, and counselled William to sound a retreat. He whispered in the ear of the Duke that, if he pressed on, it would be to certain death. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when a blow, dealt in the darkness, struck the Count between the shoulder-blades, and he was borne off with blood flowing from his mouth and nostrils.[1457] But William pressed on; his good fortune preserved him from the bad luck of his less fortunate soldiers, and he did not return to [Sidenote: End of the battle.] the hill till all danger was over. This was the last scene of the battle, and no scene impressed itself more deeply on the minds of the descendants of the victors. The name of _Malfosse_, borne for some ages by the spot where the flying English turned and took their last revenge, showed how severe was the reverse which the victors there met with even in the very hour of their triumph.[1458]

[Sidenote: Effect of the death of Harold.]

I have thus described, as well as I could reconcile various and conflicting narratives, the chief vicissitudes and incidents of this memorable and hard-fought battle. On its historic importance I need not dwell; it is the very subject of my history. England was not yet conquered. The invader, as it was, had hard struggles to go through before he gained full possession of the length and breadth of the land. Had Harold lived, had another like Harold been ready to take his place, we may well doubt whether, even after the overthrow of Senlac, England would have been conquered at all. As it was, though England was not yet conquered, yet, from this moment, her complete conquest was only a matter of time. The Norman had to face much local resistance against the establishment of his power; he had to quell many local revolts after the establishment of his power; but he never again met Englishmen in a pitched battle; he never again had to fight for his Crown against a rival King at the head of a national army. Such being the case, it is from the memorable day of Saint Calixtus that we may fairly date the overthrow, what we know to have been only the imperfect and temporary overthrow, of our ancient and free Teutonic England. In the eyes of men of the next generation that day was the fatal day of England, the day of the sad overthrow of our dear country, the day of her handing over to foreign lords.[1459] From that day forward the Normans began to work the will of God upon the folk of England, till there were left in England no chiefs of the land of English blood, till all were brought down to bondage and to sorrow, till it was a shame to be called an Englishman,[1460] and the men of England were no more a people.[1461]

[Sidenote: Military character of the battle.]

Looking also at the fight of Senlac simply as a battle, it is one of the most memorable in all military history. Two utterly opposite systems of warfare came into conflict under two commanders, each worthily matched against the [Sidenote: Skill and valour shown on both sides.] other both in conduct and in personal prowess. We read with equal admiration of the consummate skill with which Harold chose his position and his general scheme of action, and of the wonderful readiness with which William formed and varied his plans as occasion served, how he seized on every opportunity, and made even discomfiture serve his final purpose. And each chief was thoroughly and worthily served by at least a portion of his army. As a mere question of soldierly qualities, one hardly knows which side to admire most. Each nation displayed, in this the first important battle in which they met as enemies, qualities which to this day remain eminently characteristic of the two nations respectively. The French—for the praise must not be confined to the native Normans only—displayed a gallantry at once impetuous and steady, and a quickness and intelligence in obeying difficult orders which is above all praise. They came again and again to the charge, undismayed by repeated reverses, and they knew how to carry out successfully the elaborate stratagem of the feigned flight. This last task must have been all the harder, because it seems not to have been a deliberate scheme planned from the beginning, but to have been suggested to William’s ready wit by the exigencies of the moment. Yet almost more admirable, and far more touching, is the long, stubborn endurance of the English, keeping their post through nine hours of constant defence, never yielding till death or utter weariness relieved them from their toil. Had the whole English host been like Harold’s own following, the defeat of Senlac would undoubtedly have been changed into a victory. Even writers in the Norman interest allow that so great was the slaughter, so general at one time was the flight of the Norman host, that nothing but the visible interposition of God on behalf of his righteous cause could have given William the victory.[1462] [Sidenote: The battle lost through the rashness of the light-armed.] 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. Their error was a grievous and a fatal one, but it was the natural error of high-spirited and untried men, eager for combat and for distinction, and chafing no doubt at the somewhat irksome restraints involved in Harold’s plan of defence. And some credit is due to them and to their immediate leaders for the skill and presence of mind with which they did their best to retrieve their error. Indeed, as far as they themselves were concerned, they did retrieve it amply. Never was a battle more stoutly contested between abler generals supported by more valiant soldiers. Like the whole English history of this age, it shows how little the English people had really degenerated in any essential patriotic or military qualities. But again it shows how wholly everything depended on the presence of some one competent man to seize the post of command at the right moment. As long as an Eadmund or a Harold is forthcoming, defeat may alternate with victory, but even defeat never is disgrace. How the same people fared under an incompetent King we have seen throughout the long wretchedness of the reign of Æthelred. How they fared under selfish and vacillating chiefs we shall see in the interregnum which followed the death of Harold. But we must first cast one more look upon Senlac hill, upon the victors and upon the vanquished. We have to behold William the Conqueror in his hour of triumph, and we have the hero of England to follow to his grave.

