THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS
It is not often on one's way, even in England of my heart, that one
can come upon a place, a lonely hill-side or a city, and say: this is
a spot upon which the history of the world was decided; yet I was able
on that showery morning, as I went up out of Hastings towards Battle
and saw all the level of Pevensey full of rain, to recall two such
places in which I had stood already upon my pilgrimage. For I had
lingered a whole morning upon the battlefield where the Romans first
met and overthrew our forefathers and thus brought Britain within the
Empire; while at Canterbury I had been in the very place where, after
an incredible disaster, England was persuaded back again out of
barbarism into the splendour of the Faith and of civilisation. These
places are more than English, they are European sanctuaries, two of
the greater sites of the history of Europe. Perhaps as much cannot
rightly be said for the hill where the town of Battle stands, the
landing-place at Pevensey and the port of Hastings.
And yet I don't know. What a different England it would have been if
William of Normandy had failed or had never landed here at all. And if
such an England could have endured how changed would have been the
whole destiny of Europe. I am not sure after all that we ought not to
be as uplifted by the memory of Hastings as we are or should be by the
memory of Caesar's advent. At any rate since Hastings was fought and
won in the eleventh century any national prejudices that belong wholly
to the modern world are quite as much out of place with regard to it as
they are with regard to Caesar or St Augustine. And if we must be
indignant and remember old injuries that as often as not were sheer
blessings, scarcely in disguise, let us reserve our hatred, scorn and
contempt for those damned pagan and pirate hordes that first from
Schleswig-Holstein and later from Denmark descended upon our Christian
country, and for a time overwhelmed us with their brutish barbarism.
As for me I am for the Duke of Normandy; without him England were not
the England of my heart.
Now the great and beautiful road up out of Hastings, seven miles into
Battle, is not only one of the loveliest in Britain, every yard of it
is full of Duke William's army, and thence we may see how in its
wonderful simplicity all that mighty business which was decided that
October morning on the hill-top that for so long Battle Abbey guarded
as a holy place, was accomplished. For looking southward over the
often steep escarpment, always between three and five hundred feet
over the sea plain, we may see Pevensey Castle, the landing, Hastings,
the port, and at last come to Battle, the scene of the fight that gave
England to the Norman for our enormous good and glory and honour.
I say that the struggle for the English crown between Duke William of
Normandy and Harold, King of England, was in no sense of the word a
national struggle; on the contrary, it was a personal question fought
and decided by the Duke of Normandy and his men, and Harold and his
men. Indeed the society of that time was altogether innocent of any
impulse which could be called national. That society, all of one piece
as it was, both in England and in Gaul, was wholly Feudal, though
somewhat less precisely so here than in Normandy. Men's allegiance
was not given to any such vague unity as England, but to a feudal
lord, in whose quarrel they were bound to fight, in whose victory they
shared, and in whose defeat they suffered. The quarrel between King
Harold and Duke William was in no sense of the word a national
quarrel but a personal dispute in which the feudal adherents of both
parties were necessarily involved, the gage being the crown and spoil
of England. This is at once obvious when we remember that the ground
of William's claim to the throne was a promise received from King
Edward personally, unconfirmed by council or witan, but endorsed for
his own part by Harold when shipwreck had placed him in Duke William's
power. Such were the true elements of the dispute.
It is true that the society of that time was, as I have said, all of
one piece both in England and in Gaul, but it is certain that in
England that society was less precisely organised, less conscious of
itself, less logical in its structure, in a word less real and more
barbarous than that of the Normans. The victory of Duke William meant
that the sluggish English system would be replaced or at any rate
reinvigorated by an energy and an intelligence foreign to it, without
which it might seem certain that civilisation here would have fallen
into utter decay or have perished altogether. The service of Duke
William then, while not so great as that of Caesar and certainly far
less than that of St Augustine, was of the same kind; he rescued
England from barbarism and brought us back into the full light of
Europe. The campaign in which that great service was achieved divides
itself into two parts, the first of which comes to an end with the
decisive action at Hastings which gave Duke William the crown; the
second consists of three great fighting marches, the result of which
was the conquest of England. I am only here concerned with the first
part of that campaign, and more especially with the great engagement
which was fought out upon the hill-top which the ruins of Battle Abbey
still mark. Let us consider this.
