Chapter XV: The Norman Invasion and the Campaign of Hastings.1055 (2)

At the moment of William’s landing, and even at the moment of his occupation of Hastings, he must have been quite uncertain as to the fortunes of his rival in the North. It was perfectly possible that he might never have to contend with Harold of England at all. The result of the Northumbrian campaign could hardly have been known in Sussex two days after the fight of Stamfordbridge, and it was one of the possible chances of war that William might have to fight for the Crown of England against the victorious host of Tostig and Harold Hardrada. But the two great rivals were not long kept in ignorance of [Sidenote: Robert the son of Wymarc brings news. His position and estimate of his conduct.] each other’s movements and purposes. The news was brought to William by a message from an English landowner of Norman birth, in whom it is easy to recognize the Staller Robert the son of Wymarc, him who had stood at the bed’s head of the dying Eadward.[1175] We know not whether he had retained his Stallership, or any other office, under Harold. But it is plain that he had become the man of the new King, for he was living in England under the King’s peace and in full possession of his lands.[1176] There is nothing in his present conduct which sets him before us as a traitor to his new allegiance. It is scarcely ground enough for such a charge to say that he could hardly have been with Harold at Stamfordbridge.[1177] His conduct in fact seems to have been that which was really right and honourable under the circumstances in which he stood. He had to reconcile his good will and his duty towards his adopted country with his earlier good will and earlier duty towards his natural sovereign. He sent a messenger to Hastings,[1178] with a message designed to persuade the Duke, in the interest of all parties, to give up his enterprise, and to [Sidenote: He counsels William to go home.] go quietly back to his own dominions. He, Robert, counselled him as a friend and kinsman;[1179] he would be deeply sorry if any harm befel him or his army, and, if he remained in England, he and his army would meet with certain destruction. It was hopeless for William to think of contending with the forces of England. King Harold had just defeated the Norwegian invader with a slaughter of twenty thousand men;[1180] Tostig and Harold Hardrada were slain; the King of the English was coming southwards with a countless host, a host, men said, of an hundred thousand.[1181] Against the English King and the English army, flushed with their victory over the greatest warrior in the whole world,[1182] it would be madness to risk a battle. Neither in number nor in strength were the Normans fit to do battle against King Harold and the English. Against them, in short, William’s army would count for no more than so many barking curs.[1183] The Duke was a prudent man, and had hitherto always acted prudently.[1184] Let him act prudently now; let him go home; let him at all events keep within his entrenchments and not risk a battle.[1185] If he did go forth to fight, his rashness would certainly bring about his utter overthrow.

Such counsel as this, addressed to William the Conqueror, speaks muck more highly for the good intentions of Robert than for his knowledge of mankind, above all for his knowledge of the man with whom he was dealing.[1186] William had not crossed the sea for nothing; he was not like the King in the Gospel, who had to stop on his march to consider whether he were able with his ten thousand to meet him who came against him with twenty thousand.[1187] [Sidenote: William’s answer; He will fight in any case.] It was perhaps not without a reference to that parable that William answered that, had he only ten thousand men, such as those of whom he had sixty thousand, he would not draw back; he would not cross the sea again without avenging himself of his enemy. He would not even keep himself within his entrenchments; whatever were the numbers on either side, he would go forth and meet Harold face to face.[1188] He condescended to thank Robert for the kindly interest which he took in his welfare, though he hinted that the words in which he had contrasted Norman and English prowess would better have been spared.[1189] The Duke had no need of such counsels as those which were pressed upon him by his cousin’s favourite. He had come into England to win his Crown, and his Crown he would win at all hazards.

§ 3. _The Southern March of Harold. October 1–13, 1066._

[Sidenote: The news brought to Harold at York. October 1?]

