THE GREAT BATTLE.
=1. The Authorities.=--Before we tell the tale of the great fight on
Senlac which forms the centre of our whole story, it will be well to
stop and think for a while of the sources from which the tale comes.
Our own Chroniclers tell us very little; the defeat of the king and
people of England was a thing on which they did not love to dwell. We
have therefore to get most of the details from Norman sources. Of these
there are several, among which four are of special importance. There
is the Latin prose account by William, Archdeacon of Poitiers, who was
in the Conqueror’s army, and the account in Latin verse by Guy, Bishop
of Amiens, who wrote very soon after. Both of these were courtiers and
flatterers of William; still we may learn a good deal from them. A
more honest writer, though not so near to the time, is Master Wace, a
canon of Bayeux, whose father crossed with William and was therefore
most likely in the battle. Wace wrote the history of the Norman dukes
in French rime, called the _Roman de Rou_, and in it he gives a full
account of the battle. He had clearly taken great pains to find out
all that he could about the fight, and about everybody, on the Norman
side at least, who was in it. But more precious than all is the famous
Tapestry of Bayeux, which contains the whole history of the Conquest,
from Harold’s voyage to the end of the battle, wrought in stitchwork.
This was made very soon after the time by order of Bishop Odo for his
church at Bayeux. These are the main authorities; from them, and from a
sight of the ground, it is not hard to make out the story. And we get
incidental pieces of knowledge, such as names of men who were in the
battle on the English side, from all manner of sources here and there,
among them from the great record called Domesday, of which we shall
presently speak.
=2. The March of the Normans.=--The Norman writers tell us that Duke
William’s army spent the night before the battle, the night of Friday,
October 13th, in prayer and shrift, while the English spent it in
drinking and singing. And certainly, if our men sang some of the old
battle-songs, we shall not think the worse of them. But this is the
kind of thing which we often find the writers of the victorious side
saying of a defeated army. Anyhow both armies were quite ready for
their work early on Saturday morning. The Normans marched from Hastings
to the height of Telham, opposite Senlac. There they made ready for
the fight; the knights mounted their war-horses and put on their
harness. The Duke’s hauberk was by some chance turned the wrong way;
but his ready wit turned this into a good omen, he said that a Duke was
going to be turned into a King. Then he mounted his horse; he looked
out at the place where his spies told him that the English King was
posted, and he vowed that, where Harold’s standard stood, he would,
if he won that day’s fight, build a minster to Saint Martin of Tours.
Then the host set out in three divisions. On the left Count Alan of
Britanny commanded the Bretons, Poitevins, and Mansels. Among them was
one English traitor, Ralph of Wader or of Norfolk. He was seemingly
banished by Edward or Harold, and, as he was of Breton descent by
his mother, he now came back among his mother’s people. On the
right Roger of Montgomery, one of the most famous lords of Normandy,
commanded the French and the mercenaries from all parts. In the midst
were the Normans themselves, and in the midst of them was the banner
which had come from Rome, borne by a knight of Caux named Toustain
(that is, Thurstan) the White. Close by it rode the Duke and his two
half-brothers, Bishop Odo of Bayeux and Count Robert of Mortain. The
Duke carried round his neck the relics on which Harold had sworn. In
each of these three divisions were three sets of soldiers. First went
the archers and other light-armed foot, who were to try to put the
English into disorder with their arrows and other missiles. Then came
the heavy-armed foot, who were to try and break down the palisade, and
lastly the horsemen. The archers had no defensive armour; the horsemen
and heavy-armed foot had coats of mail and helmets with nose-pieces.
The knights had their kite-shaped shields, their long lances carried
overhand, and their swords for near fight. The Duke and the Bishop
alone carried maces instead of swords. The mace was a most terrible and
crushing weapon; Odo, it was said, carried it rather than a sword or
lance, because the canons of the Church forbade a priest to shed blood.
In this array they had to cross the rolling and marshy ground between
the hills of Telham and Senlac.
=3. The Array of the English.=--Meanwhile King Harold marshalled his
army on the hill, to defend their strong post against the attack of
the Normans. All were on foot; those who had horses made use of them
only to carry them to the field, and got down when the time came for
actual fighting. So we see in the Tapestry King Harold riding round
his host to marshal them and exhort them; then he gets down and takes
his place in the battle on foot. The army was made up of soldiers of
two very different kinds. There was the King’s personal following, his
housecarls, his own thanes, and the picked troops generally, among them
the men of London who claimed to be the King’s special guards, and
the men of Kent who claimed to strike the first blow in the battle.
