180

BATTLE OF STAMFORD-BRIDGE.

[A.D. 1066. a cry went forth that it was an evil omen. He grasped the sand, and turned the omen into a sign of gladness, for he had taken seisin of his kingdom. The castle of Pevensey was at a short distance, now a ruin, of Roman, Saxon, and Norman construction. In a few days the army marched to Hastings.

King Harold was far away when Duke William landed on that unprotected shore. His exiled brother, Tostig, had been to Normandy, and had arranged with William a plan of united action for the invasion of the country; and he engaged Hardrada, the King of Norway, in the confederacy. Tostig first tried his fortune alone, on the south coast; but the vigilance of Harold drove him to the north. At the mouth of the Tyne, Tostig waited for the Norwegian armament, and their forces having landed, they marched to York. Here they defeated the Northumbrian earls, Edwin and Morcar. Harold was with his army on the southern coast when the news of the Norwegian invasion reached him; and he marched at once to encounter these enemies. He would have negotiated with his brother; but when Tostig asked what the king of Norway should have, the Saxon answered, "Seven feet of earth for a grave." A great battle was fought at Stamford-bridge on the Derwent; and Hardrada and Tostig were amongst the slain. Where this battle was fought, the bones of the dead whitened the earth for half a century. That day of carnage was the same 27th of September on which William sailed from Saint Valery. As Harold sat at a banquet at York, after the victory, the news came of the Norman landing. He had made adequate preparations for a resistance by sea when he marched to the north; but the same tempest that detained the invaders in Normandy compelled the Saxon ships to remain in their ports. They came out too late; and blockaded the whole coast.

Harold rested not a day in Northumbria. He marched direct for London; where all the warlike population rallied round his standard. Meanwhile, the Normans had entrenched themselves near Hastings. They had ravaged this beautiful district so mercilessly, that for twenty years it lay waste and deso

The tapestry exhibits their feastings in this land of fertility, when the harvest was in the homesteads, and the oxen were fattening in the marsh-lands.

On the 13th October, the army of Harold was encamped on a range of hills, near a place then called Senlac. This is the modern " Battle." The

A.D. 1066.]

BATTLE OF HASTINGS.

181

sea was in the distance, and the English ships were ready to cut off the retreat of the invaders. The army of William was on another range of hills. The watch-fires of each camp could be seen by the other as the night closed in. There was revelry in the English camp. There was silence and prayer in the Norman. The historians have put a long harangue into the mouth of William, when he mounted his horse at day-break of the 14th. They are as genuine as the speeches which we find in Livy. At nine o'clock the Normans moved across the little valley, with the papal banner carried in advance of the Duke.

They were formidable in their cavalry and their bowmen. The English waited the attack with their battle-axes, the Kentish men in the front. The AngloSaxons kept their ground like a mighty wall; and they advanced in the same firm array. This solidity in battle has been the great tactic of the country even to this day; and it belongs to the nature of the people. But it is in the same nature to be open to stratagem. After a fight of six hours, William commanded his men to turn their backs. The English raised a cry of triumph, and, breaking their ranks, rushed from their commanding position into the plain. Then the Norman cavalry wheeled round, and a terrible slaughter took place. Harold fell a little before sunset. There was still a struggle; but the great leader had passed away.

In Waltham Abbey, on St. Agnes' Eve,

A stately corpse lay stretch'd upon a bier.

The arms were cross'd upon the breast; the face,
Uncover'd, by the taper's trembling light

Show'd dimly the pale majesty severe

Of him whom Death, and not the Norman Duke,

Had conquered; him, the noblest and the last

Of Saxon kings; save one, the noblest he,-
The last of all."*

182

THE ABBEY OF BATAILLE.