I have already told how the news of William’s landing was brought to King Harold at the feast of victory at York.[1190] That feast must have been saddened by the thought of the many brave men who had fallen at a moment when England needed the help of all her sons, by the thought that England had been saved only by the death of a brother of her King, by the thought that, while King and people were rejoicing at the victory which had just been gained over one enemy, another enemy, certainly not less terrible, was daily threatening the defenceless southern coast. And in the very moment of triumph the news came that the blow had actually fallen. Men now heard that, while Harold was letting the remnants of the Norwegian army depart in peace, the Duke of the Normans had actually landed, that he was ravaging English ground far and wide, that a portion of English ground was already entrenched and palisaded, and changed into a Norman [Sidenote: The news brought by a South-Saxon Thegn who saw the landing.] fortress.[1191] The Norman poet gives us a graphic description of the way in which the news was brought to the English King. A Thegn of the country heard the cries of grief and dismay with which the South-Saxon churls beheld the approach of the Norman fleet.[1192] He went forth; he hid himself in a convenient lurking-place, and beheld in safety the whole process of the landing of the Norman army.[1193] He saw first the archers and then the knights disembark. He saw the shields and armour brought out of the ships; he saw the carpenters come out with their axes; he saw the fosse dug, and the palisade thrown up.[1194] The [Sidenote: He hastens to York.] sight was enough; the heart of the English Thegn was troubled; he took his weapons, his sword and his javelin;[1195] he mounted his horse, and rode straight to bear the news to his Lord King Harold. He hastened on with all speed night and day; he rested late and rose early,[1196] till he found the victor of Stamfordbridge in the banquetting-hall at York. Here he at once told his errand. The countless host from all Gaul, the host of horsemen and archers and slingers who had gathered under the banner of Duke William,[1197] had landed at Pevensey. They had already built a fort and had fenced it with a palisade.[1198] Presently another messenger, a churl, came from Hastings itself.[1199] He had more news to tell, more details of the cruel harrying of the South-Saxon land. The host of Normans, Frenchmen, and Bretons, a host that no man could number, a host like the stars of heaven or the fishes of the sea, was ravaging far and wide.[1200] Men were being slain, their widows, their sons, their daughters, their flocks and their herds, were becoming the prey of the stranger.[1201] Each message enforced the same truth; the King must march at once to the defence of his southern coasts, or the whole land [Sidenote: Answer of Harold.] would be wrested from him. Harold is reported by the Norman poet to have said that it would have been better to have given Tostig all that he asked,[1202] so that he might have been himself in the south to hinder the landing of the French invaders. Such a speech cannot have been uttered by Harold, as it misconceives all the relations between him and his brother. The situation is better conceived when the King is made to say that, had he been on the South-Saxon shore, the strangers would never have made good their landing. Either they would have been driven back into the sea, or they would have escaped its dangers only to perish on English ground. “But,” he added, “the mischance was the will of the King of Heaven, and I could not be everywhere at the same moment.”[1203]

[Sidenote: Position of Harold between the two invaders.]

And so of a truth it was. The event of this great campaign, the overthrow of Harold and of England, turned wholly, setting aside the mere accidents of battle, on the inability of Harold himself to contend against two invasions, or to be at the two ends of his Kingdom at the same time. Of the two invasions, the Norwegian and the Norman, each rendered the other possible. Or even had the south wind blown sooner at the mouth of the Dive, the southern coast of England would have been found guarded against any attack, and Harold would probably have gone to meet his namesake of Norway flushed with victory over William and his host. As it was, the fate of England, as ever in that age, rested on one man, and that one man could not be at once in Sussex and in Northumberland. Harold, too late to hinder the landing of the Normans, had now before him the far harder task of dislodging them when they were already in the land. It was a hard lot to have to hasten at once on such an errand, after hardly a moment’s rest from the toils and the glories of Stamfordbridge. One terrible campaign was hardly over, when another yet more terrible had to be begun. But the heart of Harold failed him not, and the heart of England beat in unison with the [Sidenote: Harold begins his march to London.] heart of her King. As soon as the news came, King Harold held a Council of the leaders of Stamfordbridge,[1204] perhaps rather an armed Gemót, such as we have already heard of more than once.[1205] He told them of the landing of the enemy; he set before them the horrors which would come upon the land if the invader succeeded in his enterprise.[1206] A loud shout of unanimous assent rose from the Assembly. Every man pledged his faith rather to die in arms than to acknowledge any King but Harold.[1207] The King thanked his loyal followers, and at once ordered an immediate march to the south, an immediate muster of the forces of his Kingdom. London again was the trysting-place.[1208] With speed and energy equal to that which had carried him to his northern capital, he now set out on the return march. He himself pressed on at once, at the head of such of his Housecarls and other immediate following as had survived the fight of Stamfordbridge. Eadwine and Morkere were bidden to follow with the whole force of [Sidenote: Merlswegen in command of the North.] their Earldoms. Meanwhile the command of the North was committed to the Sheriff Merlswegen.[1209] We shall hear of him again among the patriots of a time a few years later, and we cannot doubt that this great command was put into his hands because he was known to be one more worthy of the trust than the King’s own brothers-in-law. And so it [Sidenote: Eadwine and Morkere keep back from the war.] proved. Even the great salvation of Stamfordbridge, the deliverance of Northumberland from the very jaws of her enemy, could not bind the sons of Ælfgar to gratitude or fidelity to the West-Saxon King. In their eyes, no doubt, the landing of William only offered another chance of bringing about their darling scheme of a divided Kingdom. William had a quarrel with Harold; he had none with Eadwine or Morkere. They had not forsworn themselves to their lord or done despite to any holy relics. The invader might well be content with the immediate territories of his enemy and his house. William might rule over Wessex and East-Anglia, and might leave Mercia and Northumberland to the House of Leofric. It was probably with some such designs as these that the Northern Earls held themselves and their forces back from the struggle. But, whatever were their motives, the fact that they did hold themselves back is certain.[1210] The main forces of Northumberland and north-western Mercia came not to King Harold’s muster.[1211]

[Sidenote: General zeal of the nation.]

