Thierry on Battle of Hastings

By an unfortunate chance, the [English] vessels which had long been cruizing upon this coast had just returned to port from want of provisions. The troops of William thus landed, without resistance, at Pevensey near Hastings, the 28th of September 1066, three days after the victory of Harold over the Norwegians. The archers landed first; they wore short coats, and their hair was shaved off; then came the cavalry, wearing coats of mail and helmets of polished steel, of a nearly conical form, armed with long and strong lances, and straight double-edged swords. These were followed by the workmen of the army, pioneers, carpenters, and smiths, who brought on shore, piece by piece, three wooden castles, ready prepared beforehand. The duke was the last to land; at the moment his foot touched the sand, he slipped and fell on his face. A murmur arose, and voices exclaimed: “God preserve us! this is a bad sign.” But William, rising, said immediately: “Lords, what is’t you say? What, are you amazed? 

I have taken seizin of this land with my hands, and, by the splendour of God, all that it contains is ours.” The repartee prevented the effect of the evil presage. The army took the road towards Hastings, and near that place marked out a camp, and raised two of the wooden castles as receptacles for provisions. Bodies of troops overran the neighbouring country, pillaging and burning houses. The English fled from their dwellings, hiding their goods and cattle, and hastened in crowds to the churches and churchyards, which they deemed the surest asylum against enemies, who were Christians like themselves. But, in their thirst for booty, the Normans paid little heed to the sanctity of places, and respected no asylum. 

Harold was at York, wounded, and resting from his fatigues, when a messenger arrived in great haste, to inform him that William of Normandy had landed, and planted his banner on the Anglo-Saxon territory. He immediately marched towards the south with his victorious army, publishing, on his way, an order to all the provincial governors to arm their fighting-men, and bring them to London. The militia of the west came without delay; those of the north were later, on account of the distance; but there was still reason to believe that the king of the English would soon find himself surrounded by the forces of the whole country. One of those Normans who had been made exceptions to the law of exile pronounced against foreigners, and who now played the part of spies and secret agents of the invader, sent word to the duke to be upon his guard, for that in four days the son of Godwin would have an hundred thousand men with him. Harold, too impatient, did not await the expiration of the four days; he could not overcome his desire to close with the foreigners, especially when he learned the ravages of every kind which they were committing round their camp. The hope of sparing his countrymen further evil, and perhaps the desire of attempting against the Normans a sudden and unforeseen attack, like that which had succeeded against the Norwegians, determined him to march to Hastings, with an army four times less numerous than that of the duke of Normandy. 

But William’s camp was carefully guarded against a surprise, and his outposts extended to a great distance. Some detachments of cavalry falling back, gave notice of the approach of the Saxon king, who, they said, was advancing furiously. Failing in his design of attacking the enemy by surprise, the Saxon was obliged to moderate his impetuosity; he halted at a distance of seven miles from the Norman camp, and suddenly changing his tactics, intrenched himself, to await them behind ditches and palisades. Some spies, who spoke French, were sent to the foreign army to observe its disposition and force. On their return, they related that there were more priests in William’s camp than there were fighting men on the English side. They had mistaken for priests all the soldiers of the Norman army who wore shaved beards and short hair. Harold smiled at this report: “They whom you saw in such great numbers,” said he, “are not priests, but brave warriors, who will soon show us what they are worth.” Some of the Saxon chiefs advised the king to avoid a battle, and to retreat towards London, ravaging the country on his way, to starve out the foreigners. “I!” exclaimed Harold, “I ravage the country which has been confided to my care! By my faith, that were indeed treason, and I prefer taking the chances of battle with the few men I have, my courage, and my good cause.” 

The Norman duke, whose totally opposite character led him, in every circumstance, to neglect no means that occurred, and to place interest above all personal pride, profited by the unfavourable position in which he saw his adversary, to renew his demands. A monk, called Dom Hugues Maigrot, came, in William’s name, to require the Saxon king to do one of three things; either to surrender the crown to the duke of Normandy, or to submit the matter to the arbitration of the pope, or to refer its decision to the chance of a single combat. Harold shortly answered: “I will not resign the crown, I will not refer the matter to the pope, I will not fight a single combat.” Not discouraged by these positive refusals, William again sent the Norman monk, to whom he dictated his instructions in the following terms: “Go and say to Harold, that, if he will fulfil his compact with me, I will leave him all the land which is beyond the Humber, and will give his brother Gurth all the land that Godwin held; if he persist in not accepting my offer, thou shalt say to him, before all his people, that he is a perjurer and a liar, that he and all those who support him are excommunicated by the pope, and that I have the papal bull for this.” 

