On the broad plain between Pevensey and Hastings, Duke William had
arrayed his armaments. In the rear he had built a castle of wood, all
the framework of which he had brought with him, and which was to serve
as a refuge in case of retreat. His ships he had run into deep water,
and scuttled; so that the thought of return, without victory, might be
banished from his miscellaneous and multitudinous force. His outposts
stretched for miles, keeping watch night and day against surprise.
The ground chosen was adapted for all the manoeuvres of a cavalry
never before paralleled in England nor perhaps in the world,--almost
every horseman a knight, almost every knight fit to be a chief. And
on this space William reviewed his army, and there planned and
schemed, rehearsed and re-formed, all the stratagems the great day
might call forth. But more careful, and laborious, and minute, was he
in the manoeuvre of a feigned retreat. Not ere the acting of some
modern play, does the anxious manager more elaborately marshal each
man, each look, each gesture, that are to form a picture on which the
curtain shall fall amidst deafening plaudits than did the laborious
captain appoint each man, and each movement, in his lure to a valiant
foe:--The attack of the foot, their recoil, their affected panic,
their broken exclamations of despair;--their retreat, first partial
and reluctant, next seemingly hurried and complete,--flying, but in
flight carefully confused:--then the settled watchword, the lightning
rally, the rush of the cavalry from the ambush; the sweep and hem
round the pursuing foe, the detachment of levelled spears to cut off
the Saxon return to the main force, and the lost ground,--were all
directed by the most consummate mastership in the stage play, or
upokrisis, of war, and seized by the adroitness of practised veterans.
Not now, O Harold! hast thou to contend against the rude heroes of the
Norse, with their ancestral strategy unimproved! The civilisation of
Battle meets thee now!--and all the craft of the Roman guides the
manhood of the North.
It was in the midst of such lessons to his foot and his horsemen--
spears gleaming--pennons tossing--lines reforming--steeds backing,
wheeling, flying, circling--that William's eye blazed, and his deep
voice thundered the thrilling word; when Mallet de Graville, who was
in command at one of the outposts, rode up to him at full speed, and
said in gasps, as he drew breath:
"King Harold and his army are advancing furiously. Their object is
clearly to come on us unawares."
"Hold!" said the Duke, lifting his hand; and the knights around him
halted in their perfect discipline; then after a few brief but
distinct orders to Odo, Fitzosborne, and some other of his leading
chiefs, he headed a numerous cavalcade of his knights, and rode fast
to the outpost which Mallet had left,--to catch sight of the coming
foe.
The horsemen cleared the plain--passed through a wood, mournfully
fading into autumnal hues--and, on emerging, they saw the gleam of the
Saxon spears rising on the brows of the gentle hills beyond. But even
the time, short as it was, that had sufficed to bring William in view
of the enemy, had sufficed also, under the orders of his generals, to
give to the wide plain of his encampment all the order of a host
prepared. And William, having now mounted on a rising ground, turned
from the spears on the hill tops, to his own fast forming lines on the
plain, and said with a stern smile:
"Methinks the Saxon usurper, if he be among those on the height of yon
hills, will vouchsafe us time to breathe! St. Michael gives his crown
to our hands, and his corpse to the crow, if he dare to descend."
And so indeed, as the Duke with a soldier's eye foresaw from a
soldier's skill, so it proved. The spears rested on the summits. It
soon became evident that the English general perceived that here there
was no Hardrada to surprise; that the news brought to his ear had
exaggerated neither the numbers, nor the arms, nor the discipline of
the Norman; and that the battle was not to the bold but to the wary.
"He doth right," said William, musingly; "nor think, O my Quens, that
we shall find a fool's hot brain under Harold's helmet of iron. How
is this broken ground of hillock and valley named in our chart? It is
strange that we should have overlooked its strength, and suffered it
thus to fall into the hands of the foe. How is it named? Can any of
ye remember?"
"A Saxon peasant," said De Graville, "told me that the ground was
called Senlac [256] or Sanglac, or some such name, in their musicless
jargon."
