[1] The passage in brackets, to p. 267, is from Benoit de Sainte-More. It is introduced here, as well to relieve the baldness of Wace's narrative after the battle, as because an account of William's progress is really necessary, in order to give a just view of his prudent policy, in the prosecution of an enterprize obviously still very perilous, though crowned with such decisive success. The reader may refer to Introd. Domesday, i. 314, for interesting local information, deduced from that record, on the subject of William's course and progress after landing; tracing a district on the map eastward from about Pevensey, by Bexhill, Crowherst, Hollington, Guestling, and Icklesham, round by Ledescombe, Wartlington, and Ashburnham; thus embracing a circuit of country, near the centre of which stands Battle. The MS. collections of Mr. Hayley of Brightling are there referred to; and (though perhaps rather fanciful in some of their conclusions) may be appropriately quoted. 'It is the method of Domesday-book, after reciting the particulars relating to each manor, to set down the valuation thereof at three several periods; to wit,—the time of King Edward the Confessor,—afterwards when the new tenant entered upon it,—and again at the time when the survey was made. Now it is to be observed, in perusing the account of the rape of Hastings in that book, that in several of the manors therein [Witingoes, Holintun, Bexelei, Wilesham, Crohest, Wiltingham, Watlingetone, Nedrefelle, Brunham, Haslesse, Wigentone, Wilendone, Salherst, Drisnesel, Gestelinges, Luet, Hiham (the scite of Winchelsea), and Selescome] at the second of those periods, it is recorded of them that they were waste: and from this circumstance I think it may, upon good ground, be concluded what parts of that rape were marched over by and suffered from the ravages of the two armies of the conqueror and king Harold. And indeed the situation of those manors is such as evidently shows their then devastated state to be owing to that cause. The wasted manors on the east were Bexelei, Wilesham, Luet, and Gestelinges; which are all the manors entered in the survey along the coast from Bexelei to Winchelsea. And this clearly evinces another circumstance relative to the invasion; which is that William did not land his army at any one particular spot, at Bulverhithe, or Hastings, as is supposed; but at all the several proper places for landing along the coast from Bexhill to Winchelsea. After which, in drawing together towards the place of battle, the left wing of the army just brushed the manor of Holinton, so as to lay waste a small portion, which afterwards fell to the lot of the abbot of Battle; and after quite overrunning the manors of Wiltingham and Crohest, arrived at Brunham; in which, and the adjoining manors of Whatlington and Nedrefelle, the battle was lost and won. We may likewise trace the footsteps of king Harold's army by the devastations which stand upon record in the same book. Where they begin we suppose the army entered the county; and the state of the manor of Parkley, in the hundred of Skayswell, points out the place in the parish of Tyshurst. They there desolated their way through two parcels of land in the same hundred, belonging to the manor of Wilendone; and laying waste Wigzell, Saleherst, and another manor in the hundred of Henhurst, with Hiham, and a small part of Sadlescombe, in the hundred of Staple, they came to Whatlington; through which, and the manor of Netherfield, they extended themselves to face and oppose the invading enemy.'
[2] From Domesday we learn who received the custody of Hastings: 'Rex Will. dedit comiti [de Ow] castellariam de Hastinges.' Introd. Domesday, i. 18.
[3] Romney. It is not here stated whether William's men had been sent from Hastings thither, or whether part of his fleet had gone astray in the voyage, and landed there. Domesday says of Dover, 'In ipso primo adventu ejus in Angliam fuit ipsa villa combusta.'
[4] Edwin and Morcar.
[5] Edgar Atheling.
[6] Wace had, in narrating Swain's success in overrunning England, i. 327, observed upon the facility afforded to an invader by the scarcity of fortified posts:
N'i aveit gaires fortelesce,
Ne tur de pierre ne bretesce,
Se n'esteit en vieille cité,
Ki close fust d'antiquité.
Maiz li barunz de Normendie,
Quant il orent la seignorie,
Firent chastels e fermetez,
Turs de pierre, murs e fossez.
[7] Benoit goes on to narrate at much greater length the events subsequent to the battle. Wace passes very lightly over English internal affairs, of which he probably knew and cared little, and which were, moreover, foreign to the plan of his work. The Saxon Chronicle says of the coronation: 'Then on Midwinter day archbishop Aldred hallowed him to king at Westminster, and gave him possession with the books of Christ; and also swore him, ere that he would set the crown upon his head, that he would as well govern this nation as any king before him best did, if they would be faithful to him.' See as to the chronology of William's life and age Sir Harris Nicolas's Chronology of History, 279.