Along the front the Saxons nobly avenged their slaughtered brethren, and William poured his whole army against them in a murderous charge. Quicker rose and fell the Saxon axes, and, recoiling from the shock, the surging mass of mail-clad warriors rolled down the ravine, between two hills, and many men were trampled to death by the struggling horses. Surely a charge of heavy cavalry would, at this crisis, have secured the throne and crown of Harold. Thrice the stalwart form of Norman William sank amid the surges, as three horses were slain beneath him. A cry arose that the Duke was slain, and panic and defeat appeared inevitable, when William rode, bare-headed, among his warriors, and reformed their ranks.
During the dreadful carnage, Harold maintained the van, fighting with heroic courage, although suffering severely from an arrow-wound which had destroyed one of his eyes. William’s strenuous efforts were nobly seconded by his officers, and especially by his half-brother, Odo, the warlike bishop of Bayeux. Foiled in every attempt to penetrate the Saxon lines, and hopeless of beating them out of their defences, William drew the Saxons by a feigned retreat of his cavalry, and on passing the broken ground, turned upon them, and cut them to pieces. Twice was the ruse repeated, and although the Saxons maintained their position with undaunted front, their ranks were terribly thinned and shaken.
The charges were repeated, again and again, and the Normans rolled back in blood. The day waned, but the desperate attacks were foiled. At length a number of palisades were displaced, and the Norman horse bit into the Saxon masses, hewing a bloody pathway, and paying heavily for every foot they won. Twenty knights vowed to take Harold’s banner, and William of Normandy, rendered desperate by his peril, was anxiously seeking the Saxon hero. The conflict inside the palisades was tremendous. Harold’s brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, perished in the van: the King was slain; there was a bloody rally round the royal banner; ten of the Norman knights were hewn down, but the banner was captured, and the Norman flag elevated in its place. Still the Saxons would not fly; the “Golden Dragon” was taken, and they were reduced to a mere mob of struggling warriors. The grey of evening merged into the dusk of night before the retreat commenced. In retreat they were almost as dangerous as in battle, and repeatedly turned and drew Norman blood. The Normans were driven back, William advanced to their succour, and while their leader, Eustace of Boulogne, was whispering in the Duke’s ear, he was struck on the back by a heavy Saxon axe, and fell, insensible, from his horse, the blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils.
The Normans, relaxing the pursuit, rode their horses over the slain Saxons, in savage elation, before returning solemn thanks to God for the victory.
Gurtha, the mother of Harold, came to beg the hero’s body, to give it burial; but William is reported to have refused, ordering the corse to be buried on the strand, remarking, with unknightly anger—“He guarded the coast while he was alive, let him thus continue to guard it after death.” The dead King was, however, interred in Waltham Abbey, which he had founded and endowed; or, if Tovi, Canute’s standard-bearer, was the original founder of the abbey, yet Harold was largely its benefactor.
On the field of Senlac King William built the famous Battle Abbey, that priests might perpetually pray for the souls of the slain, but, as Palgrave remarks:—“All this pomp and solemnity has passed away like a dream. The ‘perpetual prayer’ has ceased for ever—the roll of Battle is rent—the shields of the Norman lieges are trodden in the dust—the Abbey is levelled to the ground—and a dark and reedy pool fills the spot where the foundations of the quire have been uncovered, merely for the gaze of the idle visitor, or the instruction of the moping antiquary.”
Yorkshire endured terrible evils at the hands of the Conqueror, as he penetrated its wilds with his famous bowmen and men-at-arms.
The year 1068 witnessed a Northumbrian revolt, which was easily quelled; but a more determined effort to cast off the Norman yoke was made in the following year. The events are thus recorded in the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” and were graphically realized by the acutely sympathetic mind of the Rev. Charles Kingsley in his stirring story of “Hereward, the last of the English.” The accuracy of the latter part of the title of his novel is, however, generally disputed:
“A.D. 1068—This year King William gave the earldom of Northumberland to earl Robert,[43] and the men of that country came against him, and slew him and 900 others with him. And then Edgar etheling marched with all the Northumbrians to York, and the townsmen treated with him; on which King William came from the south with all his troops, and sacked the town, and slew many hundred persons. He also profaned St. Peter’s minster, and all other places, and the etheling went back to Scotland.
“After this came Harold’s sons from Ireland, about Midsummer, with sixty-four ships, and entered the mouth of the Taff, where they incautiously landed. Earl Beorn came upon them unawares with a large army, and slew all their bravest men; the others escaped to their ships, and Harold’s sons went back again to Ireland.