The story of the battle is perhaps the most fascinating in all our catalogue of worthy fights. When William landed on these shores Harold was at York, recuperating after the superhuman efforts which culminated in the battle of Stamford Bridge, where he entirely defeated an invading force under Harold Haardrada and his own brother, Tostig. He had marched two hundred miles or more to defeat one foe, and it was now necessary for him to carry out a still greater expedition to engage a second. He halted several days in the capital while the process of collecting troops from the midlands and the south went on. At last, on October the twelfth, he moved on to meet William. With him he took but a small army. Had he waited just a short time longer (the delay would not have mattered, for William had no intention of leaving the coast) he could have gathered a force sufficiently large to overwhelm the invaders; but he made the common mistake of holding the enemy too cheaply. A series of forced marches commenced in the hopes of catching William unawares came to nought, owing to the vigilance of the Duke's marauding bands. On the night of the thirteenth he arrived at the fatal hill, and pitched his camp on the site of the present town of Battle.
THE GATEWAY, BATTLE ABBEY
The Abbey was erected on the field of the Battle of Hastings. The gateway was added in 1338 to the work begun by William the Conqueror.
(See page 36)
Harold apparently knew this part of Sussex quite well, being the lord of several manors round about; and so his well-chosen ground does not surprise us. A long spur of upland here thrusts out boldly from the main mass of wooded hill-side, and commands a view over a wide stretch of rolling ground away to the sea. On a crest of this spur he ranged his army, with the mailed warriors in front forming a continuous shield-wall.
The descriptions of the night before the battle—all from Norman sources, by the way—make vastly interesting reading. Albeit they vary in certain minor matters, they are in one accord concerning the characters of the rival armies—the drunken English and the pious Normans. The former spent the night in one big carousal—dancing, singing, drinking immense quantities of liquor; the latter devoted their time to prayers and the confession of their sins. And yet, strange to say, the English seem to have been quite fit in the morning, for they put up a remarkably good fight. They held their own through the best part of the day, and in the end were defeated only by their own eagerness.