The solemn Sabbath day that dawned upon that battle-ground saw the Norman Conqueror encamped amidst the living and the dead. And when he called over the muster-roll which had been prepared before he left the opposite coast, many a knight, who on the day when he sailed, had proudly answered to his name, was then numbered with the dead. The land which he had done homage for was useless to him then. He had perilled his life, and a few feet of common earth was all the reward that death allotted to him. The conqueror had lost nearly a fourth of his army—a number, from all we can gather, equal to the whole of the Saxon force engaged in the field. Those who survived received for their share of the victory the spoils of the slaughtered Saxons. The dead body of Harold is said to have laid long upon the field before any one ventured to claim it, but at length his mother, the widow of Earl Godwin, ventured forth, and craved permission to bury it. It is said that she offered to give the Norman duke the weight of his body in gold, but that he sternly refused to grant her request; and, in his savage triumph, exclaimed, "He shall have no other sepulchre than the sand upon the sea-shore." He, however, relented at last, says Thierry, "if we are to believe an old tradition, in favour of the monks of Waltham abbey, which Harold had founded and enriched. Two Saxon monks, Osgod and Ailrik, deputed by the abbot of Waltham, demanded and obtained permission to transport the remains of their benefactor to their church. They sought among the mass of slain, despoiled of arms and clothes, examining them carefully one after the other, but could not recognise the body of him they sought, so much had his wounds disfigured him. Despairing ever to succeed in their research unaided, they addressed themselves to a woman whom Harold, before he became king, had kept as a mistress, and intreated her to assist them. She was called Edith, and surnamed the Beauty with the Swan's Neck. She consented to accompany the two monks, and was more successful than they in discovering the corpse of him whom she loved."
Discovery of the body of Harold.
Although the Saxon throne was for ever overthrown, many a struggle took place, and many a concession was made, before England was wholly in the hands of the Normans. Here, however, the gates of history close upon our Saxon forefathers for a long period. Their language has outlived that of the Conqueror's; and we shall find that our island again became Saxon, and that the laws of Edward the Confessor had to be restored before the country could be tranquillized:—
"For freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."