"Grammercy!" quoth Grantmesnil, "methinks the name will be familiar
eno' hereafter; no jargon seemeth the sound to my ear--a significant
name and ominous,--Sanglac, Sanguelac--the Lake of Blood."
"Sanguelac!" said the Duke, startled; "where have I heard that name
before? it must have been between sleeping and waking.--Sanguelac,
Sanguelac!--truly sayest thou, through a lake of blood we must wade
indeed!"
"Yet," said De Graville, "thine astrologer foretold that thou wouldst
win the realm without a battle."
"Poor astrologer!" said William, "the ship he sailed in was lost. Ass
indeed is he who pretends to warn others, nor sees an inch before his
eyes what his own fate will be! Battle shall we have, but not yet.
Hark thee, Guillaume, thou hast been guest with this usurper; thou
hast seemed to me to have some love for him--a love natural since thou
didst once fight by his side; wilt thou go from me to the Saxon host
with Hugues Maigrot, the monk, and back the message I shall send?"
The proud and punctilious Norman thrice crossed himself ere he
answered:
"There was a time, Count William, when I should have deemed it honour
to hold parle with Harold the brave Earl; but now, with the crown on
his head, I hold it shame and disgrace to barter words with a knight
unleal and a man foresworn."
"Nathless, thou shalt do me this favour," said William, "for" (and he
took the knight somewhat aside) "I cannot disguise from thee that I
look anxiously on the chance of battle. Yon men are flushed with new
triumph over the greatest warrior Norway ever knew, they will fight on
their own soil, and under a chief whom I have studied and read with
more care than the Comments of Caesar, and in whom the guilt of
perjury cannot blind me to the wit of a great general. If we can yet
get our end without battle, large shall be my thanks to thee, and I
will hold thine astrologer a man wise, though unhappy."
"Certes," said De Graville gravely, "it were discourteous to the
memory of the star-seer, not to make some effort to prove his science
a just one. And the Chaldeans----"
"Plague seize the Chaldeans!" muttered the Duke. "Ride with me back
to the camp, that I may give thee my message, and instruct also the
monk."
"De Graville," resumed the Duke, as they rode towards the lines, "my
meaning is briefly this. I do not think that Harold will accept my
offer and resign his crown, but I design to spread dismay, and perhaps
revolt amongst his captains; I wish that they may know that the Church
lays its Curse on those who fight against my consecrated banner. I do
not ask thee, therefore, to demean thy knighthood, by seeking to
cajole the usurper; no, but rather boldly to denounce his perjury and
startle his liegemen. Perchance they may compel him to terms--
perchance they may desert his banner; at the worst they shall be
daunted with full sense of the guilt of his cause."
"Ha, now I comprehend thee, noble Count; and trust me I will speak as
Norman and knight should speak."
Meanwhile, Harold seeing the utter hopelessness of all sudden assault,
had seized a general's advantage of the ground he had gained.
Occupying the line of hills, he began forthwith to entrench himself
behind deep ditches and artful palisades. It is impossible now to
stand on that spot, without recognising the military skill with which
the Saxon had taken his post, and formed his precautions. He
surrounded the main body of his troops with a perfect breastwork
against the charge of the horse. Stakes and strong hurdles interwoven
with osier plaits, and protected by deep dykes, served at once to
neutralise the effect of that arm in which William was most powerful,
and in which Harold almost entirely failed; while the possession of
the ground must compel the foe to march, and to charge, up hill,
against all the missiles which the Saxons could pour down from their
entrenchments.
Aiding, animating, cheering, directing all, while the dykes were fast
hollowed, and the breastworks fast rose, the King of England rode his
palfrey from line to line, and work to work, when, looking up, he saw
Haco leading towards him up the slopes, a monk, and a warrior whom, by
the banderol on his spear and the cross on his shield, he knew to be
one of the Norman knighthood.