§ 5. _The Burial of Harold. October–December, 1066._

[Sidenote: William returns to the hill. His midnight feast.]

The fight was now over; night had closed in, and those among the English host who had not fallen around their King had left the field under cover of the darkness. William now returned to the hill, where all resistance had long ceased. He looked around, we are told, on the dead and dying thousands, not without a feeling of pity that so many men had fallen, even as a sacrifice to his own fancied right.[1463] But the victory was truly his own; in the old phrase of our Chroniclers, the Frenchmen had possession of the place of slaughter.[1464] A place of slaughter indeed it was, where, from morn till twilight, the axe and javelin of England, the lance and bow of Normandy, had done their deadly work at the bidding of the two mightiest captains upon earth. Dead and dying men were heaped around, and nowhere were they heaped so thickly as around the fallen Standard of England. There, where the flower of England’s nobility and soldiery lay stretched in death,[1465] there, where the banner of the Fighting Man now lay beaten to the ground, the Conqueror knelt, he gave his thanks to God, and bade his own banner be planted as the sign of the victory which he had won. He bade the dead be swept aside; the ducal tent was pitched in this, as it were, the innermost sanctuary of the Conquest, and meat and drink were brought for his repast in the midst of the ghastly trophies of his prowess. In vain did Walter Giffard warn him of the rashness of such an act. Many of the English who lay around were not dead; many were only slightly wounded; they would rise and escape in the night, or they would seek to have their revenge, well pleased to sell their lives at the price of the life of a Norman.[1466] But the strong heart of William feared not; God had guarded him thus far, and he trusted in God to guard him still. Then he took off his armour; his shield and helmet were seen to be dinted with many heavy blows, but the person of the Conqueror was unhurt.[1467] He was hailed by the loud applause of his troops, likening him to Roland and Oliver and all the heroes of old. Again he returned thanks to God, again he thanked his faithful followers, and sat down to eat and drink among the dead.[1468]

[Sidenote: The burial of the dead. Sunday, October 15.]

