Probably the Norman infantry were already falling back when William let loose his cavalry. No doubt the chivalry of France and Normandy expected to ride down the English infantry with ease. Out in front of the long moving line of horsemen, bright in their ringed mail shirts, rode the minstrel Taillefer, chanting verses from the ‘Song of Roland,’ playing with his sword as he pricked up the slope. He was the first of the knighthood to penetrate the shield-wall—also the first to fall. The long lines of horsemen crashed against the shields; the shock must have been tremendous, but their fortune was no better than that of their despised infantry. The English front may have been pressed back, even pierced in places, but the gaps were at once restored; man and horse went down beneath the tremendous strokes of the great axes, while from the rearward ranks of the English host the same tempest of darts, throwing-axes, and stone clubs crashed upon the mail and helmets of the charging cavaliers. After a furious struggle the Bretons and Angevins were repulsed and driven downhill. After them poured the ill-disciplined levies of the English right. The retreating horsemen blundered into the marsh, which they had avoided without difficulty as they advanced, and, with the English pressing furiously on their rear, were in wild disorder, when the victors were suddenly charged in flank by part of the Norman centre, turned against them by the watchful Duke. The results were terrible. The scattered warriors, many of them half-armed peasants, were overridden and cut down by hundreds, and only a remnant regained the position which they had so rashly left.
This, however, was only the beginning. William rallied the broken left wing, and again and again the fierce horsemen charged the immovable English line—in vain. Never had the knights seen or heard of such foot-soldiers as these. One tremendous charge led by William himself did burst through the shield-wall; and the brave Gyrth went down beneath the Duke’s terrible mace. Leofwine, too, was slain; but the charge was beaten off by a rally of the English axemen, and hurled downhill, and the cry went up that the Duke was slain. William flung himself among the panic-stricken knights: ‘I live! I live!’ he thundered, tearing off his helmet. ‘By God’s aid I will conquer yet!’ Out of evil came good—for Normandy.
Nearly the whole Norman line was apparently in disorder, but William rallied it again and brought it up to the charge, though it is evident that the attacks must have grown less and less effective as time went on, owing to the fatigue of the horses. At his wits’ end, William tried the expedient of a feigned retreat; and the French on the right recoiled, to all seeming broken and beaten, down the slope. This was too much for the greatly enduring Englishmen, and a great part of their left and centre came pouring down in pursuit. The retreating horsemen turned upon them; William assailed them in flank with troops from his centre. The carnage was great, and apparently the whole English left wing was annihilated. But the pursuing horsemen appear to have met with disaster in an unexpected trench or watercourse, and Bishop Odo of Bayeux had to ride among and steady them.
Still, the battle was far from over. The best part of the English army, including the royal household, was still ranged in dense masses on the crown of the hill. But their line was sorely reduced by the disaster of the wings, and the Norman cavalry could charge in front and flank. Inspired by the hope of victory, the knights hurled themselves again to the attack, but still in vain. The line of shields was an impregnable barrier; charge after charge recoiled from the steadfast front and to the fierce Norman war-cry of ‘Dex aie!’ (Dieu aide!) the English shouts of ‘Holy Cross!’ still thundered in defiant answer.
THE ATTACK ON THE ENGLISH SHIELD-WALL AT HASTINGS.
Norman cavalry charging from both sides, and bowmen skirmishing, indicating the archery attack.
(From the Bayeux Tapestry.)
The Norman cavalry was growing more and more wearied and ineffective; the victory was far from decisive as long as the English centre still fought on. Then at last William did what he should have attempted long before, and brought his archers to the front. Any East-Roman tactician would have told him that the cavalry should never have attacked until the English masses had been thoroughly shattered by their fire, and the fact shows how low the art of war had fallen in the West. Between the cavalry attacks the bowmen poured in their volleys, shooting with a high trajectory so that the arrows were not wasted on the shield-wall, but made havoc in the heart of the dense mass. The device had terrible success. The picked warriors of England fell fast before the pitiless rain to which they could not reply. For the most part they could but suffer. Once or twice it seems that small bodies tried to charge out; now and again desperate warriors sprang forth to contend hand-to-hand with the Norman knights, but they only hastened their end. The splendid guards stood shoulder to shoulder in the mass, never wavering or faltering, but the losses were all on one side. Behind the unbroken shield-wall was an ever-increasing weltering confusion of dead and dying upon which the arrows beat pitilessly; and the King, mortally wounded in the eye, lay in agony beneath the standards. The position was desperate; but so long as the banners waved and the King lived there was no thought of yielding. But at last the fatal gaps could not be closed fast enough, and the Normans burst through the shield-wall. A band of knights hewed their way through the dissolving mass, cut down the faithful few round Harold, tore down the Dragon and the Warrior, and literally hacked the dying King to pieces at the foot of his banners.
And now the end had come. The noble English infantry, who had defied the Norman chivalry all day, and but for the archery would have beaten them to their ships, began—all that remained of them—to withdraw sullenly but hopelessly. Even yet they were not demoralized, and some were still in good order. As the little remnant got away across the saddleback into Andredsweald they saw the Normans plunging rashly in pursuit down the steep rearward slopes of Senlac. Turning to bay, true even in that hour of despair, to their noble warrior strain, they set upon the overweening horsemen, cut their leading squadrons to pieces, and drove them back on Senlac. Panic spread through the Norman army; Eustace of Boulogne is said to have counselled retreat, and it was only when William himself rallied his squadrons and brought them along the ridge in a properly ordered pursuit that the English finally melted away into the woods.