At that moment Gurth and Leofwine, and those thegns who commanded
counties, were thronging round their chief for instructions. The King
dismounted, and beckoning them to follow, strode towards the spot on
which had just been planted his royal standard. There halting, he
said with a grave smile:
"I perceive that the Norman Count hath sent us his bodes; it is meet
that with me, you, the defenders of England, should hear what the
Norman saith."
"If he saith aught but prayer for his men to return to Rouen,--
needless his message, and short our answer," said Vebba, the bluff
thegn of Kent.
Meanwhile the monk and the Norman knight drew near and paused at some
short distance, while Haco, advancing, said briefly:
"These men I found at our outposts; they demand to speak with the
King."
"Under his standard the King will hear the Norman invader," replied
Harold; "bid them speak."
The same sallow, mournful, ominous countenance, which Harold had
before seen in the halls of Westminster, rising deathlike above the
serge garb of the Benedict of Caen, now presented itself, and the monk
thus spoke:
"In the name of William, Duke of the Normans in the field, Count of
Rouen in the hall, Claimant of all the realms of Anglia, Scotland, and
the Walloons, held under Edward his cousin, I come to thee, Harold his
liege and Earl."
"Change thy titles, or depart," said Harold, fiercely, his brow no
longer mild in its majesty, but dark as midnight. "What says William
the Count of the Foreigners, to Harold, King of the Angles, and
Basileus of Britain?"
"Protesting against thy assumption, I answer thee thus," said Hugues
Maigrot. "First, again he offers thee all Northumbria, up to the
realm of the Scottish sub-king, if thou wilt fulfil thy vow, and cede
him the crown."
"Already have I answered,--the crown is not mine to give; and my
people stand round me in arms to defend the king of their choice.
What next?"
"Next, offers William to withdraw his troops from the land, if thou
and thy council and chiefs will submit to the arbitrement of our most
holy Pontiff, Alexander the Second, and, abide by his decision whether
thou or my liege have the best right to the throne."
"This, as Churchman," said the Abbot of the great Convent of
Peterboro', (who, with the Abbot of Hide, had joined the march of
Harold, deeming as one the cause of altar and throne), "this as
Churchman, may I take leave to answer. Never yet hath it been heard
in England, that the spiritual suzerain of Rome should give us our
kings."
"And," said Harold, with a bitter smile, "the Pope hath already
summoned me to this trial, as if the laws of England were kept in the
rolls of the Vatican! Already, if rightly informed, the Pope hath
been pleased to decide that our Saxon land is the Norman's. I reject
a judge without a right to decide; and I mock at a sentence that
profanes heaven in its insult to men. Is this all?"
"One last offer yet remains," replied the monk sternly. "This knight
shall deliver its import. But ere I depart, and thou and thine are
rendered up to Vengeance Divine, I speak the words of a mightier chief
than William of Rouen. Thus saith his Holiness, with whom rests the
power to bind and to loose, to bless and to curse: 'Harold, the
Perjurer, thou art accursed! On thee and on all who lift hand in thy
cause, rests the interdict of the Church. Thou art excommunicated
from the family of Christ. On thy land, with its peers and its
people, yea, to the beast in the field and the bird in the air, to the
seed as the sower, the harvest as the reaper, rests God's anathema!
The bull of the Vatican is in the tent of the Norman; the gonfanon of
St. Peter hallows yon armies to the service of Heaven. March on,
then: ye march as the Assyrian; and the angel of the Lord awaits ye on
the way!'"
At these words, which for the first time apprised the English leaders
that their king and kingdom were under the awful ban of
excommunication, the thegns and abbots gazed on each other aghast. A
visible shudder passed over the whole warlike conclave, save only
three, Harold, and Gurth, and Haco.
The King himself was so moved by indignation at the insolence of the
monk, and by scorn at the fulmen, which, resting not alone on his own
head, presumed to blast the liberties of a nation, that he strode
towards the speaker, and it is even said of him by the Norman
chroniclers, that he raised his hand as if to strike the denouncer to
the earth.
But Gurth interposed, and with his clear eye serenely shining with
virtuous passion, he stood betwixt monk and king.
