The army moved a little onward in the direction of Hastings, a spot favourable to encamp upon having been selected, two strong wooden fortresses, which had been prepared in Normandy, were erected; and thus strongly fortified, William awaited the coming of the Saxons. On the following day, the work of pillage commenced. Troops of Normans over-ran the country—the whole coast was in a state of alarm; the inhabitants fled from their houses, concealing their cattle and goods, and congregating in the churches and churchyards, as if they trusted that the dust of the dead would be a protection to them against their foreign invaders. The peasants assembled on the distant hills, and looked with terror upon the strong fortresses, and the immense body of men which they could see moving about the coast. A Saxon knight mounted his horse, and hurried off, without slackening his rein, to carry the tidings to Harold. Day and night did he ride, scarcely allowing himself time for either food or refreshment, until, reaching the ancient hall at York, where Harold was seated at his dinner, he rushed into the presence of the Saxon king, and delivering his message in four brief ominous words, exclaimed, "The Normans are come!"[22]
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
BATTLE OF HASTINGS.
"'Tis better to die at the head of the herd,
Than to perish alone, unmourned, uninterred;
To be bound with the brave amid summer's last sheaves,
Than be left, the last ear that the reaper's hand leaves;
'Tis better to fall grasping arrow and bow,
Amid those whom we love, than be slave to a foe;
For life is the target at which Death's shafts fly,
If they miss us we live—if they hit us we die."
Royston Gower.
Elated by the victory which a hasty march and a sudden surprise had enabled him to obtain more easily over the Norwegians, the brave Harold again, without a day's delay, proceeded to advance rapidly in the direction of the Norman encampment, wearied and thinned as his forces were by the late encounter; hoping by the same unexpected manœuvre and headlong attack, to overthrow at once this new enemy. So sanguine was the Saxon king of obtaining the victory, that he commanded a fleet of seven hundred vessels to hasten towards the English Channel, and intercept the enemy's ships if they should, on his approach, attempt to return to Normandy. The force thus despatched, to remain idle and useless upon the ocean, greatly diminished the strength of the army which Harold was about to lead into the field. Added to this, many had abandoned his standard in disgust, because he prohibited them from plundering the Northmen, whom they had so recently conquered—an act of forbearance which, when placed beside his generous dismissal of the vanquished, shows that Harold, like Alfred, blended mercy instead of revenge with conquest. Too confident in the justice of his cause—brave, eager, impetuous, and burning with the remembrance of the wrongs which he had endured, while he lay helpless at the foot of the Norman duke in his own country, the Saxon king hastened with forced marches to London; where he only waited a few days to collect such forces as were scattered about the neighbourhood, instead of gathering around him the whole strength of Mercia, and the thousands which he might have marshalled together from the northern and western provinces. Those who flocked to his standard came singly, or in small bands; they consisted of men who had armed hastily, of citizens who lived in the metropolis, of countrymen who were within a day or two's march of the capital, and even of monks who abandoned their monasteries to defend their country against the invaders. Morkar, the great northern chieftain, who had married Harold's sister, mustered his forces at the first summons, but long before he reached London, Harold was on his way to Hastings. The western militia, and such straggling bands as we have already described, were all that made up for the losses he had sustained at York—for the many who had deserted him because he forbade them to plunder the Norwegians—and the numbers whom he had so unwisely sent away to strengthen the fleet—so that the Saxon king, by his precipitate and ill-timed march, reached the battle-field with a tired and jaded force, which scarcely numbered twenty thousand; and with these he was compelled to combat a practised and subtle leader, who had sixty thousand men at his command, and who, excepting their plunder and forages in the surrounding neighbourhood, had already rested fifteen days in their encampment. The haste that Harold made was increased by the rumours he heard of the ravages committed by the Normans. It was to put a check to the sufferings which his countrymen were enduring in the vicinity of the Norman encampment, that caused the Saxon king to ride at the head of his brave little army, and to leave London in the twilight of an October evening; and, though so ill prepared, to endeavour to check the insolence of the rapacious invaders. Harold possessed not the cool cunning and calculating foresight of his crafty adversary, but trusted to the goodness of his cause; no marvel then that he evinced the impatience which is so characteristic of a wronged and brave Englishman. It is on record, that the Norman duke forbade his soldiers to plunder the people, but his future conduct is marked by no such forbearance, and we have proof that the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of the encampment abandoned their houses and fled; nor is it probable, for a moment, that such a rabble as he had brought over would rest, for fifteen days, without molesting the English, whose country had already been divided, in promise, amongst them.
