Now the scene changes, and you see Harold’s footmen hurrying forward in the vain hope of smiting the Norman ere he has made good his landing. But the surprise of Stamford Bridge is not to be repeated, and Harold halts seven miles from Hastings and sends forward his spies. Speedily they return with the astonishing news that there are more priests in William’s camp than fighting-men. They are mistaken; they do not know the Norman custom of shaving the beard and cropping the poll. Harold smiles at their report. “Those whom you have seen in such numbers,” says he, “are not priests but good soldiers, who will make us feel what they are.” Now a council of war is held, and several of his captains, with rare good sense, advise the English king to avoid a battle and retreat towards London, leaving a desert behind him. “No,” says the chivalrous Harold. “Ravage the country which has been committed to my care! Never! I will try the chances of battle with the few men I have, and trust to their courage and the goodness of my cause.”
But here comes a Norman monk, big with a message from his duke, bidding Harold do one of three things—resign his kingdom in favour of William, yield it to the Pope for his award, or determine the issue by single combat. “Tell your master,” says Harold abruptly, “I will not resign my title, I will not refer it to the Pope, nor will I accept the single combat.” Again William tempts him by the promise of all the land north of the Humber; but Harold is proof against the bribe, and his captains swear a unanimous oath to make neither peace, truce, nor treaty with the invader, but to drive away the Norman, or perish in the attempt.
Now the scene shifts once more. On a spur of the South Downs, where Battle Abbey now stands, you see the embattled array of the English. The hill of Senlac, on which they have posted themselves, slopes steeply in front, less steeply on the right, and gently on the left. On the summit of the hill the host of the English is thickly gathered behind a rough trench and a stockade. There is marshy ground on the right, but the left is the weakest part of the position, and here are mustered Harold’s stout hus-carles, doughty warriors in full armour, wielding huge axes. Here, too, are the banners of the king—the Golden Dragon of Wessex and the Fighting Man. The rest of the ground is occupied by the half-armed rustics who have flocked to Harold, and are bent on striking a good blow against the invader.
Out from the Norman host spurs the minstrel Taillefer, singing the song of Roland, and Oliver, and the peers who died at Roncesvalles. As he sings he tosses his sword into the air and juggles with it famously. Then he puts his horse to the gallop, and strikes his lance through an English breast. He smites another with his sword, shouting challenges to the foe. The English close round him, and the first Norman has fallen on the fatal field.
A shower of arrows from the archers begins the fray, and then the footmen and the Norman knights, to the loud braying of horns, charge up the slopes, crying, “God be our help!” The charge breaks vainly on the stockade and shield-wall, behind which the English ply axe and javelin with fierce shouts of “Out! out!” Back go the footmen and back go the knights, leaving dead and wounded before that fatal barrier. Again and again the duke rallies them; the fury of fight surges in his veins, and with headlong valour he spurs up the slopes to the fierce attack. No breach can be made in that wall. His Bretons, entangled in the marshy ground, break into disorder, and panic seizes his army as the cry goes round that the duke is slain. William bars the way and checks the flight of the fugitives with savage blows. He tears off his helmet. “I am alive,” he shouts, “and by God’s will I will conquer yet.”
Maddened by another repulse, he spurs right into the thick of the fight. His horse goes down beneath him, but his terrible mace circles in the air, and his assailants are felled, never to rise again. Again he mounts, again he is unhorsed, and a blow of his hand hurls to the ground an unmannerly rider who will not lend him a steed. William’s terrible onslaughts have dispelled the panic, but the issue of the battle still hangs in the balance.
It is three in the afternoon, and the English shield-wall is yet unbroken. Frontal attacks having failed, William will now try what the cunning of strategy can accomplish. Hitherto his archers have done but little mischief. With their great shields the English ward off the arrows that beat upon them like hail. “Shoot upwards,” he commands, “that your arrows may fall on their heads.” The archers obey, and with shields raised aloft to protect their faces, the English are at a manifest disadvantage in their encounters with the Norman knights. Almost the first to suffer in that iron storm is Harold himself. An arrow pierces his right eye. In agony he plucks it out, snaps it in two, and flings it from him; but the pain is so great that he leans heavily upon his shield.
Meanwhile another stratagem is equally successful. William orders a thousand horse to advance, and then to turn and flee. At the sight, the English behind their stockade leap forward and set off in wild pursuit, their axes suspended from their necks. When they are well away from their defences, the fleeing Normans wheel about, and the pursuers find themselves assailed on all sides with spear and sword. They are cut to pieces, and William speedily makes himself master of the position which they have abandoned. On either flank his horsemen also make good their ascent, and now a fierce hand-to-hand combat rages on the crest of the hill. Loud is the clamour, great is the slaughter, and the mêlée is thickest round the standard where the hus-carles encircle the body of their king with a wall of living valour. One by one they fall, the rest betake themselves to flight, and the night falls on a stricken and wailing England.
Now see the torches flit about the field as the conquerors rifle the dead. Duke William’s tent is pitched on the spot where the fight has raged fiercest. Amidst the grisly mounds of slain he gives thanks for his victory, and eats and drinks and rests himself. The Sabbath morning dawns, and mournful parties of noble ladies, clad in the black robes of mourning, search the field for the bodies of their fathers, sons, husbands, or brothers. Two monks from the Abbey of Waltham, which Harold has founded, approach the conqueror and humbly offer him ten marks of gold for leave to carry away the remains of their benefactor. William grants them permission, and to and fro they go, anxiously and vainly searching the field for the body of the dead king. At length they call upon the “swan-necked Edith,” who loved him well, to assist in the search. She is more successful than they, and the mangled and disfigured corpse is given hurried burial beneath the high altar of Waltham Abbey.
While the conqueror plans a memorial fane on the blood-sodden ground, and marshals his forces for the march on London, the English are sunk in the depths of bitterness and despair. “England, what shall I say of thee?” wails the monkish scribe. “Thou hast lost thy national king, and sinkest under the foreigner, bathed in the blood of thy defenders!” The conqueror marches in triumph to London without striking a blow, and on Christmas Day an English archbishop places the crown upon his head in the Abbey of Westminster. There is bloodshed even on that day. When, according to the old English custom, Stigand, the archbishop, asks the assembled thanes if they will have the Norman for their king, loud shouts of assent are raised. The Norman guards surrounding the minster mistake the shouting within the abbey for the noise of strife, and immediately fire the neighbouring houses and slay the innocent spectators.