The Norsemen were taken by surprise. It was inconceivable that Harold could be nigh, and so they advanced to York, which had promised surrender, leaving their coats of mail on board their ships in the river. As they marched towards the gates, which were to be flung wide at their approach, they beheld a cloud of dust and the glitter of arms in the distance. “Who are these advancing towards us?” asked Hardrada. “Only Englishmen craving pardon and beseeching friendship,” answered Tostig; but the words had scarcely been uttered before the dust-cloud resolved itself into an army, headed by King Harold himself. “The enemy!—the enemy!” muttered the Norwegians. They formed in line of battle, ready for the fray.
Harold feared not the issue, but he was loath to shed his brother’s blood, and sent forward a messenger to offer Tostig his old earldom—one-third of the kingdom—if he would yield. “And what,” asked Tostig, “will he give my faithful ally, the King of Norway?” “He,” replied the English messenger, “shall have seven feet of ground for a grave, or, as he is a very tall man, perhaps a little more.” Tostig bade the messenger depart, and battle was joined.
Hardly had the fray begun before Hardrada fell with a random arrow in his throat. The fury of the English onset could not be resisted. The Norwegians fell back and crossed the Derwent by Stamford Bridge, and the English followed. For a time a gigantic Norseman, like Horatius of old, “kept the bridge;” but he was slain at last, and the English swarmed after the retreating foe. At nightfall the Norsemen were overthrown, the raven banner of the Vikings was taken, and Tostig and most of his captains were dead. Harold had triumphed. His foes came in three hundred ships; they fled in twenty-four.
THE DEATH OF HAROLD.
(From the drawing by Daniel Maclise, R.A. By permission of the Art Union of London.)
THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.
“Norman saw on English oak,
On English neck a Norman yoke,