Harold found the Norman outposts stationed at some distance from Hastings, and therefore drew up his forces on the range of hills which stand near the site of Battle-abbey. It is said the altar of the abbey was afterwards built on the very spot where the Saxon king planted his standard. Duke William drew up his army more inland, and occupied the opposite eminence. The features of the country have undergone so many changes, that it would almost be impossible to point out the identical hills on which the opposing armies took up their stations, although it seems pretty clear that the place which still bears the name of Battle was that on which the struggle took place. The hills on which the Saxon forces stood arrayed were flanked by a wood. A great portion of this they felled, to strengthen their position by palisades and breastworks, and redoubts, formed by stakes, hurdles, and earth-works, which they hastily threw up, although the soldiery were wearied with their rapid march from London. Messengers had already passed between Harold and William. The latter had offered the Saxon king all the lands beyond the Humber, if he would abandon the throne; or, if he preferred it, to leave the matter to the pope, or to decide the quarrel by single combat. Harold answered, that the God of battles should decide between them. It is said that the Saxon king offered the Norman a large sum to quit the kingdom: but it is difficult to reconcile such a statement with that of his having despatched seven hundred vessels to prevent the invaders from escaping. A whole day is said to have been wasted in useless messages; and, at length, the Norman went so far as to offer Gurth, Harold's brother, the whole of the lands which had been held by earl Godwin. These, with such as extended beyond the Humber, and which he was willing that the Saxon king should retain, would have left the wily Norman in possession of a much greater portion of England than he was able to obtain until long after that sanguinary struggle had been decided. Harold was firm to his country. He rejected all offers of concession, and was resolved either to rid England of so dangerous an enemy, or perish in the field, and by his example to show those into whose hands the freedom of England might be entrusted, that if he could not conquer he would die as became a brave Saxon, in the defence of his country. Harold seems to have been well aware that the battle would be boldly contested; for when the spies he had sent out to reconnoitre returned with the tidings, that there were more priests in the Norman encampment than soldiers—they having mistaken for monks all such as shaved the beards, and wore the hair short—he smiled, and said, "They whom you saw in such numbers are not priests, but warriors, who will soon show us their worth:" a clear proof that he well knew the valour of the Norman chivalry.
When duke William found that Harold was resolved to fight, he, as a last resource, sent over a monk to renew his offer, and to proclaim that all who aided him were excommunicated by the pope, and that he already possessed the papal bull which pronounced them accursed. Many of the English chiefs began to look with alarm on each other when they heard themselves threatened with excommunication. But one of them, according to the Norman chronicle, boldly answered, "We ought to fight, however great the danger may be; for the question is not about receiving a new lord, if our king were dead—the matter is far different. This duke has given our lands to his barons, knights, and people, many of whom have already done homage for them. They will demand the fulfilment of his promises: and were he to become our king, he would be compelled to give to them our lands, our goods, our wives and our daughters; for he has beforehand promised them all. They have come to wrong both us and our descendants—to take from us the country of our ancestors;—and what shall we do, or where shall we go, when we have no longer any country?" After such an answer as this, the Norman must have been satisfied that all further attempts at concession were useless—that his real motives were unveiled, that they knew he had abandoned England to the mercy of the armed marauders, who were already drawn up to "kill and take possession,"—and that the army opposed to him consisted of men who were resolved to conquer or die. Nor was he mistaken; for, by the time that the messengers had regained the Norman encampment, the Saxons had vowed before God, that they would neither make peace, nor enter into treaty with such an enemy, but either drive the Normans out of England, or leave their dead bodies in the battle-field.
