MR FREEMAN'S AUTHORITIES FOR IT
In his note on 'The Details of the Battle of Senlac' (iii. 756), Mr Freeman explained that he had given the authorities on which his statements rested, adding:
Each reader can therefore judge for himself how far my narrative is borne out by my authorities.
Loyally keeping to this principle, I propose to test his statements by the authorities he gives for them himself. I therefore address myself to the passages in Henry of Huntingdon and in Wace.
(1) Henry of Huntingdon
The passage relied on by the historian is this:
Quum ergo Haroldus totam gentem suam in una acie strictissime locasset et quasi castellum inde construxisset[14] impenetrabiles erant Normannis (iii. 444, note).
Mr Freeman thus paraphrased Henry's words:
He occupied and fortified, as thoroughly as the time and the means at his command would allow, a post of great natural strength, which he made into what is distinctly spoken of as a castle (Ibid.).[15]
Although the writer made it his complaint against one of the editors in the Rolls series that he could not 'construe his Latin', we see that the same failing led him here himself into error. Inde refers, and can only refer, to Harold's troops themselves. A fortress Harold wrought; but he wrought it of flesh and blood: it was behind no ramparts that the soldiers of England awaited the onset of the chivalry of France.