(A.D. 1968

Upon the ground where "was tried, by the great assize of God's judgment in battle, the right of power between the English and Norman nations,"* the conqueror, within two years, founded an abbey. The old name of Senlac was changed, and this foundation was called "The Abbey of Bataille." The

present buildings, so imperfectly preserved, and so miserably defaced, are of a later date. But no changes of time or of irreverent hands can destroy the interest which belongs to this memorable place. Some years ago, after a visit to Battle, the author of this history wrote:"The politic conqueror did wisely thus to change the associations, if it were possible, which belonged to this fatal spot. He could not obliterate the remembrance of the day of bitterness,' the day of death,' the day stained with the blood of the brave.' + Even the red soil of Senlac was held, with patriotic superstition, to exude real and fresh blood after a small shower, 'as if intended for a testimony that the voice of so much Christian blood here shed does still cry from the earth to the Lord.' ‡ This Abbey of Bataille is unquestionably a place to be trodden with reverent contemplation by every William of Newbury.

* Daniel.

Matthew of Westminster.

A.D. 1066.]

BURIAL OF HAROLD.

183

Englishman who has heard of the great event that here took place, and has traced its greater consequences. He is of the mixed blood of the conquerors and the conquered. His national character is founded upon the union of the Saxon determination and the Norman energy. As he treads the red soil of Senlac, if his reformed faith had not taught him otherwise, he would breathe a petition for all the souls, Saxon and Norman, that there slain were.'

The victory of the Norman was no final triumph of one race over another. The nationality which Harold asserted, in a fight that might have had a different ending had the fatal arrow not pierced his brain, was never lost. The

language and the laws of the victor only supplanted for a short season, and in a limited range, the old language and the old laws. It was in this spirit of nationality that the Anglo-Saxon people long refused to believe that the last of their kings had perished at Senlac. They believed that his wounds were healed amidst loving friends; that he waited, in some safe seclusion, again to head his faithful English when the hour of deliverance should appear approaching; that their Harold did not sleep in the tomb which was called his tomb in Waltham Abbey.* That abbey, like the Abbey of Bataille, has

* Fuller in his "History of Waltham Abbey," of which he was curate, has the following account of Harold's burial at Waltham :-"Githa, mother of Harold, and two religious men of

184

CLOSE OF THE SAXON PERIOD.

[A.D. 1066. been removed to make way for the arches and columns of a later period. But, in the belief that Harold was borne to the great religious house which he had endowed, that venerable church of Waltham will be associated with our national history, whilst the memory is cherished of the brave, whether victorious or subdued, who have fought to the death for their country.

Here, then, is the close of this history of eleven hundred years. It is a history full of doubt and obscurity-a history in which we have to seek the growth of a nation amidst the most conflicting elements, sometimes wondering how they could have given birth to a perdurable state. Out of this British, Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman stock, has come the English people. Out of these fierce wars, adverse religions, discordant institutions, has come, in the fulfilment of the decrees of an overruling Providence, a nation that has preserved its free spirit under every form of foreign domination or domestic oppression; a nation that in every conflict with authority, whether that of king, noble, or priest, has asserted the right of individual liberty, and has, with constantly increasing strength, upheld the principle that all power is derived from the people for the general good. To the Saxon mind we owe a great part of the English Constitution. It was as rudely developed, in its original stages, as the Saxon tongue. But as that tongue was gradually formed into a language, which has been spread over the earth, and has made new nations, so the Saxon principle of the natural right of each man to do what to him seemeth best, as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others, and the Saxon practice of social co-operation for public objects, have gone forth, and will still go forth, ultimately to banish from the civilised world that despotism which asserts the empire of the few over the many.

this abbey, Osegod and Ailric, with their prayers and tears, hardly prevailed with the Conqueror (at first denying him burial, whose ambition had caused the death of so many) to have Harold's corpse (with his two brethren, Gurth and Leofwine losing their lives in the same battle,) to be entombed in Waltham Church, of his foundation. He was buried where now the Earl of Carlisle's leaden fountain in his garden, then probably the end of the choir, or rather some eastern chapel beyond it; his tomb of plain, but rich gray marble, with what seemeth a crossfloree (but much descanted on with art) upon the same, supported with pillarets, one pedestal whereof I have in my house. As for his reported epitaph, I purposely omit it, not so much because barbarous (scarce any better in that age), but because not attested, to my apprehension, with sufficient authority." The "reported epitaph" was, HIC JACET HAROLD INFELIX.