Near the commencement of the battle, the Norwegian king was slain by a random arrow, which pierced his throat. The first charge of the Saxon cavalry was received firmly on the points of the implanted spears, and it was not until the English horsemen began to retreat in some confusion, when the Norwegians were tempted to break through their hitherto impenetrable ranks, that the Saxons obtained any advantage. While the combat still raged fiercely under the command of Tostig, Harold once more singled out his brother in the battle-field, dispatched to him a messenger, and again offered him both peace and life, with permission to the Norwegians to return to their own country unmolested; but Tostig had resolved to win either death or victory. He was determined to accept no favour from his brother's hands, and the arrival of fresh troops from the ships, who were completely armed, seemed to revive fresh hopes in his bosom. But these new troops were not in a fit state to enter the field. Heated with the rapidity with which they had marched, under a weight of heavy armour, that the sun seemed to burn through, they offered but a feeble resistance to the charge of the Saxon cavalry; and when a rumour ran through the field that their standard was captured, Tostig and most of the Norwegian leaders slain, they gladly accepted the peace which king Harold for the third time offered them. Olaf, the son of the king of Norway, having sworn friendship to Harold, returned to his own country with the sad remnant of his father's fleet. "The same wind," says Thierry, "which swelled the Saxon banners, as they fluttered over a victorious field, filled the Norman sails, and wafted a more formidable enemy towards the coast of Sussex." The ominous curtain was drawn up for the last time, which in a few days was doomed to fall down, and shut out for ever the last of the Saxons that ever wore the crown of England.
[The Norman Invasion]
[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]
ENGLAND INVADED BY THE NORMANS.
"Down royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence!
And to the English court assemble now,
From every region, apes of idleness!
Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum:
Have you a ruffian, that will swear, drink, dance,
Revel the night; rob, murder, and commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more:
England shall double gild his treble guilt;
England shall give him office, honour, might."—Shakspere.
We must now carry our readers to Normandy, to the life and stir, and busy preparation which nearly eight hundred years ago took place in that country. We must waft their imagination across the ocean to those masses of living and moving men who then existed, and endeavour to look at them, as if they still lived, and were actuated then as now. At the busy workmen who were employed in building ships, labouring all the more eagerly in hopes that amid the scramble of the war they might become the commanders of the vessels they were helping to construct—at the smiths and armourers, who were then forging lances and swords, and coats of mail, trusting that when their work was done, and the victory won, they should in England become great lords, and have a score or two of followers to carry before them the very lances which their own hard hands had hammered out. At the tailor, who sat hemming gonfannons, and the embroiderer who worked the figures of lions' and bulls' heads, dragons, and all imaginable monsters, upon pennon or banner, fondly dreaming they should one day sit in the lordly halls of England with the banner, the cunning workmanship of their hands fluttering above their heads, while they, no longer "knights of the shears and thimble," should throw aside the goose and needle, and become great rulers in conquered England. At the cooper, who thundered away cheerfully as he drove his hoops down the casks, believing that when his work was finished, he should on the other side of the ocean become a count; the shoemaker, who hammered and stitched for every shoeless vagabond who came toiling up the dusty roads from Maine and Anjou, under promise that he should have the fairest Saxon wife he could capture. The tinker, who had clouted pots and pans, but now turned his hand to the riveting of helmets, under the hope of becoming a rich thane when he landed in Britain. For hedgers and ditchers, weavers, and drovers—all the scum and outcast of Poitou, and Brittany, France, and Flanders, now came in rags and tatters—the "shoeless-stocracy" from Aquitaine and Burgundy, hurried up under the hope of one day becoming the aristocracy of England—some offered to murder and burn for their food and lodging only—others brought their bread and cheese and garlic, ready bundled up, and were willing to slay and desolate, and do any damnable deed for their passage alone, so that they might be allowed to pick up a stray Saxon princess or two, or take possession of any old comfortable castle, when the burning and murdering were over. Such a collection of thieves and vagabonds, and un-hung rascals, were never covered in under the hatches of all the ships that have carried out convicts since the day that England first discharged its cargoes of vice and wretchedness upon the shores of Australia. All these ragged and unprincipled rascals—no matter from what quarter they came—were instantly set at work; some, who were fit for nothing else, rubbed and scrubbed and polished corslets and helmets, shields and spurs; others sharpened spears and pikes and javelins, grinding and rubbing the points upon any stone they could find; many were beasts of burthen, and toiled from morning till night, in carrying stores to the ships; and all these ragamuffins were destined to sail under a banner, which the pope himself had consecrated, and under a bull to which a ring was appended, containing one of the hairs of St. Peter set in a diamond of great value. All these dogs in doublets, hounds in armour, murderers in mail, cut-throats in corslets, and robbers at heart, were, about eight hundred years ago, congregated on that great mustering-ground of villany, Normandy; and there they matured their plans for breaking into the peaceful homes, and slaying the unoffending inhabitants of England.
The Evil One, doubtless, cast his triumphant eye over that vast assembly, then hurried off to enlarge his fiery dominion against their coming.
Before setting out on his invasion, the crafty Norman had, by laying an accusation of sacrilege against Harold, at the court of Rome, obtained permission to bring back England to the obedience of the holy church, and to enforce the payment of the tax of Peter's-pence. Added to this, he got a bull of excommunication against the Saxon king and his adherents; and armed with such credentials, he set out to murder, burn, and desolate, under the sanction of the holy church. Thus, William was armed with a power more dreaded, in that superstitious age, by the blinded and ignorant multitude, than the edge of the sword. Nor is it probable, considering the breach which existed between England and Rome, that the pontiff for a moment took into consideration the circumstances under which William extorted the oath from Harold. Besides obtaining the vindictive sanction of that church which professed only peace and good-will towards all mankind—whose harshest emblem was a pastoral crook, with which to draw back tenderly the sheep that had wandered from the fold—but who, instead of this, consecrated (solemn mockery!) the banner which was so soon to wave over a field steeped with the blood of Christians. Besides obtaining this unholy power, the Norman duke made use of all the duplicity he was master of, to persuade and compel his subjects to furnish the funds which were so necessary to fit out his expedition. He summoned his brothers, by the mother's side, Eudes and Robert, sons of the old tanner of Falaise, who had now turned down the sleeves of their doublets, cast aside their leathern aprons, and having got rid of the aroma of the tan-pit, one had become bishop of Bayeux, and the other count of Mortain. These, together with his barons, summoned to the conference, pledged themselves, not only to serve him with their body and their goods, but even to the selling or mortgaging of their estates, although they were pretty sure, in case of success, of having whatever they might advance returned to them an hundred-fold. They were of opinion, that those who were not so likely to become partakers of the spoil, should be compelled to contribute to the cost. On this hint, which was probably his own, duke William convoked a large assembly of men from all professions and stations of life in Normandy, amongst whom were many of the richest merchants in his dominions. When they met, he explained his wants, and solicited their assistance. They listened, then withdrew, in order to consult each other as to what measures should be taken.