Harold, the second son of Earl Godwin, was crowned King of England at
Westminster upon the feast of the Epiphany in the year 1066. When Duke
William heard of it he was both angry and amazed, and at once began to
call up his feudatories to lend him aid to enforce his claim to the
Crown of England against King Harold. This was not an easy thing to
do, nor could it be done at all quickly. It was necessary to gather a
great host.
Those lords who owed him allegiance had as often as not to be
persuaded or bribed to fulfil their obligation; and they with their
followers and dependents were not enough; it was necessary to engage
as many as possible of those chiefs who did not own him as lord; these
had to be bought by promises of gain and honour. Also a considerable
fleet had to be built. All this took time, and Harold was therefore
perfectly aware of what Duke William intended, and gathered his forces,
both of ships and men, to meet him in the south of England. All through
the spring and summer he waited, in vain. Meantime, soon after Easter,
a strange portent appeared in the heavens "the comet star which some
men call the hairy star," and no man could say what it might mean. It
was not this, however, which delayed William; he was not ready. It is
possible that had he been able to advance during the summer the whole
history of England might have been different. As it was, when autumn
was at hand with the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin, Harold's men were
out of provisions and weary of waiting; they were allowed to disperse,
Harold himself went to London and the fleet beat up into the Thames,
not without damage and loss, against the wind, which, had he but known
it, now alone delayed the Duke.
But that wind which kept William in port brought another enemy of
Harold's to England with some three hundred galleys, Hardrada of
Norway, who came to support the claims of Tostig, now his man, King
Harold's exiled brother, to Northumbria; for the Northumbrians had
rebelled against him, and Harold had acquiesced in their choice of
Morkere for lord. Neither Morkere nor his brother Edwin, with their
local forces, was able to meet Hardrada with success. They attempted
to enter York but at Fulford on the 20th September they were routed,
and Hardrada held the great northern capital.
Meanwhile Harold had not been idle. Gathering his scattered forces he
marched north with amazing speed, covering the two hundred miles
between London and Tadcaster in nine days, to meet this new foe; but
this almost marvellous performance left the south undefended. He
entered York on September 25th, and on the same day, seven miles from
the city at Stamford Bridge, he engaged the enemy and broke them
utterly. Three days later William landed at Pevensey.
What could Harold do? He did all that a man could do. William had
landed at Pevensey upon Thursday, September 28th. It is probable that
Harold heard of it on the following Monday, October 2nd. Immediately
he set out for London, which by hard riding he reached, though
probably with but a few men, on Friday, October 6th, an amazing
achievement, only made possible by the great Roman road between York
and London. Upon the following Tuesday and Wednesday he was joined by
his victorious forces from the north, who had thus repeated their
unequalled feat and marched south again as they had north some two
hundred miles in nine days. Upon Wednesday, October 11th, Harold
marched out of London at the head of this force, and by the evening of
October 13th--a day curiously enough to be kept later as the feast of
St Edward the Confessor--this heroic force had marched in forty-eight
hours some sixty miles across country, and was in position upon that
famous hill some two hours from the coast, overlooking the landing-
place of William at Pevensey and the port he had seized at Hastings.
That great march has, I think, never been equalled by any British army
before or since.
It might seem strange that William, who had landed at Pevensey upon
the 28th of September, had not advanced at all from the sea-coast when
Harold and his men appeared upon that hill after their great march
from York upon October 13th. But in fact William, Norman as he was,
had a very clear idea of what he intended to do. He left little to
chance. He landed his men at Pevensey, seized upon Hastings and
beached his ships; then for a whole fortnight he awaited the hot and
weary return of Harold. Harold appeared upon the evening of October
13th. Upon the following day, a Saturday, the battle William had
expected was fought, Harold was slain and his heroic force destroyed.
