It is true that the society of that time was, as I have said, all of one piece both in England and in Gaul, but it is certain that in England that society was less precisely organised, less conscious of itself, less logical in its structure, in a word less real and more barbarous than that of the Normans. The victory of Duke William meant that the sluggish English system would be replaced or at any rate reinvigorated by an energy and an intelligence foreign to it, without which it might seem certain that civilisation here would have fallen into utter decay or have perished altogether. The service of Duke William then, while not so great as that of Caesar and certainly far less than that of St Augustine, was of the same kind; he rescued England from barbarism and brought us back into the full light of Europe. The campaign in which that great service was achieved divides itself into two parts, the first of which comes to an end with the decisive action at Hastings which gave Duke William the crown; the second consists of three great fighting marches, the result of which was the conquest of England. I am only here concerned with the first part of that campaign, and more especially with the great engagement which was fought out upon the hill-top which the ruins of Battle Abbey still mark. Let us consider this.
Harold, the second son of Earl Godwin, was crowned King of England at Westminster upon the feast of the Epiphany in the year 1066. When Duke William heard of it he was both angry and amazed, and at once began to call up his feudatories to lend him aid to enforce his claim to the Crown of England against King Harold. This was not an easy thing to do, nor could it be done at all quickly. It was necessary to gather a great host.
Those lords who owed him allegiance had as often as not to be persuaded or bribed to fulfil their obligation; and they with their followers and dependents were not enough; it was necessary to engage as many as possible of those chiefs who did not own him as lord; these had to be bought by promises of gain and honour. Also a considerable fleet had to be built. All this took time, and Harold was therefore perfectly aware of what Duke William intended, and gathered his forces, both of ships and men, to meet him in the south of England. All through the spring and summer he waited, in vain. Meantime, soon after Easter, a strange portent appeared in the heavens "the comet star which some men call the hairy star," and no man could say what it might mean. It was not this, however, which delayed William; he was not ready. It is possible that had he been able to advance during the summer the whole history of England might have been different. As it was, when autumn was at hand with the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin, Harold's men were out of provisions and weary of waiting; they were allowed to disperse, Harold himself went to London and the fleet beat up into the Thames, not without damage and loss, against the wind, which, had he but known it, now alone delayed the Duke.
But that wind which kept William in port brought another enemy of Harold's to England with some three hundred galleys, Hardrada of Norway, who came to support the claims of Tostig, now his man, King Harold's exiled brother, to Northumbria; for the Northumbrians had rebelled against him, and Harold had acquiesced in their choice of Morkere for lord. Neither Morkere nor his brother Edwin, with their local forces, was able to meet Hardrada with success. They attempted to enter York but at Fulford on the 20th September they were routed, and Hardrada held the great northern capital.
Meanwhile Harold had not been idle. Gathering his scattered forces he marched north with amazing speed, covering the two hundred miles between London and Tadcaster in nine days, to meet this new foe; but this almost marvellous performance left the south undefended. He entered York on September 25th, and on the same day, seven miles from the city at Stamford Bridge, he engaged the enemy and broke them utterly. Three days later William landed at Pevensey.
What could Harold do? He did all that a man could do. William had landed at Pevensey upon Thursday, September 28th. It is probable that Harold heard of it on the following Monday, October 2nd. Immediately he set out for London, which by hard riding he reached, though probably with but a few men, on Friday, October 6th, an amazing achievement, only made possible by the great Roman road between York and London. Upon the following Tuesday and Wednesday he was joined by his victorious forces from the north, who had thus repeated their unequalled feat and marched south again as they had north some two hundred miles in nine days. Upon Wednesday, October 11th, Harold marched out of London at the head of this force, and by the evening of October 13th—a day curiously enough to be kept later as the feast of St Edward the Confessor—this heroic force had marched in forty-eight hours some sixty miles across country, and was in position upon that famous hill some two hours from the coast, overlooking the landing- place of William at Pevensey and the port he had seized at Hastings. That great march has, I think, never been equalled by any British army before or since.
It might seem strange that William, who had landed at Pevensey upon the 28th of September, had not advanced at all from the sea-coast when Harold and his men appeared upon that hill after their great march from York upon October 13th. But in fact William, Norman as he was, had a very clear idea of what he intended to do. He left little to chance. He landed his men at Pevensey, seized upon Hastings and beached his ships; then for a whole fortnight he awaited the hot and weary return of Harold. Harold appeared upon the evening of October 13th. Upon the following day, a Saturday, the battle William had expected was fought, Harold was slain and his heroic force destroyed.
The story of that day is well known. Harold's forces were drawn up upon the ridge where the ruins of Battle Abbey now stand. William, upon the thirteenth, had marched out of Hastings and had occupied the hill to the east called Telham, where to-day stands Telham Court. In those days probably no village or habitation of any sort occupied either of these heights; one of the chroniclers calls the battlefield the place of "the Hoar Apple Tree."
It is said that the night of October 13th was passed by Harold and his men in feasting and in jollity, while the Normans confessed their sins and received absolution. However that may be, in the full daylight, about nine o'clock of Saturday, October 14th, the battle was joined.
This tremendous affair which was to have such enormous consequences was opened by the minstrel Taellefer, who had besought leave of Duke William to strike the first blow. Between the two armies he rode singing the Song of Roland, and high into the air he flung his lance and caught it three times e'er he hurled it at last into the amazed English, to fall at last, slain by a hundred javelins as he rode back into the Norman front.