[85] English Historical Review, ix. 611.
[86] When the Scotch, he writes, 'amentatis missilibus et lanceis longissimis super aciem equitum nostrorum loricatam percutiunt, quasi muro ferreo offendentes, impenetrabiles [compare the 'impenetrabiles' ranks of the English at Hastings, supra, p. 276] invenerunt.... Equitantes enim nulla ratione diu persistere potuerunt contra milites loricatos pede persistentes et immobiliter coacervatos' (pp. 264-5). Miss Norgate follows him, writing: 'The wild Celts of Galloway dashed headlong upon the English front, only to find their spears and javelins glance off from the helmets and shields of the knights as from an iron wall.'
[87] 'Tota namque gens Normannorum et Anglorum in una acie circum Standard conglobata, persistebant immobiles' (Hen. Hunt). 'Australes, quoniam pauci erant, in unum cuneum sapientissime glomerantur' (Æth. Riv.).
[88] It is no less interesting than curious that the Bayeux Tapestry enables us to see how the archers were combined with the mailed knights at the Battle of the Standard. It shows us (on its principle of giving a type) an English archer of whom Mr Freeman has well observed: 'He is a small man without armour crouching under the shield of a tall Housecarl, like Teukros under that of Aias' (iii. 472). So Æthelred writes that the mailed warriors 'sagittarios ita sibi inseruerunt ut, militaribus armis protecti, tanto acrius quanto securius vel in hostes irruerent, vel exciperent irruentes'.
[89] 'Proceres qui maturioris ætatis fuerunt ... circa signum regium constituuntur, quibusdam altius ceteris in ipsa machina collatis' (Æth. Riv.). 'Circum Standard in pectore belli condensantur' (Ric. Hex.).
[90] 'Reliqua autem multitudo undique conglomerata eos circumvallabat' (Ibid.).
[91] Norm. Conq., i. 383.
[92] Ibid., iii. 472.
[93] Old English History, p. 331.
[94] English Historical Review, ix. 75.