But elsewhere another spirit reigned.[1212] Men well knew what was at stake. They went forth, as loyal subjects, as true men to their lord, to fight for the King whom they had chosen. But they went forth also on a higher errand still, to save the land of their birth from the grasp of the invader, an invader of wholly alien speech and feeling, an invader who could never be as Cnut or even as Harold of Norway. The presence of the Frenchmen in the land awoke a spirit in every English heart which has never [Sidenote: Charge of parsimony against Harold.] died out to this day. We hear indeed vague stories how Harold lost favour with the victors of Stamfordbridge by refusing to divide among them the rich plunder of the Norwegian host.[1213] We hear how he left the plunder untouched under the care of Archbishop Ealdred,[1214] instead of scattering it with a bounteous hand among the men whose toils and whose blood had won it. These stories rest on but poor authority; still they may have some groundwork of truth.[1215] The time was not a time for waste of treasure; the armaments of the year must have been costly in the extreme; Harold needed wealth to oppose to the wealth of William, and, considering the doubtful fidelity of the Northern Earls, he could not afford to throw away the sinews of civil war. A prudent economy on the part of Harold may have called forth a certain measure of discontent; but it is certain that such discontent had no serious effect on the campaign. The discontented in such a case must have been mainly the King’s own Housecarls, and those who bring this charge against Harold tell us also that it was the King’s own Housecarls who formed the strength of the host that fought at Senlac.[1216] It is far more certain that, as King Harold set forth on his southern march, fresh from the triumph of Stamfordbridge and with the fate of England resting once more upon him, the men of the greater part of England flocked eagerly to the Standard of their glorious [Sidenote: The shires which sent men. Wessex, East Anglia, Eastern Mercia.] King. They gathered round him from all the shires through which the Dragon and the Fighting Man passed once more on their southern journey. They gathered round him from all the shires under his own immediate rule, and under the rule of his faithful brothers.[1217] North-western [Sidenote: The North and Northwest kept away by their Earls.] Mercia stood aloof under Eadwine. Northumberland, under the rule of Morkere, sent none but such as joined the King’s own Standard on his march. Not so the lands which were still under the House of Siward. Whether the young [Sidenote: Loyalty of the Earldom of Waltheof.] Waltheof came himself we know not; but there is no doubt that the men of Northampton and Huntingdon came loyally to King Harold’s muster. And from all the east and south, from the lands which had passed from the rule of Godwine to the rule of Harold, from the lands where Gyrth still kept up the memory of Harold’s earlier government, from all the lands between the Tamar and the German Ocean, men came to fight for Harold and for [Sidenote: The men of Kent and London.] England. And, foremost and honoured among all, ranking, it would seem, every man among the King’s personal following, came the men of Kent, whose right it was to deal the first blow in the battle, and the men of the great city itself, whose high privilege it was to guard the King himself and his Standard.[1218] At the head of the men of London stood the Sheriff of the Middle-Saxons, the Staller Esegar,[1219] the son of Æthelstan, the son of Tofig, none the [Sidenote: Esegar commands the Londoners.] less loyal to his King because the minster of the Holy Rood had risen on soil which had once been the dwelling-place of his fathers.[1220] Of his fellow-Staller Eadnoth we hear nothing; Bondig would almost seem to have tarried in the North, or, from whatever cause or accident, not to [Sidenote: Few names of Englishmen preserved.] have appeared at the muster.[1221] We see then that England, as a whole, failed not of her duty; but few indeed, compared with the long roll-call of the invaders, are the men whom we know by name as having joined in the great march and fought in the great battle. Still there are a few names which have come down to us, names to be cherished wherever the tongue of England is spoken, names which should sound like the call of the trumpet in the [Sidenote: Entries in Domesday.] ears of every man of English birth. In the dry entries of the Norman Survey a few records still live of the men who fought and died for England. Two nameless freemen of Hampshire, owners of a small allodial holding, come first [Sidenote: Ælfric of Huntingdonshire.] on the patriotic bead-roll. One degree clearer in personality stands forth Ælfric of Gelling, a Thegn of Huntingdonshire, and tenant of the Church of Ramsey, who came from Waltheof’s Earldom, whether in the following of his Earl or at the bidding of his own loyalty to his King. [Sidenote: Breme of East-Anglia.] From East-Anglia we find recorded a nameless tenant of the House of Saint Eadmund, and Breme a freeman of King Eadward’s, who came no doubt in the following of Earl Gyrth. With a clearer consciousness of their personal being, we can honour the names of two noble tenants of the Church of Abingdon, men high in rank in the old West-Saxon Earldom, who fought and fell by the side of Harold. Their names set them before us as representatives of the two great Teutonic races of the land, each alike armed to defend their common blood and speech [Sidenote: Godric and Thurkill of Berkshire.] against the Southern invader. Thither came Godric the Sheriff, Lord of Fifhide, whose name witnesses to his English descent, and thither too came the Danish Thurkill, Lord of the neighbouring lordship of Kingston. He had, at Earl Harold’s counsel, commended himself and his lands to Saint Mary of Abingdon, and he came no doubt with as fervent a trust in the Black Cross of that ancient house as the King himself reposed in the more famous relic of his own newly hallowed minster. And it was not only the tenants of religious houses who went forth to battle for the excommunicated King against the invader who boasted himself as the special champion of the Church and of religion. Two English Prelates at least, and several churchmen of lower rank, personally braved the curse of Rome in the [Sidenote: Ælfwig Abbot of New Minster.] cause of England. The New Minster of Winchester, King Ælfred’s great bequest to his royal city, was still ruled by Ælfwig, the brother of the great Earl Godwine, the uncle of King Harold himself.[1222] Like Ealhstan and like Eadnoth in earlier times, he and twelve of his monks marched to the field, not merely to pray for England, but to wield their weapons among the foremost of her champions. With their coats of mail over their monastic garb, they took their place in the ranks, and fought and died alongside of Thurkill and Godric and the other valiant men whose names no chronicler has recorded.[1223] Ælfwig came to the fight at the bidding of kindred no less than at the bidding [Sidenote: Leofric Abbot of Peterborough. His death, Nov. 1.] of loyalty. Another Prelate, of equal ecclesiastical rank, and of greater personal fame, Leofric, the renowned Abbot of Peterborough,[1224] preferred the cause of his country to the cause of his own house. Eadwine and Morkere kept aloof from the great struggle; their worthier cousin, the Abbot of five monasteries, followed Harold to the fight, and, unlike his brother of Winchester, returned to his home sick and wounded.[1225] And one lowlier churchman must not [Sidenote: Eadric the Deacon.] be passed by. The Norman record itself seems to assume a kind of pathos, as we read how Eadric the Deacon, a freeman of Harold’s, followed his lord from the East-Anglian land of his earlier government, and died with him in the battle.[1226] Volunteers like these doubtless took their places among the King’s personal following. But we cannot doubt that the main strength of the army consisted of Harold’s own picked troops, his veteran Housecarls, the conquerors of Gruffydd, the victors of Stamfordbridge. Still it is clear that the levies of all southern and eastern England answered readily to Harold’s summons. They flocked to his muster in London in as great numbers, and with as great speed, as the swift march of events at this fearful crisis allowed them.

