stooping from his horse, inflicts a wound upon his thigh. The group is superscribed, HIC HAROLD REX INTERFECTUS EST—Here Harold the King is slain.[104]
“The English were in great trouble at having lost their King, and at the Duke’s having conquered and beat down the standard; but they still fought on, and defended themselves long, and in fact till the day drew to a close. Then it clearly appeared to all that the standard was lost, and the news had spread throughout the army that Harold for certain was dead; and all saw now that there was no longer any hope, so they left the field and those fled who could.” Ingulph tells us that all the nobles that were in Harold’s army were slain;[105] we are hence led to infer that it was the untrained peasantry only who betook themselves to flight. The Tapestry is in consistency with this. The last compartment represents a group of men unprotected by body armour, and supplied only with a mace or club, retreating before a party of fully equipped horsemen. The inscription is, ET FUGA VERTERUNT ANGLI—And the English betake themselves to flight.
Happily the exact spot on which the final struggle of the day took place is clearly ascertained. The writer of the Battle Abbey Chronicle tells us, that the King having resolved to commemorate his victory by the erection of a Christian temple, the high altar was placed upon the precise spot where the standard was observed to fall.[106] Long after all traces of the Abbey Church had been obliterated, the finger of tradition faithfully pointed to the spot so interesting to all Englishmen. In the year 1817, the proprietor of the soil, anxious to test the truth of the popular belief, made the necessary excavations, and in the very place indicated, at the depth of several feet below the surface, found the remains of an altar in the easternmost recess of the crypt of the church.[107]
William on that day fought well—as well he might, for he had engaged in a desperate venture—“many a blow did he give, and many receive, and many fell dead under his hand.” Two horses were killed under him. After the English had been exterminated, or had forsaken the field, the Duke returned thanks to God, and ordered his gonfanon to be erected where Harold’s standard had stood. Here, too, he raised his tent. Amidst the dying and the dead he partook of his evening meal and passed the night.
The next morning which dawned upon that sad battle field was the Sabbath. On that first day of the week no heavenly choir sang of peace on earth and good will toward men. The human family was exhibited in its most painful aspect, “hateful and hating one another”—that field but recently covered over with the golden sheaves of harvest, now bore upon its surface the gory fruits of man’s ambition.
“When William called over the muster-roll, which he had prepared before he left the opposite coast, many a knight, who on the day when he sailed, had proudly answered to his name, was then numbered with the dead. The land which he had done homage for was useless to him now.”[108] He had come to win large domains and baronial honours—six feet of common earth was all he got. “The Conqueror had lost more than one-fourth of his army.”[109] Both parties spent the day in burying the dead. “The noble ladies of the land also came, some to seek their husbands, and others their fathers, sons, or brothers.”
The account given by Ordericus of the disposal of Harold’s body is the following: “Harold could not be discovered by his features, but was recognized by other tokens, and his corpse being borne to the Duke’s camp, was, by order of the Conqueror, delivered to William Mallet for interment near the sea-shore, which had long been guarded by his arms.”[110] William of Poictiers gives a similar statement. Later writers say that his body was interred with regal honours in Waltham Abbey. This tradition, which probably had its origin in the wish of the monks to attract visitors to the shrine at Waltham, cannot be entertained, in opposition to the express statements of contemporaries. Some venture, too, to assert that, though sorely wounded at Hastings, he was not killed, and that, on escaping from the field, he first fled to the continent, and afterwards led the life of a recluse at Chester. This is a statement which may at once be rejected.
The difficulty in discovering the body to which Ordericus refers was, it is generally believed, overcome by Edith, surnamed, from her beauty, the Fair. The keen eye of affection discerned his mangled form amidst heaps of dead, which appeared to common observers an undistinguishable mass. What will not woman’s love accomplish!
Many writers have done great dishonour to this lady by stating that she was the mistress of Harold. Sir Henry Ellis, in his Introduction to Domesday Book, has proved that she was his Queen; “Aldith, Algiva or Eddeva, being names which are all synonymous.” Unhappy Elfgyva, how different her feelings now from what they were when the clerk announced to her, in his own familiar way, the rescue of Harold from the capture of Guy!