The story of that day is well known. Harold's forces were drawn up upon
the ridge where the ruins of Battle Abbey now stand. William, upon the
thirteenth, had marched out of Hastings and had occupied the hill to
the east called Telham, where to-day stands Telham Court. In those days
probably no village or habitation of any sort occupied either of these
heights; one of the chroniclers calls the battlefield the place of
"the Hoar Apple Tree."
It is said that the night of October 13th was passed by Harold and his
men in feasting and in jollity, while the Normans confessed their sins
and received absolution. However that may be, in the full daylight,
about nine o'clock of Saturday, October 14th, the battle was joined.
This tremendous affair which was to have such enormous consequences
was opened by the minstrel Taellefer, who had besought leave of Duke
William to strike the first blow. Between the two armies he rode
singing the Song of Roland, and high into the air he flung his lance
and caught it three times e'er he hurled it at last into the amazed
English, to fall at last, slain by a hundred javelins as he rode back
into the Norman front.
Thus was begun the most famous battle ever fought in England. It
endured without advantage either way for some six hours till the
Norman horse, flung back from the charge, fell into the Malfosse in
utter confusion, and the day seemed lost to the Normans. But Odo,
Bishop of Bayeux, retrieved it and from that time, about three
o'clock, the Normans began to have the advantage. The battle seems to
have been decided at last by two clever devices attributed to William
himself. He determined to break Harold's line, and since he had not
been able to do this by repeated charges, he determined to try a
stratagem. Therefore he ordered his men to feign flight, and thus to
draw the English after them in pursuit. This was successfully done, and
when the English followed they were easily surrounded and slain.
William's other device is said to have been that of shooting high into
the air so that the arrows might turn and fall as from the sky upon
the foe. This stratagem is said to have been the cause of Harold's
death; for it was an arrow falling from on high and piercing him
through the right eye that killed him or so grievously wounded him
that he was left for dead, to be finally killed by Eustace of Boulogne
and three other knights.
With Harold down there can have been little hope of victory left to
his men, and indeed before night William had planted the Pope's banner
where Harold's had floated and held the battlefield. There he supped
among the dead, and having spent Sunday, October 15th, in burying the
fallen, he set out not for London, but for Dover, for his simple and
precise plan was to secure all the entries into England from the
continent before securing the capital. When he had done this he
marched up into England by the Watling Street, burned Southwark,
crossed the Thames at Wallingford, received there the submission of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and at Berkhampstead the submission of
London and the offer of the Crown which he received at Westminster at
Mass upon Christmas Day; twelve days less than a year after Harold
had been crowned in the same place.
One comes to Battle to-day along that great and beautiful road, high
up over the sea plain, which still seems full with memories of the
Norman advance from Hastings, thinking of all that great business. If
one comes up on Tuesday, upon payment of sixpence, one is admitted
to the gardens of the house in which lie the ruins of the
abbey William founded in thankfulness to God for his victory, the high
altar of which was set upon the very spot where Harold fell: "Hic
Harold Rex interfectus est."
