Foord - Invasions of England

On September 27 the long-sought-for south wind blew at last, and the huge unwieldy Norman fleet put out from St. Walaric. William's flagship was the Mora, a gallant vessel given to him by his wife Matilda. She bore on her stern a gilded figure of a boy bearing a banner, as the Bayeux tapestry clearly indicates.

From St. Valery-en-Caux to Pevensey is less than  sixty-five miles, and the fact that the flotilla took, apparently, nearly two days to cover it, gives some index to its encumbered condition. None the less, it sailed in something like order, guided by a huge lantern at the masthead of the Mora. On the 28th it reached Pevensey, and the disembarkation was quietly effected. William himself stumbled and fell on his face as he sprang ashore. A murmur of dismay rose from the superstition-ridden barons behind, but he sprang to his feet and showed them that as he fell he had clutched up the sand with both hands. ' See how I have taken possession of England !' he cried, and his followers hailed the omen of good as readily as they had trembled at the accident. It was one of those incidents that mark the born leader of men.

From Pevensey William moved to Hastings, which he occupied without resistance. A palisaded fort is said to have been constructed ; one wonders why William did not encamp within the splendid Roman walls of Pevensey. He then began to waste the coast districts in the neighbourhood, partly perhaps in order to provoke his rival to an engagement, but also, probably, in part for purposes of supply. Wonderful as had been Harold's march to York, his rush back to London was yet more so. He covered the distance of over 190 miles in seven days at the outside, perhaps in six, an average of 27 or 32 miles a day ! On October 7 he was in London. Eadwine and Morkere were still far behind. They have been severely blamed for their slowness ; but it is only fair to point out that their levies had been sorely thinned at Fulford and Stamford Bridge, and that the collection and organization of reinforcements can have been no easy task. If the northern troops started only a day behind Harold and marched at the very fair rate of eighteen miles a day, they must have still been some distance from London when he left it for the south. Probably Eadwine and Morkere failed to realize the urgency of the crisis ; but, on the other hand, Harold's precipitancy must have been disconcerting. 

The King stayed only some four days in London. On the 11th he marched again, presumably with the royal guards and the men of London and the home counties. He again pressed forward with great speed ; the rate of marching was over eighteen miles a day. On the afternoon of the 13th the head of the column was on Senlac Hill, eight miles from Hastings, and there, no doubt, the King could question peasants and could ascertain that William had concentrated his army. 

That he had had hopes of repeating his feat at Stamford Bridge seems almost certain. The authorities are practically unanimous in stating or implying that his army would have been strongly reinforced had he delayed a little, and that he did not do so is best explained by his anxiety to execute another surprise attack on an unprepared enemy. As this plan had obviously failed, it was to his interest to avoid a battle ; and the general opinion at the time evidently was that he was unwise to risk one. The story that his brother Gyrth would have dissuaded him from engaging, but that he declined to look on while his people were pillaged by the Norman raiders, may be taken for what it is worth, but it points to the prevalence of this opinion. The most probable explanation is that the weary and illdisciplined army could not be withdrawn in the darkness from the ridge on which it was bivouacking, and it was therefore necessary to remain there for the night. William on his side was obliged to fight. His army subsisted by pillage, and would starve if it were forced to remain long in a state of close concentration. He had early notice of his rival's advance, and had his army in hand about Hastings. He was at Telham so early on the morning of the 1 4th that to decline a battle was difficult, if not impossible, for Harold. With disciplined troops a retreat would have been practicable enough, but it was not so for the cumbrous English host. Perhaps, too, Harold overrated the fighting power of his axemen. In any case, it is clear that he stood to receive battle when retreat was his wisest strategy. 

Senlac Hill is an outlying spur of the South Downs, roughly parallel to them, and connected with them by a short saddleback. The main ridge is about 280 feet above the sea at its culminating point, and nearly 1,200 yards long. The road from London passes along the saddleback, over the ridge towards its eastern end, and across a valley to Telham Hill, about a mile distant. The slope of the ridge in front is fairly gentle, but where the remains of the Abbey now stand it rises steeply to a commanding knoll. The exact gradient is difficult to estimate, for when the Abbey was built the slope was much altered by terracing, which exists to-day. On both flanks especially the left and on the rear, except where the road approaches, the slopes are steep. For over half its length the front face of the ridge is covered by a brook and a line of ponds. In 1066 in their place there was most probably a marsh, almost impassable for cavalry. Even at the present day the ground just below the ponds becomes extremely difficult for a horseman. The western half of the position could probably only have been assailed by the very dangerous process of filing horsemen round the end of the marsh, and advancing them in front of it. This actually appears to have been attempted by part of the Norman army ; but it was only possible to deliver direct attacks on a front of about 750 yards. In this narrow space the deadliest fighting took place. Behind all was the forest of the Andredsweald. 