[Sidenote: Harold reaches London. October 5?]

The march of Harold from York to London was as memorable an instance of the indomitable energy of his character as his march, so short a time before, from London to York. He seems to have reached London about ten days after the fight at Stamfordbridge, about a week after William’s landing at Pevensey.[1227] He came at the head of his own following, and of such of the general levies of the central shires as had joined him on the road. In the great city, which had been appointed as the general trysting-place, he waited, impatiently as it would seem, while men flocked in from his own Wessex and from the lands of the three faithful Earls. He waited also for the further succours which were never to arrive, for the forces which the Earls of the North were keeping back from [Sidenote: He goes to pray at Waltham.] the muster. At such a moment of suspense the heart of Harold, no less than the heart of William, looked for help and guidance from on high. His home was now in the royal hall of Westminster, beneath the shadow of the minster of the Apostle, the minster where prayers and masses were daily going up for the soul of his revered predecessor.[1228] It was the minster too where he himself had gone through the most solemn act of his life, where he had received his royal unction and his Imperial Crown. But it was not before the tomb of Eadward, or before the altar of Saint Peter, that Harold sought for heavenly strength and counsel in the great crisis of his life. His heart went back to the home of his earlier days, to the lowlier church of his own rearing, to the relic which had ever been the especial object of his devotion, the Holy Cross which gave England her war-cry. One at least of the few days of the King’s short stay in London was devoted to a last pilgrimage to his own Waltham.[1229] [Sidenote: His last gifts to the minster.] Early in the morning of one of those October days King Harold made his way to the minster of the Holy Cross, bearing with him the last gifts that he was to offer there. Those gifts were a further supply of relics, the treasures of his own chapel,[1230] gathered together no doubt by the lavish piety of Eadward, but which now formed Harold’s last oblation upon the high altar of his own minster. Before [Sidenote: Harold’s vow.] that altar the King and Founder knelt in prayer. He vowed that, if God gave him victory in the strife to which he was then marching forth, he would yet further endow the church of the Holy Rood with gifts and lands, and would yet further increase the number of those who served God within its walls. Nay more, he would look upon himself as God’s ransomed servant, and would devote himself to his special service for ever.[1231] We need not take these striking words to mean that Harold dreamed, like Ceadwalla or Ine, of laying aside his Crown and of becoming God’s special servant as monk or priest. We hear in them simply the voice of deep penitence for the few sins and errors which stained that noble life, the voice of earnest prayer for deliverance from the meshes in which the craft of his adversary had entangled him. We hear in them the voice of high and humble resolution to live from henceforth, as man and as King, a life such as became a faithful servant of God, such as became a King sitting on the throne of the righteous Ælfred, and whose first days of government had been passed in the old realm of the martyred Eadmund. When his offerings had been made and his prayers had been uttered, the King turned him to depart. The Canons and all the members of the Church of Waltham formed in procession before their sovereign and Founder. They swept westward along that stately nave, between the two rows of its massive columns, till they reached the great western portal, over which was placed the wonder-working relic, the Holy Rood of Montacute and Waltham.[1232] Before the great object of his life’s reverence, King Harold bowed himself low, and lay for a while flat on his face [Sidenote: Miracle of the Holy Rood.] on the consecrated pavement. Then, as men said at Waltham in after days, the holy image, whose head had hitherto stood erect, bowed itself towards the King who lay prostrate beneath it. One eye alone, that of the sacrist Thurkill, was privileged to behold the actual working of the divine wonder. But many there were who had seen the image in former days, and who bare witness how its head had been from that day bowed towards the ground, as if to say “It is finished,” as if to say that all was over with the hopes and the career of him who had so devoutly honoured it.[1233]