They had armour much the same as that of the Normans, with javelins to
hurl first of all, and for the close fight either the sword, the older
English weapon, or more commonly the great Danish axe which had been
brought in by Cnut. This was wielded with both hands, and was the most
fearful of all weapons, if the blow reached its mark; but it left its
bearer specially exposed while dealing the blow. The men were ranged
as closely together as the space needed for wielding their arms would
let them; and, besides the palisade, the front ranks made a kind of
inner defence with their shields, called the _shield-wall_. The Norman
writers were specially struck with the close array of the English, and
they speak of them as standing like trees in a wood. Besides these
choice troops, there were also the general levies of the neighbouring
lands, who came armed anyhow, with such weapons as they could get, the
bow being the rarest of all. These inferior troops were placed to the
right, on the least exposed part of the hill, while the King with his
choice troops stood ready to meet Duke William himself. The King stood
between his two ensigns, the national badge, the dragon of Wessex,
and his own Standard, a great flag with the figure of a fighting man
wrought on it in gold. Close by the King stood his brothers Gyrth
and Leofwine, and his other kinsfolk--among them doubtless his uncle
Ælfwig, the Abbot of the New Minster at Winchester, who came to the
fight with twelve of his monks. Leofric, Abbot of Peterborough, was
also there; but we do not hear of any of the bishops. Whether Earl
Waltheof was there is not certain; it is certain that Edwin and Morkere
were not.
=4. The Beginning of the Battle.=--By nine in the morning, the Normans
had reached the hill of Senlac, and the fight began. But before the
real attack was made, a juggler or minstrel in the Norman army, known
as _Taillefer_, that is the Cleaver of Iron, asked the Duke’s leave to
strike the first blow. So he rode out, singing songs of Charlemagne,
as the French call the Emperor Charles the Great, and of Roland his
paladin. Then he threw his sword up in the air and caught it again;
he cut down two Englishmen and then was cut down himself. After this
mere bravado came the real work. First came a flight of arrows from
each division of the Norman army. Then the heavy-armed foot pressed
on, to make their way up the hill and to break down the palisade. But
the English hurled their javelins at them as they came up, and cut
them down with their axes when they came near enough for hand-strokes.
The Normans shouted “God help us;” the English shouted “God Almighty,”
and the King’s own war-cry of “Holy Cross”--the Holy Cross of Waltham.
William’s heavy-armed foot pressed on along the whole line, the native
Normans having to face King Harold’s chosen troops in the centre.
The attack was vain; they were beaten back, and they could not break
down the palisade. Then the horsemen themselves, the Duke at their
head, pressed on up the hill-side. But all was in vain; the English
kept their strong ground; the Normans had to fall back; the Bretons
on the left actually turned and fled. Then the worse-armed and less
disciplined English troops could not withstand the temptation to come
down from the hill and chase them. The whole line of the Norman army
began to waver, and in many parts to give way. A tale spread that the
Duke was killed. William showed himself to his troops, and with his
words, looks, and blows, helped by his brother the Bishop, he brought
them back to the fight. The flying Bretons now took heart; they turned,
and cut in pieces the English who were chasing them. Thus far the
resistance of the English had been thoroughly successful, wherever they
had obeyed the King’s orders and kept within their defences. But the
fault of those who had gone down to follow the enemy had weakened the
line of defence, and had shown the Normans the true way of winning the
day.
=5. The Second Attack.=--Now came the fiercest struggle of the whole
day. The Duke and his immediate following tried to break their way
into the English enclosure at the very point where the King stood by
his standard with his brothers. The two rivals were near coming face
to face. At that moment Earl Gyrth hurled his spear, which missed the
Duke, but killed his horse and brought his rider to the ground. William
then pressed to the barricade on foot, and slew Gyrth in hand to hand
fight. At the same time the King’s other brother Earl Leofwine was
killed. The Duke mounted another horse, and again pressed on; but the
barricade and the shield-wall withstood all attempts. On the right the
attack of the French division had been more lucky; the palisade was
partly broken down. But the English, with their shields and axes, still
kept their ground, and the Normans were unable to gain the top of the
hill or to come near the standard.
