Thus was begun the most famous battle ever fought in England. It endured without advantage either way for some six hours till the Norman horse, flung back from the charge, fell into the Malfosse in utter confusion, and the day seemed lost to the Normans. But Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, retrieved it and from that time, about three o'clock, the Normans began to have the advantage. The battle seems to have been decided at last by two clever devices attributed to William himself. He determined to break Harold's line, and since he had not been able to do this by repeated charges, he determined to try a stratagem. Therefore he ordered his men to feign flight, and thus to draw the English after them in pursuit. This was successfully done, and when the English followed they were easily surrounded and slain. William's other device is said to have been that of shooting high into the air so that the arrows might turn and fall as from the sky upon the foe. This stratagem is said to have been the cause of Harold's death; for it was an arrow falling from on high and piercing him through the right eye that killed him or so grievously wounded him that he was left for dead, to be finally killed by Eustace of Boulogne and three other knights.
With Harold down there can have been little hope of victory left to his men, and indeed before night William had planted the Pope's banner where Harold's had floated and held the battlefield. There he supped among the dead, and having spent Sunday, October 15th, in burying the fallen, he set out not for London, but for Dover, for his simple and precise plan was to secure all the entries into England from the continent before securing the capital. When he had done this he marched up into England by the Watling Street, burned Southwark, crossed the Thames at Wallingford, received there the submission of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and at Berkhampstead the submission of London and the offer of the Crown which he received at Westminster at Mass upon Christmas Day; twelve days less than a year after Harold had been crowned in the same place.
One comes to Battle to-day along that great and beautiful road, high up over the sea plain, which still seems full with memories of the Norman advance from Hastings, thinking of all that great business. If one comes up on Tuesday, upon payment of sixpence, one is admitted to the gardens of the house in which lie the ruins of the abbey William founded in thankfulness to God for his victory, the high altar of which was set upon the very spot where Harold fell: "Hic Harold Rex interfectus est."
It was while William was encamped upon Telham Hill, expecting the battle of the morrow, that he vowed an abbey to God if He gave him the victory. He was heard by a monk of Marmoutier, a certain William, called the Smith, who, when Duke William had received the crown at Westminster, reminded him of his promise. The King acknowledged his obligation and bade William of Marmoutier to see to its fulfilment. The monk thereupon returned to Marmoutier, and choosing four others, brought them to England; but finding the actual battlefield unsuited for a monastery, since there was no water there, he designed to build lower down towards the west. Now when the King heard of it he was angry and bade them build upon the field itself, nor would he hear them patiently when they asserted there was no water there, for, said he: "If God spare me I will so fully provide this place that wine shall be more abundant there than water is in any abbey in the land." Then said they that there was no stone. But he answered that he would bring them stone from Caen. This, however, was not done, for a quarry was found close by. Also the King richly endowed the house, giving it all the land within a radius of a league, and there the abbot was to be absolute lord free of bishop and royal officer, [Footnote: The unique privileges of the abbot of Battle included the right to "kill and take one or two beasts with dogs" in any of the King's forests.] and very many manors beside. Yet ten years elapsed before the Abbey of Battle was sufficiently completed to receive an abbot. In 1076, however, Robert Blancard, one of the four monks chosen by William of Marmoutier, was appointed, but he died e'er he came to Battle. Then one Gausbert was sent from Marmoutier, and he came with four of his brethren and was consecrated "Abbot of St Martin's of the place of Battle." Beside the extraordinary gifts and privileges which the Conqueror had bestowed upon the Abbey in his lifetime, upon his death he bequeathed to it his royal embroidered cloak, a splendid collection of relics and a portable altar containing relics, possibly the very one upon which Harold had sworn in his captivity in Normandy to support his claim to England. William is said to have intended the monastery to be filled with sixty monks. We do not know whether this number ever really served there. In 1393, but that was after the Black Death, there appear to have been some twenty-seven, and in 1404 but thirty. In 1535, on the eve of the Suppression, Battle Abbey was visited by the infamous Layton who reported to Thomas Cromwell that "all but two or three of the monks were guilty of unnatural crimes and were traitors," adding that the abbot was an arrant churl and that "this black sort of develish monks I am sorry to know are past amendment." Little more than two years later the abbot surrendered the abbey and received a pension of one hundred pounds. The furniture and so forth of the house was then very poor. "So beggary a house I never see, nor so filthy stuff," Layton writes to Wriothesley. "I will not 20s. for all the hangings in this house...." In August 1538 the place was granted to Sir Anthony Browne, who is said to have removed the cloak of the Conqueror and the famous Battle Abbey Roll to Cowdray. This rascal razed the church and cloisters to the ground, and made the abbot's lodging his dwelling. It is said that one night as he was feasting a monk appeared before him and solemnly cursed him, prophesying that his family should perish by fire. To the fulfilment of this curse Cowdray bears witness even to this day.
What spoliation, time and neglect have left of the Abbey is beautiful, especially the great fourteenth century gateway which faces the Market Green. Nothing save the foundations is left of the great church. From the terrace, doubtless, we look across the battlefield, but all is so changed, the bleak hill-top has become a superb garden, that it is impossible to realise still less to reconstruct the battle, and indeed since we can only visit the place amid a crowd of tourists, our present discomfort makes any remembrance of the fight or of the great and solemn abbey which for so long turned that battlefield into a sanctuary impossible.
Nor indeed are we more fortunate in the parish church which was originally built by Abbot Ralph in the twelfth century. It has been so tampered with and restored that little remains that is unspoilt. There, and I think most fittingly, lies that Sir Anthony Browne who got Battle Abbey from the King who had stolen it.
Now when I had seen all this I went on my way, and because I was unhappy on account of all that theft and destruction, and because where once there had been altar and monks to serve it, now there was none, and because what had once been common to us all was now become the pleasure of one man, I went up out of Battle into the hills by the great road through the woods and so on and up by Dallington and Heathfield and so down and down and down all a summer day across the Weald till at evening I came to Lewes where I slept. I remember nothing of that day but the wind and the hills and the great sun of May which went ever before me into the west so that I soon forgot to be sorry and rejoiced as I went.