[Sidenote: Messages between William and Harold.]

It was perhaps on his return from Waltham, it was certainly during his short sojourn in London, that Harold received another message from his rival. Here again we come to one of those stages of our narrative where all is confusion and contradiction. The English writers, in their short accounts of events which they loved not to dwell upon, are silent as to any attempts at peaceful negotiations taking place, at the last moment, between the two armed princes. The witness of the Norman writers is full indeed, but their witness does not agree together.[1234] The different versions agree in no circumstance of time, place, or order of events. Yet we cannot doubt that some messages passed between Harold and William, and we can almost as little doubt that it was William who sent the first messenger to Harold, and not Harold who sent the first messenger to William. It was perfectly in character that an invader who assumed the character of a legal claimant, nay more, an invader who professed to come as an armed missionary of the Roman See, should play out his part by offering the perjurer and usurper one more chance of repentance. Harold, on the other hand, a national King, simply defending his own Crown and the freedom of his people, had no need thus ostentatiously to put himself in [Sidenote: Mission of Hugh Margot to Harold;] the right. We may then believe that the first message which passed between the Norman Duke and the English King, after William landed on English ground, was when Hugh Margot, a monk of Fécamp, came to King Harold in London. He found him seated, as we may imagine him, on his throne in his Palace of Westminster, [Sidenote: he calls on him to give up the Crown.] and called on him, in the name of the Duke of the Normans, to come down from his throne, and to lay aside his crown and sceptre. The messenger once more set forth the rights of William, his claim on the Crown by the bequest of Eadward, his personal claim on Harold as his sworn man. The Duke was ready to have his claims fairly discussed, according to the law either of England or of Normandy. If either Norman or English judges held that Harold’s right was good, William would let him enjoy that right in peace. Otherwise let him quietly yield up what he had usurped, and spare the bloodshed and misery on either side of which he would be guilty if he attempted to retain it.

[Sidenote: Indignation of Harold restrained by Gyrth.]

A message like this might have provoked the meekest of men. It is not wonderful that we read in one account[1235] that Harold’s wrath was highly kindled, nay that he was with some difficulty kept back from a breach of the rights of ambassadors in the person of the insolent monk. The influence which thus restrained the King from violence is said to have been that of Earl Gyrth, who, in the Norman [Sidenote: Harold’s counter-message to William; his clear statement of his rights.] accounts, appears throughout as the good genius of his royal brother. However this may be, we elsewhere find[1236] a message addressed by Harold to William, which is evidently an answer to the monk of Fécamp, and which contains a calm and clear statement of Harold’s right. He does not deny the fact of his oath to William, but he maintains that it was an extorted oath and therefore of no force. He does not deny the fact of Eadward’s earlier promise to William, but he maintains that that promise has been cancelled by a later bequest. Ever since the blessed Augustine first preached the Gospel to Englishmen, it had always been the law of England that a testament was of no strength at all while the testator lived. Up to the moment of his death, a man might revoke any earlier disposition of his goods, which could not take effect till the breath was out of his body. Eadward had indeed once made a promise of the succession in favour of William, but that promise had become void and of none effect by his later and dying nomination of the reigning King. How far the words of any message of Harold’s have been truly reported to us by our Norman informants it is impossible to say, but it is clear that the answer thus put into Harold’s mouth, though far from exhaustive, is thoroughly to the purpose as far as it goes. Harold’s best claim to his Crown, his election by the English people, is not insisted on. But the answer to the two points insisted [Sidenote: Harold challenges William to fight on Saturday.] on by William seems hardly to admit of a rejoinder. We are told in other accounts that Harold offered William his friendship and rich gifts if he would depart quietly out of the land, but added that if he were bent on warfare, he would meet him in battle on the coming Saturday.[1237] The Duke, we are told, accepted the challenge; he dismissed the messenger with the honourable gifts of a horse and arms; and Harold, it is added, when he saw him thus return, repented him that he had done despite to the messenger whom Duke William had sent to him.