The strength of the English army can only be guessed at. According to the earlier writers it was densely massed along the ridge, but it is probable that the almost unassailable western end was not held in force. On the other hand, the eastward portions were probably very strongly held. There may have been in all about 15,000 men. About half the troops were probably fully equipped men, and in their strong position were capable of beating off an attack of any other army in Western Europe, except the one that now faced them. As compared with it the English, without archers or cavalry, were at a hopeless disadvantage, but even as it was they came very near success. 

The question of fortification has been often discussed. None of the earlier writers mention any, nor are any shown on the Bayeux tapestry, the workers of which would very probably have had William's own personal account to go upon. Wace appears to describe a sort of wicker breastwork. So much is certain, that the English troops reached the ground too late and too fatigued to be able to carry out much entrenching work. The cries of ' Ut! Ut! ' (Out! Out!), attributed to the English, may perhaps indicate that they conceived themselves to occupy an entrenched enclosure ; but it may just as well refer to the impatience of men pent up in the shield-ring under a storm of arrows. 

The Norman army advancing from Hastings reached Telham early in the morning. An interesting detail is that the knights rode in their tunics and did not don their armour until they reached the field. At the foot of Telham the army deployed in three divisions, each of three lines classified according to arms. The front line consisted of archers and crossbow-men there were some of these latter present ; the second of mail-clad infantry ; the third of the cavalry. The right wing consisted mainly of the French and Flemish mercenaries under Eustace of Boulogne and the Norman baron Roger de Montgomerie. On the left were the Breton Angevin and Aquitanian troops. William himself was in the centre with his Normans. Ralph de Toesny, the hereditary standard-bearer of Normandy, had begged to be allowed to ' fight with both hands ' on that day ; and Walter Giffard de Longueville declined to bear the Pope's banner. He was old, he said, and would like to do a last good day's fighting. So the standard was borne at William's side by Toustain de Bec-en-Caux. William himself bore on this day not the lance, which was still a light weapon often used for throwing, but a ponderous iron mace, and with him rode his brothers Odo of Bayeux and Robert of Mortain. 

As the Normans marched down Telham, Senlac suddenly appeared to be crowned with a dense line of axes and shields. The English seemed to spring out of the wood, says Guy of Amiens. This may indicate that they were taken by surprise, and hastily faced about to meet the unexpected approach of the Normans. The royal guards were on the left centre, with the Dragon of Wessex and the King's Warrior banner planted where the altar of Battle Abbey afterwards rose. With the guards almost certainly were the Londoners, who were probably the best equipped troops of the fyrd. They were under Esegar, the first 'Staller' (Marshal). Everything seems to show that there was a solid mass of picked troops in the centre. The King, with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, was on foot by his standards surrounded by his incomparable footguards. 

The Norman host advanced across the valley and began to breast Senlac Hill, the archers shooting furiously as soon as they came within range. For a while it was attack without defence, and it is odd that William does not appear to have seen that the bowmen could be left to prepare the way. The English could only suffer, and already, perhaps, impatient warriors were beginning to cry ' Out ! Out! ' yearning to exchange blows with their exasperating enemies. The archers, emboldened by their bloodless progress, pressed forward to close range, and then came the English reply. The leading ranks of the Normans were overwhelmed with a perfect hail of miscellaneous missiles spears, javelins, casting-axes, and stones, some of the latter tied to clubs and hurled like hammers. The archers came to a stand, still plying their bows; and the heavy infantry pushed up between their intervals and came to handgrips with the English. Their charge broke vainly upon the shield-wall ; not a gap could the Norman foot-soldiers tear in it. Javelins, taper-axes, and stone hammers crashed among them fast and furiously ; the great axes swayed and fell with terrible effect. Do what they would they could make no progress. 

Probably the Norman infantry were already falling back when William let loose his cavalry. No doubt the chivalry of France and Normandy expected to ride down the English infantry with ease. Out in front of the long moving line of horsemen, bright in their ringed mail shirts, rode the minstrel Taillefer, chanting verses from the ' Song of Roland/ playing with his sword as he pricked up the slope. He was the first of the knighthood to penetrate the shield-wall also the first to fall. The long lines of horsemen crashed against the shields ; the shock must have been tremendous, but their fortune was no better than that of their despised infantry. The English front may have been pressed back, even pierced in places, but the gaps were at once restored ; man and horse went down beneath the tremendous strokes of the great axes, while from the rearward ranks of the English host the same tempest of darts, throwing-axes, and stone clubs crashed upon the mail and helmets of the charging cavaliers. After a furious struggle the Bretons and Angevins were repulsed and driven downhill. After them poured the ill-disciplined levies of the English right. The retreating horsemen blundered into the marsh, which they had avoided without difficulty as they advanced, and, with the English pressing furiously on their rear, were in wild disorder, when the victors were suddenly charged in flank by part of the Norman centre, turned against them by the watchful Duke. The results were terrible. The scattered warriors, many of them half-armed peasants, were overridden and cut down by hundreds, and only a remnant regained the position which they had so rashly left. 