"O thou," he exclaimed, "with the words of religion on thy lips, and
the devices of fraud in thy heart, hide thy front in thy cowl, and
slink back to thy master. Heard ye not, thegns and abbots, heard ye
not this bad, false man offer, as if for peace, and as with the desire
of justice, that the Pope should arbitrate between your King and the
Norman? yet all the while the monk knew that the Pope had already
predetermined the cause; and had ye fallen into the wile, ye would but
have cowered under the verdict of a judgment that has presumed, even
before it invoked ye to the trial, to dispose of a free people and an
ancient kingdom!"
"It is true, it is true," cried the thegns, rallying from their first
superstitious terror, and, with their plain English sense of justice,
revolted at the perfidy which the priest's overtures had concealed.
"We will hear no more; away with the Swikebode." [257]
The pale cheek of the monk turned yet paler, he seemed abashed by the
storm of resentment he had provoked; and in some fear, perhaps, at the
dark faces bent on him, he slunk behind his comrade the knight, who as
yet had said nothing, but, his face concealed by his helmet, stood
motionless like a steel statue. And, in fact, these two ambassadors,
the one in his monk garb, the other in his iron array, were types and
representatives of the two forces now brought to bear upon Harold and
England--Chivalry and the Church.
At the momentary discomfiture of the Priest, now stood forth the
Warrior; and, throwing back his helmet, so that the whole steel cap
rested on the nape of the neck, leaving the haughty face and half-
shaven head bare, Mallet de Graville thus spoke:
"The ban of the Church is against ye, warriors and chiefs of England,
but for the crime of one man! Remove it from yourselves: on his
single head be the curse and the consequence. Harold, called King of
England--failing the two milder offers of my comrade, thus saith from
the lips of his knight, (once thy guest, thy admirer, and friend,)
thus saith William the Norman:--'Though sixty thousand warriors under
the banner of the Apostle wait at his beck, (and from what I see of
thy force, thou canst marshal to thy guilty side scarce a third of the
number,) yet will Count William lay aside all advantage, save what
dwells in strong arm and good cause; and here, in presence of thy
thegns, I challenge thee in his name to decide the sway of this realm
by single battle. On horse and in mail, with sword and with spear,
knight to knight, man to man, wilt thou meet William the Norman?'"
Before Harold could reply, and listen to the first impulse of a
valour, which his worst Norman maligner, in the after day of
triumphant calumny, never so lied as to impugn, the thegns themselves
almost with one voice, took up the reply.
"No strife between a man and a man shall decide the liberties of
thousands!"
"Never!" exclaimed Gurth. "It were an insult to the whole people to
regard this as a strife between two chiefs, which should wear a crown.
When the invader is in our land, the war is with a nation, not a king.
And, by the very offer, this Norman Count (who cannot even speak our
tongue) shows how little he knows of the laws, by which, under our
native kings, we have all as great an interest as a king himself in
our Fatherland."
"Thou hast heard the answer of England from those lips, Sire de
Graville," said Harold: "mine but repeat and sanction it. I will not
give the crown to William in lieu for disgrace and an earldom. I will
not abide by the arbitrement of a Pope who has dared to affix a curse
upon freedom. I will not so violate the principle which in these
realms knits king and people, as to arrogate to my single arm the
right to dispose of the birthright of the living, and their races
unborn; nor will I deprive the meanest soldier under my banner, of the
joy and the glory to fight for his native land. If William seek me,
he shall find me, where war is the fiercest, where the corpses of his
men lie the thickest on the plains, defending this standard, or
rushing on his own. And so, not Monk and Pope, but God in his wisdom,
adjudge between us!"
"So be it," said Mallet de Graville, solemnly, and his helmet re-
closed over his face. "Look to it, recreant knight, perjured
Christian, and usurping King! The bones of the Dead fight against
thee."
"And the fleshless hands of the Saints marshal the hosts of the
living," said the monk.
And so the messengers turned, without obeisance or salute, and strode
silently away.