It was while William was encamped upon Telham Hill, expecting the
battle of the morrow, that he vowed an abbey to God if He gave him the
victory. He was heard by a monk of Marmoutier, a certain William,
called the Smith, who, when Duke William had received the crown at
Westminster, reminded him of his promise. The King acknowledged his
obligation and bade William of Marmoutier to see to its fulfilment. The
monk thereupon returned to Marmoutier, and choosing four others,
brought them to England; but finding the actual battlefield unsuited
for a monastery, since there was no water there, he designed to build
lower down towards the west. Now when the King heard of it he was angry
and bade them build upon the field itself, nor would he hear them
patiently when they asserted there was no water there, for, said he:
"If God spare me I will so fully provide this place that wine shall be
more abundant there than water is in any abbey in the land." Then said
they that there was no stone. But he answered that he would bring them
stone from Caen. This, however, was not done, for a quarry was found
close by. Also the King richly endowed the house, giving it all the
land within a radius of a league, and there the abbot was to be
absolute lord free of bishop and royal officer, [Footnote: The unique
privileges of the abbot of Battle included the right to "kill and take
one or two beasts with dogs" in any of the King's forests.] and very
many manors beside. Yet ten years elapsed before the Abbey of Battle
was sufficiently completed to receive an abbot. In 1076, however,
Robert Blancard, one of the four monks chosen by William of Marmoutier,
was appointed, but he died e'er he came to Battle. Then one Gausbert
was sent from Marmoutier, and he came with four of his brethren and
was consecrated "Abbot of St Martin's of the place of Battle." Beside
the extraordinary gifts and privileges which the Conqueror
had bestowed upon the Abbey in his lifetime, upon his death he
bequeathed to it his royal embroidered cloak, a splendid collection of
relics and a portable altar containing relics, possibly the very one
upon which Harold had sworn in his captivity in Normandy to support
his claim to England. William is said to have intended the monastery
to be filled with sixty monks. We do not know whether this number ever
really served there. In 1393, but that was after the Black Death,
there appear to have been some twenty-seven, and in 1404 but thirty.
In 1535, on the eve of the Suppression, Battle Abbey was visited by
the infamous Layton who reported to Thomas Cromwell that "all but two
or three of the monks were guilty of unnatural crimes and were
traitors," adding that the abbot was an arrant churl and that "this
black sort of develish monks I am sorry to know are past amendment."
Little more than two years later the abbot surrendered the abbey and
received a pension of one hundred pounds. The furniture and so forth
of the house was then very poor. "So beggary a house I never see, nor
so filthy stuff," Layton writes to Wriothesley. "I will not 20s. for
all the hangings in this house...." In August 1538 the place was
granted to Sir Anthony Browne, who is said to have removed the cloak
of the Conqueror and the famous Battle Abbey Roll to Cowdray. This
rascal razed the church and cloisters to the ground, and made the
abbot's lodging his dwelling. It is said that one night as he was
feasting a monk appeared before him and solemnly cursed him,
prophesying that his family should perish by fire. To the fulfilment of
this curse Cowdray bears witness even to this day.
[Illustration: BATTLE ABBEY]
What spoliation, time and neglect have left of the Abbey is beautiful,
especially the great fourteenth century gateway which faces the Market
Green. Nothing save the foundations is left of the great church. From
the terrace, doubtless, we look across the battlefield, but all is so
changed, the bleak hill-top has become a superb garden, that it is
impossible to realise still less to reconstruct the battle, and indeed
since we can only visit the place amid a crowd of tourists, our present
discomfort makes any remembrance of the fight or of the great and
solemn abbey which for so long turned that battlefield into a sanctuary
impossible.
Nor indeed are we more fortunate in the parish church which was
originally built by Abbot Ralph in the twelfth century. It has been so
tampered with and restored that little remains that is unspoilt. There,
and I think most fittingly, lies that Sir Anthony Browne who got Battle
Abbey from the King who had stolen it.
Now when I had seen all this I went on my way, and because I was
unhappy on account of all that theft and destruction, and because where
once there had been altar and monks to serve it, now there was none,
and because what had once been common to us all was now become the
pleasure of one man, I went up out of Battle into the hills by the
great road through the woods and so on and up by Dallington and
Heathfield and so down and down and down all a summer day across the
Weald till at evening I came to Lewes where I slept. I remember
nothing of that day but the wind and the hills and the great sun of
May which went ever before me into the west so that I soon forgot to
be sorry and rejoiced as I went.