[Sidenote: Harold as well as William eager for battle.]

The challenge had now passed. There can be no doubt that the irritating message of William, and the reports which must have reached London of the cruel harrying of the South-Saxon lands, had wrought the effect which they were doubtless meant to work on the mind of Harold. It was, as we have seen, the policy of William to draw Harold down to a battle, in which William should have the vantage-ground of his intrenched camp at Hastings. And Harold was now as eager for battle as William himself could be. He was eager to avenge his own wrongs and the wrongs of his people. He was eager to strike the decisive blow before the French host could be strengthened by reinforcements from beyond sea.[1238] His personal wrath was kindled against the man who had insulted and mocked him by a challenge the most galling that had ever been addressed to a crowned King upon his throne. And a higher feeling of duty would bid him to go forth and put a stop as soon as might be to the pitiless ravages which were laying waste his land and bringing his people to beggary.[1239] The purpose of the King was to go forth at once and to meet the invader face to face, according to the challenge which he had himself given for the coming [Sidenote: Proposal of Gyrth.] Saturday. But the tale goes on to tell how Gyrth, the special hero of the Norman writers, again strove to turn his brother from his purpose.[1240] His counsel was that the King should remain, seemingly as the defender of London, while he himself should go forth to battle with the Norman. The King was wearied with his labours in the Northumbrian campaign; the troops which had as yet come together in London were not numerous enough to justify the King in attempting to strike a decisive blow [Sidenote: Gyrth’s scruples about the oath.] at their head. Moreover, whether the oath was binding or not, Harold could not deny that he had sworn an oath to William as his lord, and it was not well that a man should go forth to fight face to face against the lord to whom he had done homage.[1241] But he, Gyrth, was under no such restraint; he need feel no such scruples. He had never sworn ought to Duke William; he could go forth with a clear conscience and fight against him face [Sidenote: Gyrth proposes that he should march against William, while Harold remains and harries the country.] to face for his native land.[1242] Let the King too think on the risk to himself and to his Kingdom if he jeoparded his own life and all that depended on his own life, the noble heritage of English freedom,[1243] on the chances of a single battle. Let Gyrth fight against William. If Gyrth overcame the invader, the gain to England would be as great as if Harold himself overcame him. But if William overcame Gyrth, the loss to England would be far less than if William overcame Harold. If Gyrth were slain or in bonds, Harold could still gather another army, and could strike another blow to rescue or to avenge his brother.[1244] Let then the Earl of the East-Angles go forth with the troops which were already assembled in London, and let the King himself wait till a greater force had answered to his summons. Let him meanwhile harry the whole land between London and the coast, even as the Normans themselves were harrying it. Let him burn houses, cut down trees, lay waste corn-fields. Let him in short put a wilderness between himself and his enemy. William then, whether successful or unsuccessful in the battle with Gyrth, would presently be starved into favourable terms. He would soon find it impossible to maintain his host in the wasted land, and he would be driven to withdraw peacefully to his own dominions.[1245]

[Sidenote: Estimate of Gyrth’s advice.]

A hero was speaking to a hero; we may add, a general was speaking to a general. Our hearts are moved at the generous self-devotion of the brave Earl, who recked so little of himself as compared with the safety of his brother and his country. And in the wise, though cruel, policy which he enforced upon his brother, we can discern a subtlety of intellect fitted to grapple with that of William himself. Gyrth, as painted by hostile historians, stands forth as one who, had he outlived that one fatal day, would never have allowed England to fall without striking another blow. But how were the counsels of that lofty spirit received by the no less lofty spirit to whom they were addressed? [Sidenote: Norman calumnies.] We may cast aside the mere inventions of Norman calumny. They represent Harold as thrusting away his brother with insult, as even spurning his aged mother from his feet, when, still sad at the fate of Tostig,[1246] she implored him not to jeopard the lives of all the sons who were left to her.[1247] Such tales as these come from the same mint of falsehood as the tales which describe William as striking his wife with his spur or as beating her to [Sidenote: Answer of Harold; he refuses to ravage his land or do harm to his people.] death with his bridle.[1248] Another Norman writer, who at least better understood the characters of the two noble brothers, puts into the mouth of Harold words which, after eight hundred years, still send a thrill to the hearts of Englishmen. All who heard the counsel of Gyrth cried out that it was good, and prayed the King to follow it.[1249] But Harold answered that he would never play the coward’s part, that he would never let his friends go forth to face danger on his behalf, while he himself, from whatever cause, drew back from facing it.[1250] And he added words which show how the wise and experienced ruler, the chosen and anointed King, had cast aside whatever needed to be cast aside in the fiery exile who had once harried the coast at Porlock.[1251] “Never,” said Harold, “will I burn an English village or an English house; never will I harm the lands or the goods of any Englishman. How can I do hurt to the folk who are put under me to govern? How can I plunder and harass those whom I would fain see thrive under my rule?”[1252] Truly, when we read words like these, we feel that it is something to be of the blood and of the speech of the men who chose Harold for their King and who died around his Standard.