The Normans watched upon the hill all night.[1469] On the morrow of that fearful Sabbath, the morning light of the day of Christian worship first showed the full horrors of the scene. The first duty was the burial of the dead. The Duke went over the ground in person, superintending the funeral rites of the slain of his own army.[1470] Nor was he, either by temper or by policy, disposed to treat the vanquished or their kinsfolk with needless cruelty or insult. The women of the surrounding country came to the camp, praying for the bodies of their husbands, sons, and brothers, and, by William’s express order, they were allowed to remove them for burial to the neighbouring towns and minsters.[1471] The bodies of Ælfwig and his monks were among [Sidenote: Ælfwig and his monks.] the first to be recognized by the monastic garb beneath their harness. We hear nothing of the disposal of their bodies, but we know that their presence in the fight was not forgotten by the Conqueror.[1472] We hear nothing of the place of burial of Godric or Thurkill or even of that of Gyrth and Leofwine. We may suppose that the bodies of the two Earls were borne away to some church on one of the many estates held by their house within the South-Saxon land.[1473] [Sidenote: Harold’s body not forthcoming.] But there was still one corpse which was not forthcoming, one corpse for which, when found, the stern policy of the victor decreed a harsher fate. Wives and sisters had borne away the bodies of Thegns and churls,[1474] but there was neither wife nor sister to claim the mangled corpse of the Emperor of Britain. One widowed Lady sat in her palace at Winchester, weeping for the fate of Tostig, perhaps waiting for the coming of William.[1475] And where was the other, the daughter of Ælfgar, the wife of Harold, the bride who, as William deemed, had usurped the place which was designed for his own child? Are we to deem that she had chosen to cast in her lot rather with her recreant brothers than with her dauntless husband?[1476] Or was it rather that she bore within her a future hope of England, one to whom men might fondly look as an Ætheling born of a crowned King and his Lady, a son of Harold and Ealdgyth, a grandson alike of Ælfgar and of Godwine?[1477] All that we know is that, at that moment, the wife of Harold was far away, perhaps already on her journey, under the care of Eadwine and Morkere, to seek safety within the distant walls of Chester.[1478] But there were still those who loved the fallen hero; there were those who clave to him in life, and who in death would not forsake him. There was the widowed mother, bereaved of so many valiant sons; there were the bedesmen who had tasted of his bounty, and the woman who had loved him with a true, if an unlawful love. It was from the holy house of Waltham that men [Sidenote: Osgod and Æthelric come from Waltham.] came to do the last duty to the dead of Senlac. Two of the Canons of Harold’s minster, Osgod and Æthelric the Childmaster, had followed the march of the English host. They came, either through the mere instinct of affection or, as was told in the legends of their house, made fearful of coming evil through the mysterious warning which the Holy Hood had given to the King.[1479] They followed their Founder to the hill of slaughter; but they themselves joined not in the fight; they stood afar off that they might see the end.[1480] With them, it may be, had come the now aged Danish princess, Gytha, the widow of Godwine, the mother of the three heroes who had died [Sidenote: Gytha asks for Harold’s body.] beneath the fallen Standard. She came to the Duke and craved the body of her royal son. Three sons of hers had fallen by his hand or the hand of his followers; let the Conqueror grant one at least of the three to be honoured with solemn and royal rites. Harold’s weight in gold should be the price of his burial within the walls of his own minster.[1481] But in the case of his great rival the Conqueror was inexorable. His soul was indeed too lofty to be moved by petty spite towards an enemy who could [Sidenote: William commands that he shall be buried on the seashore.] no longer harm him. But his policy bade him to brand the perjurer, the usurper, the excommunicate of the Church, the despiser of the holy relics, with the solemn judgement of a minister of righteous vengeance. The proffered bribe had as little weight with him as it had with the Homeric Achilleus.[1482] He whose insatiable ambition had caused the slaughter of so many men should not himself receive the honours of solemn burial. He was not indeed to be left to dogs and vultures; but he who had guarded the shore while living should guard it still in death.[1483] A cairn on the South-Saxon shore, raised high upon the rocks of Hastings, should be the only memorial of the usurper.[1484] [Sidenote: The body found by Eadgyth Swanneshals.] But the royal corpse was still unrecognized; it had been thrown aside among the other bodies which lay around the Standard, when the ground was cleared for William’s midnight meal. Who could undertake to find one single body in such an Aceldama? Who could undertake to recognize a form mangled and mutilated by the base malignity of unworthy foes? Ealdgyth was far away; Gytha could not be asked to take upon her such an office. The two faithful priests did their best, and failed in the attempt.[1485] There was one alone who could be trusted for the mournful duty; one who knew him, alas, too well; one who had loved the man and not the King, and whose love, it may be, had been sacrificed to the duty or the policy of the ruler. The proud daughter of Ealdormen, the widow of two Kings, had left him to his fate; it was one of humbler rank, whose love had brought him not crowns or earldoms, but who had been the well-beloved of his less exalted days, who was called on to do the last bidding of affection upon earth. His former mistress, Eadgyth of the Swan’s Neck, was brought to the spot by Osgod and Æthelric, and was bidden to search for Harold amid the slain.[1486] Her eye at last recognized the disfigured corpse, not by its mangled features, but by marks which his faithful priests, perhaps even his mother, knew not.[1487] The body thus found awaited the bidding of the Conqueror. [Sidenote: Honours shown to the body.] William had no mind for simple insult beyond what the stern bidding of his policy dictated. Christian burial was refused; yet William could show to the corpse of Harold honours not less marked than Kleomenês had [Sidenote: It is buried on the shore by William Malet.] shown to the corpse of Lydiadas.[1488] The mangled limbs were wrapped in a purple robe, and the body was borne to William’s camp by the sea-shore.[1489] The charge of this unhallowed yet honourable burial was entrusted by the Duke to the willing hands of one of his own chiefs, who was at least not the personal foe of Harold or of England. By the care of William Malet, a name again to appear in our history, the body of Harold the son of Godwine was buried beneath a heap of stones upon the rocks of Sussex.[1490]

[Sidenote: Other accounts.]