We wonder not that men who had formed such a resolution should spend the night in chaunting their ancient national songs, and in pledging each other's health, as they passed the cup from hand to hand for the last time—that the bravest of this sworn brotherhood in arms should boast how they would hew their way into the enemy's ranks on the morrow—that many had made up their minds that they should fall—that they had recounted the number of battles they had fought in, the omens they had witnessed, and which foretold their deaths, (for such superstitions were firmly believed by our Saxon ancestors)—that with such feelings as these the ale cup circulated until that clear, cold October midnight had rolled into the heavens all its host of stars. Their talk would be of victory or death—of the hard blows that would be dealt before the moon again climbed so high up the blue steep of midnight—of the friends who were far behind—of the many who, in the face of such an enemy, would be certain to fall;—and, ever and anon, a few stragglers would come dropping in, and welcome recognitions be given. The Normans, who had no new arrivals to pledge, betook themselves to confessing their sins, and preparing for the death they so richly merited. They who were about to bleed for the defence of their country, had already offered up their hearts on freedom's holy altar—the blow only had to be struck, and the blood to flow, and the sacrifice was ended. They had sworn in solemn league, that liberty was to them dearer than life, and such a vow had divested death of all its terrors. In the defence of their homes, their wives, and their children, they had come forth resolved to leave them free or perish. The valley beneath yawned like a newly made grave, and many a brave Saxon, as he looked into it, knew that there "the wicked would cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest." They who had made up their minds to die in such a cause needed no confession to men—they had registered their vows in heaven; and if the Recording Angel might be pictured as looking down upon the Saxon encampment, it would be with a face pale with pity, and a tear-dimmed eye. What true English heart would not sooner have pledged the healths of the brave Saxons on that eventful night, as they were assembled around their watch-fires, than have bowed amongst the guilty Normans?—have shared death in the glorious halo which the former threw above the grave, rather than have groped their way thither amid the groans and sighs of that great band of meditative murderers, who must have trembled as the hour of danger and death drew nearer.
Gurth had endeavoured in vain to dissuade his brother Harold from taking part in the combat. The Saxon king was deaf to all intreaties; he was too brave to abandon a field, and give up a kingdom with which he had been entrusted, because an oath had been extorted from him on the relics. Such an act would have consigned his name to endless infamy. The morning sun found Harold beside his standard, in the centre of his brave Saxons, which the enemy outnumbered by nearly four to one, besides possessing a formidable army of cavalry; the Saxons appear to have been wholly without such a force, for no mention is made of their horsemen.
It was on Saturday morning, the 14th of October, nearly eight hundred years ago, when the grey dawn, which many a sleepless eye had so anxiously watched, broke dimly over the rival armies, as they stood ranged along the opposite heights; and as the faint autumnal mist passed away, the sun rose slowly upon the scene, and gilded the arms of the combatants, falling upon the large white horse on which the bishop of Bayeux was mounted, as, with a hauberk over his rochet, he rode along the Norman ranks, and arranged the cavalry. The Norman duke, not less conspicuous, was seen mounted on a Spanish charger, accompanied by Toustain the Fair, who bore in his hand the banner which the Roman pontiff had consecrated; the duke wore around his neck a portion of the relics on which Harold had sworn; for he well knew that the remains of dead men strangle not. His face was flushed; in his haste he had at first put on his hauberk the wrong way; some had remarked that it was an evil omen, and, as yet, he had scarcely regained his composure, though there was a restlessness about his eyes which bespoke great excitement—he sat gallantly in his saddle—the haughty charger neighed and curvetted as it sniffed the morning air. He divided his army into three columns, and these solid bodies he flanked with light infantry, who were armed with bows, and steel cross-bows. The adventurers he left to the command of their own leaders, placing himself at the head of his own Norman soldiers. When all was ready for action, he addressed them nearly as follows—for the meaning has been better preserved than the precise words he uttered.