[Sidenote: Harold marches from London. Thursday, October 12.]

Six days had now been passed in the trysting-place of London.[1253] Daring the whole of that time men had been flocking in, but the forces of the North under the sons of Ælfgar had not yet appeared. Harold now determined to delay no longer. He set out from London, seemingly on Thursday, exactly one week after his arrival in the great city, in order to redeem his challenge of giving battle to the invaders on Saturday. He marched forth at the head of his own following and of such troops as had come in to the London muster. These would no doubt be largely reinforced by the levies of Kent and Sussex pressing to his Standard on the march. At [Sidenote: Numbers of his army; exaggeration on both sides.] the numbers of the army which he thus collected it is impossible to do more than guess. The Norman and the English writers both indulge in manifest exaggerations in opposite directions. The Normans employ every rhetorical art to set before us the prodigious numbers of the English. They were a host that no man could number, a host like the host of Xerxes, which drank up the rivers as it passed. Nothing but the special favour of God could have given his servants a victory over their [Sidenote: Harold unjustly censured.] enemies which was truly miraculous. On the other hand, the English writers yielded from the very beginning to the obvious temptation of laying the blame of the national overthrow on the rashness of the King. Harold refused to wait till a sufficient force had come together; he ventured a battle with numbers altogether inadequate, and he paid the penalty of his own over-daring. Such are the comments even of the writers who are warmest in their admiration of Harold, and who pour forth the most bitter regrets over his fall.[1254] Yet we must remember that nothing is easier than to blame a defeated commander, nothing easier than to throw on his shoulders either the faults of others or the mere caprices of fortune. And we should remember too that, deeply as we reverence our national writers, implicitly as we accept their statements of facts, warmly as we sympathize with their patriotic feelings, their criticisms on such a point as this are simply the criticisms of monks on the conduct of a consummate general. We may fairly assume that whatever captains like William and Harold did was the right thing to do in the circumstances under which they found themselves. The consummate generalship [Sidenote: His generalship; he fights on ground of his own choice.] of Harold is nowhere more conspicuously shown than in this memorable campaign. He formed his plan, and he carried it out. He determined to give battle, but he determined to give battle on his own ground and after his [Sidenote: No attack on the Norman camp intended.] own fashion. All probability goes against the belief that Harold designed anything so foolhardy as an attack, by night or by day, on the Norman camp. No doubt the expectation of such an attack was prevalent in the Norman camp.[1255] But our evidence proves only the existence of such an expectation among the Normans; it in no way proves the existence of any such design on the part of the English King. The nature of the post which he chose distinctly shows the contrary; it distinctly shows what Harold’s real plan was. It was to occupy a post where the Normans would have to attack him at a great disadvantage, and where he could defend himself at a great advantage. This he effectually did, and it was no small effort of true generalship to [Sidenote: Harold probably judged rightly as to numbers.] do so. And for the post which he chose, and for the mode warfare which he contemplated, overwhelming numbers were in no way desirable. A moderate force, if thoroughly compact and thoroughly trustworthy, would really do the work better. If then Harold marched against the invader at the head of a force which, to critics of his own day, seemed inadequate for his purpose, the chances are that Harold knew well what he was doing and that his critics did not understand his plans. Harold was defeated; he has therefore paid the usual penalty of defeat in ignorant censure of his actions. But it is quite certain that his defeat was not owing to mere lack of numbers, and we may fairly conclude that the force with which he set out was one which he judged to be sufficient for carrying out the plan which he had formed.

[Sidenote: Military importance of the campaign; skill of both generals.]

The great campaign of Hastings was thus in truth a trial of skill between the two greatest of living captains. Each of them, it may fairly be said, to some extent compassed his purpose against the other. William constrained Harold to fight; but Harold, in his turn, constrained William to fight on ground of Harold’s own choosing. He constrained him to fight on ground than which none could be better suited for the purposes of the English defence, none worse suited for the purposes of the Norman attack. This march of Harold from London into Sussex was a march as speedy and as well executed as his march from London to York so short a time before. But it was a march conceived with somewhat different objects. Both marches were made to meet an invader, to deliver the land from the desolation caused by the presence of an invader. But the march into Northumberland was strictly a march to surprize an invader, while the march into Sussex was a march to meet an invader against whom altogether different [Sidenote: Harold’s tactics defensive.] tactics had to be employed. It was Harold’s policy to make the enemy the assailant in the actual battle as well as in the general campaign. One cannot doubt that the whole march was designed with reference to this special object. From the moment when Harold fixed a day for the battle, he no doubt also fixed a place. He must have known Sussex well, and he had clearly, from the very beginning, chosen in his own mind the spot on which he would give battle. His march was strictly a march to the [Sidenote: He marches through Kent and Sussex,] actual spot on which the battle was to be fought. His course lay along the line of the great road from London to the south coast. He halted on a spot which commanded that road, and which also commanded the great road eastward from William’s present position. He hastened on through those Kentish and South-Saxon lands which had been the cradle of his house, and which contained so large [Sidenote: and encamps on SENLAC. Friday, October 13.] a portion of his own vast estates. He halted at a point distant about seven miles from the head-quarters of the invaders, and pitched his camp upon the ever-memorable heights of Senlac.[1256]

[Sidenote: Nature of the site.]

