Homer, doubtless, would have made them meet; but a great dramatic opportunity was lost: the 'mighty rivals' seem never to have got within striking distance. Meanwhile, however, the warring hosts are left quite in the background; their fate is that of a stage crowd engaged in a stage battle. I do not mean, of course, that Mr Freeman ignores them, but that he was so engrossed in the personal exploits of his heroes as to be impatient of that careful study which the battle as a whole required, and comparatively careless of consistency in his allusions to the English array.
The charge, in short, that I have brought throughout against the disposition of the English in Mr Freeman's narrative is that his view, 'with all that it involves, was based on no authority, was merely the offspring of his own imagination, and was directly at variance with the only precedent that he vouched for the purpose'.[99] There is absolutely not a scrap of evidence that—as shown on the 'accurate' ground-plan—the English army was drawn up in three divisions, the 'housecarls' forming the centre, and the 'light-armed' the two wings. We do not even know that it formed an almost straight line.[100] The whole arrangement is sheer guesswork, and analogy, here our only guide, is wholly against it.
I cannot insist too strongly on the charge I have here made. It is no 'matter of secondary importance';[101] nor is it the case that my argument as to the 'palisade' is, as Mr Archer pretended, 'the only definite and palpable charge' that I bring 'against Mr Freeman's account of the great battle'.[102] For, as I wrote from the very first, 'rejecting Mr Freeman's views on the groupings of the English host, we reject with them in toto the story he has built upon them'.[103]
My own view is based upon the fact that, in the military tactics as in the military architecture of the age, the defence trusted largely to its power of passive resistance: this was the essential principle of the ponderous Norman keep; and precisely as the walls of that keep were formed of an ashlar face of masonry backed by masses of rubble, so the fighting line of a force standing on the defensive was composed of a compact facing of heavily-armed troops backed by a rabble of half-armed peasants, or at best by what we may term the light infantry of the day. When the foe was advancing to the attack, these rear lines could discharge such weapons as they possessed—darts, arrows, stones, etc.—from behind the shelter of their comrades,[104] while at the moment of actual shock they would form a passive backing, which would save the front ranks from being broken by the enemy's impact. As the great object of the attack was to break through the line, a formation which virtually gave the advantage now possessed by a solid over a hollow square would naturally commend itself to the defence.
Now in these tactics we have the key to the true story of the battle. But, first, we must dismiss from our minds Mr Freeman's fundamental assumption, and understand that the English 'hoplites' were not massed in the centre, but were extended along the whole front, precisely as they were in battles fought both before and after. The fighting face of Harold's host was composed of this heavy soldiery, clad in helmets and mail. Arrayed in the closest order, they presented to an advancing enemy the aspect of a living rampart ('quasi castellum').
How the Normans attacked that rampart it will now be my task to show.
THE NORMAN ADVANCE
From Telham Hill Duke William scanned that living rampart, and saw clearly that 'his only chance was to tempt the English to break their shield-wall'.[105] It is chiefly from Baudri's poem that we learn how he set about it.[106]