[245] Literally “had raised up un-law and deemed un-dooms”.
[246] This is Mr. Plummer’s excellent suggestion for the interpretation of a passage in the Chronicle which had previously baffled the commentators.
[247] It must always be remembered that we have nothing but bare conjecture to go upon for the date of Harold’s visit to Normandy. There are some reasons for placing it much earlier than 1064.
[248] Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii., 300.
[249] The following description of this battle is taken for the most part from the Saga of Harold Hardrada in the Heimskringla, and has no doubt a good deal of the character of fiction.
[250] Wace (ed. Malet, p. 60), who gives the number on his father’s report.
[251] Wace, author of the Roman de Rou. The question of the existence of this “palisade” has been discussed at great length by Mr. Round who denies, and by Mr. Archer and Miss Norgate who affirm, its existence (see English Historical Review, vol. ix., 1894). The question remains full of difficulty, the doubt being whether to attach most weight to the obscure utterance of one writer or to the silence of many. The conclusion to which the present writer is disposed to come is that there was some sort of hastily constructed fence, meant as a protection against cavalry, but that in the actual battle, which was waged chiefly between opposing bodies of infantry, it played an unimportant part and may have been soon thrust out of the way, as much by the defenders as by the assailants of the position.
[252] Made by Baring, Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xx., 1905.
[253] After the death of Osred in 716 the genealogy of the Northumbrian kings becomes uncertain.
[254] The pedigree of all these kings is uncertain. All that can be said of them is that “their right ancestry goeth to Cerdic”.