=6. The Feigned Flight.=--The battle had now gone on for several hours,
and Duke William saw that, unless he quite changed his tactics, he had
no hope of overcoming the resistance of the English. They had suffered
a great loss in the death of the two earls, and their defences were
weakened at some points; but the army, as a whole, held its ground as
firmly as ever. William then tried a most dangerous stratagem, his
taking to which shows how little hope he now had of gaining the day by
any direct attack. He saw that his only way was to bring the English
down from the hill, as part of them had already come down. He therefore
bade his men feign flight. The Normans obeyed; the whole host seemed
to be flying. The irregular levies of the English on the right again
broke their line; they ran down the hill, and left the part where its
ascent was most easy open to the invaders. The Normans now turned on
their pursuers, put most of them to flight, and were able to ride up
the part of the hill which was left undefended, seemingly about three
o’clock in the afternoon. The English had thus lost the advantage of
the ground; they had now, on foot, with only the bulwark of their
shields, to withstand the horsemen. This however they still did for
some hours longer. But the advantage was now on the Norman side, and
the battle changed into a series of single combats. The great object
of the Normans was to cut their way to the standard, where King Harold
still fought. Many men were killed in the attempt; the resistance of
the English grew slacker; yet, when evening was coming on, they still
fought on with their King at their head, and a new device of the Duke’s
was needed to bring the battle to an end.
=7. The End of the Battle.=--This new device was to bid his archers
shoot in the air, that their arrows might fall, as he said, like bolts
from heaven. They were of course bidden specially to aim at those who
fought round the standard. Meanwhile twenty knights bound themselves to
lower or bear off the standard itself. The archers shot; the knights
pressed on; and one arrow had the deadliest effect of all; it pierced
the right eye of King Harold. He sank down by the standard; most of the
twenty knights were killed, but four reached the King while he still
breathed, slew him with many wounds, and carried off the two ensigns.
It was now evening; but, though the King was dead, the fight still went
on. Of the King’s own chosen troops it would seem that not a man either
fled or was taken prisoner. All died at their posts, save a few wounded
men who were cast aside as dead, but found strength to get away on the
morrow. But the irregular levies fled, some of them on the horses of
the slain men. Yet even in this last moment, they knew how to revenge
themselves on their conquerors. The Normans, ignorant of the country,
pursued in the dark. The English were thus able to draw them to the
dangerous place behind the hill, where not a few Normans were slain.
But the Duke himself came back to the hill, pitched his tent there,
held his midnight feast, and watched there with his host all night.
=8. The Burial of Harold.=--The next day, Sunday, the Duke went over
the field, and saw to the burial of his own men. And the women of the
neighbourhood came to beg the bodies of their kinsfolk and friends
for burial. They were allowed to take them away to the neighbouring
churches. But Duke William declared that, if the body of Harold was
found, he, as a perjured man, excommunicated by the Pope, should not
have Christian burial. Harold’s mother Gytha offered a vast sum--the
weight in gold of the body, it was said--to be allowed to bury him at
Waltham. But William refused, and bade one of his knights, William
Malet by name, to bury him, without Christian rites, but otherwise with
honour, under a cairn on the rocks of Hastings. Yet there was a tomb of
King Harold at Waltham, and it was always said there that two of the
canons, who had followed Harold to the place, asked for his body, that,
when they could not tell it for his wounds, they called in the help of
a woman named Edith, whom he had loved before he was King, and that
she knew it by a mark. They were then allowed to bury him at Waltham.
The truth most likely is that King Harold’s body fared very much as we
know that Earl Waltheof’s body fared ten years later. That is, he was
first of all buried on the rocks, but afterwards William, now King,
relented and allowed him to be buried in his own church. Anyhow there
can be no doubt that Harold died in the battle, as all the writers who
lived at the time, both Norman and English, say distinctly. But, as
often happens in such cases, there afterwards grew up a tale which said
that he was not killed, but only badly wounded, that he was carried off
alive, and lived for many years, dying at last as a hermit at Chester.
The like is told of Harold’s brother Gyrth; but there is no reason to
believe either tale.
=9. Effects of the Battle.=--It must be well understood that this great
victory did not make Duke William King nor put him in possession of the
whole land. He still held only part of Sussex, and the people of the
rest of the kingdom showed as yet no mind to submit to him. If England
had had a leader left like Harold or Gyrth, William might have had to
fight as many battles as Cnut had, and that with much less chance of
winning in the end. For a large part of England fought willingly on
Cnut’s side, while William had no friends in England at all, except
a few Norman settlers. William did not call himself King till he was
regularly crowned more than two months later, and even then he had
real possession only of about a third of the kingdom. It was more than
three years before he had full possession of all. Still the great fight
on Senlac none the less settled the fate of England. For after that
fight William never met with any general resistance. He never had to
fight another pitched battle against another wearer or claimant of
the English crown. He was thus able to conquer the land bit by bit.
How this came about we shall see in the next chapter. But it is very
important not to make either too much or too little of the Battle of
Senlac or Hastings. It did not make William either formally King or
practically master of the kingdom. But, as things turned out, the
result of the battle made it certain that he would become both sooner
or later.