Thus far we have the certain guidance of contemporary writers. Harold died on Senlac and was buried on the heights of Hastings. But there are two other tales, the evidence for which I shall discuss elsewhere,[1491] but whose substance I cannot here pass by. One indeed, with some doubt as to the details, I do not hesitate to accept, as resting on amply sufficient, though not on strictly contemporary, evidence. The other is a mere romance, food for the comparative mythologist rather than for the historian, and valuable only as illustrating a certain ever-recurring [Sidenote: Legend of Harold’s escape.] tendency of the human mind. This is the well-known tale, according to which Harold did not die in the great battle. He escaped, we are told, and lived for a longer or a shorter time, according to different accounts, devoting his latter days, according to the most celebrated version, to a life of penance.[1492] The King, so the story runs, was found half dead by some of the women who came to tend the wounded. He was then carried to Winchester by two men of middling rank, Thegns of the lowest class or churls of the highest.[1493] There he was nursed for two years, not by his royal sister, but by a Saracen woman skilled in [Sidenote: His later adventures.] surgery. He then went into the kindred lands of Saxony and Denmark,[1494] to ask help for England from her continental brethren. No such help however was forthcoming, and after a long series of adventures, Harold [Sidenote: His seclusion and death at Chester.] forsook the world and became a recluse in a cell attached to Saint John’s minster at Chester, the minster which had once witnessed the homage done to Eadgar the Peaceful by all the Under-kings of Britain.[1495] There he died at a great age, having only in his last moments revealed to those around him that the lowly anchorite was no other than the native King of conquered England.

[Sidenote: The tale a mere legend; its explanation.]

That this tale is a mere legend I have not the slightest doubt. But that such a tale should arise is by no means wonderful. It was indeed almost a matter of course. Whatever might be the feeling among Earls and Prelates who had other objects, popular English feeling would be for a while unwilling to believe in the death of the true national hero. Harold was expected to return, just as Baldwin of Constantinople, as Sebastian of Portugal, as many other princes in the like case, were expected to return. The really strange thing is that we do not hear of any false Harolds, as we hear of false Baldwins and false Sebastians.[1496] The cause may be that the later hopes of England gradually drifted away into other directions, towards a restoration of Eadgar or a deliverance by the arms of Swend. Still, as long as resistance to the Norman lasted, rumours that Harold lived, that he would again appear to lead his countrymen, would be rife within the walls of Exeter and within the Camp of Refuge. But Harold came not. Where then, if living, did he hide himself? Why did he not join the patriot bands of Hereward and Waltheof? Why did not the Standard of the Fighting Man once more float over an English host, and the Holy Rood of Waltham again resound as the war-cry of a happier field than Senlac? That Harold lived and yet was not in arms against the invader, could be explained in one way only. He had betaken himself to a life of penitence; by prayer and scourge and fasting he was wiping out the great sin of his life, his fatal oath [Sidenote: The tale appeals to the feelings of the age] to the Norman. In our eyes such a self-consecration on Harold’s part would seem a weak forsaking of an obvious duty. It would not seem so in the eyes of an age which recognized its highest type of holiness in Eadward. The character of a patriot King was indeed honourable, but the character of an ascetic penitent was more honourable [Sidenote: and even to one vein of feeling at Waltham.] still. The tale would appeal to a certain vein of feeling in Englishmen generally. It would even appeal to a certain vein of local piety among Harold’s own bedesmen at Waltham. On the one hand it upset every local tradition, and deprived Waltham of its most cherished treasure. But on the other hand, it magnified in a certain way both the Founder and the foundation, and it went far to raise the church of Harold to a level with the church of Eadward. It was something to be founded by the last native King; it was something to be the last resting-place of his body; but it was something higher still to be founded by one who was no mere King or lawgiver or conqueror, but whose deeds of penance had won him a place in the roll of eremites and saints.

[Sidenote: Harold died on Senlac.]

But of all this history knows nothing. In her pages Harold died, without a shadow of doubt, on the hill of Senlac, on the day of Saint Calixtus. Florence tells the true tale, in words speaking straight from the depths of England’s grief—“Heu, ipsemet cecidit crepusculi tempore.” In that Twilight of the Gods, when right and wrong went forth to battle, and when wrong for a moment had the victory, the brightest light of Teutonic England sank, and sank for ever. The son of Godwine died, as such King and hero should die, helm on head and battle-axe in hand, striking the last blow for his Crown and people, with the Holy Rood of Waltham the last cry rising from his lips and ringing in his ears. Disabled by the Norman arrow, cut down by the Norman sword, he died beneath the Standard of England, side by side with his brothers in blood and valour. His lifeless and mangled relics were all that was left either for the scoffs of enemies or for the reverence of friends. What the first resting-place of those relics was we have already seen, but need we hold that the first resting-place of those relics was also the last?

[Sidenote: His alleged burial at Waltham.]