On all sides the battle raged. Lances clashed, sword rang upon sword, arrows whizzed through the air, and battle-axes crashed through steel armour; while the cries of the wounded mingled with the blasts of the war-horn and English cries of 'Out, out!' answered the Norman shouts of 'God aid us!'
Stoutest of the English was Harold, whose heavy battle-axe would cut down horse and rider at a blow. Among the Normans there arose a cry that the duke was slain.
'Here am I,' shouted William, tearing off his helmet, 'and by God's aid will yet win the day!'
Maddened with war fury, he spurred up the hill, broke single-handed through the barrier, and rode straight to Harold. The brother of the king stepped before him, and was hewn down by a blow from William before the duke himself was unhorsed and fell to the ground. Mounting again quickly, William cut his way through his foes and was back again in the Norman lines before any one could harm him.
A body of Normans having given way, the Kentish men in their eagerness overleaped the barricade and gave chase to their flying foes. Instantly William saw his advantage. The Normans turned, galloped up the hill, and poured by thousands into the gap thus left undefended.
This proved the turning point of the day.
'Slowly and surely,' says an old writer, 'the Norman horse pressed along the crest of the hill, strewing the height with corpses as the hay is strewn in swaths before the mower.'
Still the ring round the standard remained unbroken, and in the centre Harold and his bodyguard held their ground, dealing blows around them with their great battle-axes. Beyond the ring the dead lay piled up in heaps, English and Norman together.
'Shoot upward,' cried the duke to his archers, 'that your arrows may fall like bolts from heaven.'
A shower of arrows fell upon the heads and shoulders of the English, killing and wounding many a brave fighter.