This, however, was only the beginning. William rallied the broken left wing, and again and again the fierce horsemen charged the immovable English line in vain. Never had the knights seen or heard of such foot-soldiers as these. One tremendous charge led by William himself did burst through the shieldwall ; and the brave Gyrth went down beneath the Duke's terrible mace. Leofwine, too, was slain ; but the charge was beaten off by a rally of the English axemen, and hurled downhill, and the cry went up that the Duke was slain. William flung himself among the panic-stricken knights : ' I live ! I live !' he thundered, tearing off his helmet. ' By God's aid I will conquer yet !' Out of evil came good for Normandy. 

Nearly the whole Norman line was apparently in disorder, but William rallied it again and brought it up to the charge, though it is evident that the attacks must have grown less and less effective as time went on, owing to the fatigue of the horses. At his wits' end, William tried the expedient of a feigned retreat ; and the French on the right recoiled, to all seeming broken and beaten, down the slope. This was too much for the greatly enduring Englishmen, and a great part of their left and centre came pouring down in pursuit. The retreating horsemen turned upon them ; William assailed them in flank with troops from his centre. The carnage was great, and apparently the whole English left wing was annihilated. But the pursuing horsemen appear to have met with disaster in an unexpected trench or watercourse, and Bishop Odo of Bayeux had to ride among and steady them. 

Still, the battle was far from over. The best part of the English army, including the royal household, was still ranged in dense masses on the crown of the hill. But their line was sorely reduced by the disaster of the wings, and the Norman cavalry could charge in front and flank. Inspired by the hope of victory, the knights hurled themselves again to the attack, but still in vain. The line of shields was an impregnable barrier ; charge after charge recoiled from the steadfast front and to the fierce Norman war-cry of ' Dex aie ' (Dieu aide!) the English shouts of ' Holy Cross !' still thundered in defiant answer. 

The Norman cavalry was growing more and more wearied and ineffective ; the victory was far from decisive as long as the English centre still fought on. Then at last William did what he should have attempted long before, and brought his archers to the front. Any East-Roman tactician would have told him that the cavalry should never have attacked until the English masses had been thoroughly shattered by their fire, and the fact shows how low the art of war had fallen in the West. Between the cavalry attacks the bowmen poured in their volleys, shooting with a high trajectory so that the arrows were not wasted on the shield-wall, but made havoc in the heart of the dense mass. The device had terrible success. The picked warriors of England fell fast before the pitiless rain to which they could not reply. For the most part they could but suffer. Once or twice it seems that small bodies tried to charge out ; now and again desperate warriors sprang forth to contend hand-to-hand with the Norman knights, but they only hastened their end. The splendid guards stood shoulder to shoulder in the mass, never wavering or faltering, but the losses were all on one side. Behind the unbroken shield-wall was an everincreasing weltering confusion of dead and dying upon which the arrows beat pitilessly ; and the King, mortally wounded in the eye, lay in agony beneath the standards. The position was desperate ; but so long as the banners waved and the King lived there was no thought of yielding. But at last the fatal gaps could not be closed fast enough, and the Normans burst through the shield- wall. A band of knights hewed their way through the dissolving mass, cut down the faithful few round Harold, tore down the Dragon and the Warrior, and literally hacked the dying King to pieces at the foot of his banners. 

And now the end had come. The noble English infantry, who had defied the Norman chivalry all day, and but for the archery would have beaten them to their ships, began all that remained of them to withdraw sullenly but hopelessly. Even yet they were not demoralized, and some were still in good order. As the little remnant got away across the saddleback into Andredsweald they saw the Normans plunging rashly in pursuit down the steep rearward slopes of Senlac. Turning to bay, true even in that hour of despair, to their noble warrior strain, they set upon the overweening horsemen, cut their leading squadrons to pieces, and drove them back on Senlac. Panic spread through the Norman army; Eustace of Boulogne is said to have counselled retreat, and it was only when William himself rallied his squadrons and brought them along the ridge in a properly ordered pursuit that the English finally melted away into the woods.