The spot on which the destinies of England were fixed was indeed one chosen with the eye of a great general. Harold has, in this respect, had somewhat scanty justice done to him by those of his own countrymen who seem inclined to throw on him the blame of the national defeat. But it is in the Norman accounts, which alone supply details, that the history of the great battle must be studied; and it cannot be denied that, in every military respect, they do full justice both to the English King and to the English army. Their conventional rhetoric of abuse never fails them; but what Harold and his followers really were we see from the facts as stated by the Normans themselves, and from the expressions of unwilling, of half-unconscious, admiration which those facts wring from them.[1257] Harold might be a perjurer and an usurper, but the language of his enemies at least shows that they found him [Sidenote: The post perfectly suited to Harold’s object.] an equal and terrible adversary in the day of battle. And nowhere is Harold’s military greatness so distinctly felt as when, with the Norman narratives in our hand, we tread the battle-field of his own choice, and see how thoroughly the post was suited for the purposes of him who chose it. It was the policy of Harold not to attack. The mode of fighting of an English army in that age made it absolutely invincible as long as it could hold its ground. [Sidenote: His arrangements purely defensive.] But neither the close array of the battle-axe men, nor the swarms of darters and other half-armed irregular levies, were suited to take the offensive against the horsemen who formed the strength of the Norman army. It needed only a developement of the usual tactics of the shield-wall to turn the battle as far as possible into the likeness of a siege. This was what Harold now did. He occupied, and fortified as thoroughly as the time and the means at his command would allow, a post of great natural strength, which he made into what is distinctly spoken of as a castle.[1258] It was a post which it was quite impossible that William could pass by without attacking. But it was also a post which it in no way suited William’s purposes to occupy with his own forces. By so doing he might have forced Harold to decline fighting; he could not have compelled him to fight on other ground. Harold was therefore enabled to occupy the post of his own choice, the natural bulwark of London and of the [Sidenote: Description of the hill of Senlac or Battle.] inland parts of England generally. The hill of Senlac,[1259] now occupied by the Abbey and town of Battle, commemorates in its later name the great event of which it was the scene. It is the last spur of the downs covered by the great Andredes-weald, and it completely commands the broken ground, alternating with hill and marsh, which lies between itself and the sea. It stands in fact right in the teeth of an enemy marching northwards from Hastings. The hill itself is of a peninsular shape, stretching from the east to the south-west, and it is united by a narrow isthmus to the great mass of the high ground to the north.[1260] The height is low, compared with the mountains and lofty hills of the western parts of our island, but its slopes, greatly varying in their degrees of steepness, would, even where the ascent is most gentle, afford a formidable obstacle to an enemy who relied mainly on his cavalry. The spot was then quite unoccupied and untilled; nothing in any of the narratives implies the existence of any village or settlement; our own Chronicles only describe the site as by “the hoar apple-tree,”[1261] some relic, we may well believe, of the days when streams and trees were still under the guardianship of their protecting, perhaps indwelling deities. At present the eastern part of the hill is covered by the buildings of the Abbey, and by part of the town which has gathered round it, including the parish church. The town also stretches to the north-west, away from the main battle-ground, along what I have spoken of as the isthmus. But the hill reaches to a considerable distance south-west of the isthmus, westward from the buildings of the Abbey, and this part of the ground, we shall see, really played the most decisive part in the great event of the place. A sort of ravine, watered by two small streams which join together at the base of the hill, cuts off the south-western end of the battle-ground from the isthmus and the ground connected with it. The steepness of the ground here is considerable. At the extreme south-east end, the present approach to the town from Hastings, the ascent is gentler. Turning the eastern end of the hill, which here takes a slightly forked shape, the ground on the north side, near the present parish church, is exceedingly steep, almost precipitous. Along the south front of the hill, that most directly in the teeth of the invaders, the degree of height and steepness varies a good deal. The highest and steepest is the central point occupied by the buildings of the Abbey. Some way westward from the Abbey is the point where the slope is gentlest of all, where the access to the natural citadel is [Sidenote: The detached hill.] least difficult. But here a low, detached, broken hill, a sort of small island in advance of the larger peninsula, stands out as an outpost in front of the main mass of high ground, and, as we shall see, it played a most important part in the battle.

14th October 1066.

_The position at the commencement of the Norman attack about 9 a.m._]

[Sidenote: Advantage of the site.]