Dom Hugues Maigrot delivered this message in a solemn tone, and the Norman chronicle says that at the word excommunication the English chiefs looked at each other, as though they stood in the presence of a great danger. One of them spoke: “We ought,” said he, “to fight, whatever the danger may be; for it is not here the question of receiving a new lord, as if our king were dead; the matter in hand is very different. The duke of Normandy has given our lands to his barons, his knights, and all his people, most of whom have already rendered him homage for them; they will all have their donations carried into effect if the duke becomes our king, and he will be bound to give them our goods, our wives, and our daughters, for all is promised them beforehand. They come, not only to ruin us, but to ruin our descendants also, to take from us the country of our ancestors; and what shall we do, or where shall we go, when we have no longer any country?” And hereupon the English unanimously took an oath to make neither peace, truce, nor treaty, with the invader, and to drive out the Normans or die in the attempt.”

A whole day was employed in these futile messages; it was the eighteenth since the battle fought with the Norwegians near York. Harold’s precipitate march had not as yet permitted any additional troops to join him. Edwin and Morkar, the two great northern chieftains, were at London, or on the road to London; none but volunteers came, one by one, or in small bands, citizens armed in haste, monks who quitted their cloisters to obey the call of their country. Among the latter was Leofrik, abbot of the great monastery of Peterborough, near Ely, and the abbot of Hide, near Winchester, who brought with him twelve of his monks, and twenty warriors raised at his expense. The hour of battle appeared at hand; Harold’s two young brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, had taken their positions near him; the former endeavoured to persuade him not to be present in the action, but to go to London to seek fresh reinforcements, whilst his friends sustained the attack of the Normans. “Harold,” said the young man, “thou canst not deny that, whether on compulsion or willingly, thou hast sworn to duke William an oath upon the relics of saints; why risk a combat with a perjury against thee? For us, who have taken no oath, the war is just, for we defend our country. Leave us, then, to fight the battle; thou shalt aid us if we retreat, and if we die thou wilt revenge us.” To these words, so touching in the mouth of a brother, Harold replied that his duty forbad him to remain apart while others risked their lives; too confident in his courage and his good cause, he drew up his troops for the combat. 

On the ground, which has ever since borne the name of Battle, the lines of the Anglo-Saxons occupied a long chain of hills, fortified by a rampart of stakes and willow hurdles. In the night of the 13th October, William announced to the Normans that the next day would be the day of battle. Priests and monks who had followed the invading army in great numbers, attracted, like the soldiers, by the hope of booty, met to pray and chaunt litanies, while the warriors prepared their arms. The time which remained to them, after this first care, was employed by them in confessing their sins and receiving the sacrament. In the other army, the night was passed in a very different manner; the Saxons diverted themselves with noisily singing old national songs, and emptying, around their fires, horns filled with beer and wine. 

When morning came, in the Norman camp, the bishop of Bayeux, brother, on the mother’s side, of duke William, celebrated mass and blessed the troops, armed with a hauberk under his rochet; he then mounted a large white courser, took a baton of command, and drew up the cavalry. The army was divided into three columns of attack; in the first were the men-at-arms from the counties of Boulogne and Ponthieu, with most of the adventurers engaged individually for pay; in the second were the Breton, Manceaux, and Poitevin auxiliaries; William in person commanded the third, composed of the Norman chivalry. In front and on the flanks of each of these bodies were infantry, lightly armed, wearing quilted coats, and armed with long bows or with steel crossbows. The duke was mounted on a Spanish charger, which a rich Norman had brought him on his return from a pilgrimage to St. Iago in Galicia. He wore around his neck the most revered of the relics upon which Harold had sworn, and the standard, blessed by the pope, was carried at his side by a young man, named Toustain le Blanc. At the moment, ere the troops began their march, the duke, raising his voice, thus addressed them:— 

“Fight your best, and put every one to death; for if we conquer, we shall all be rich. What I gain, you gain; if I conquer, you conquer; if I take the land, you will share it. Know, however, that I am not come here merely to take that which is my due, but to revenge our whole nation for the felon acts, perjuries, and treason of these English. They put to death the Danes, men, and women, in the night of Saint Brice. They decimated the companions of my relation, Alfred, and put himself to death. On, then, in God’s name, and chastise them for all their misdeeds.” The army soon came in sight of the Saxon camp, northwest of Hastings. The priests and monks who accompanied it, retired to a neighbouring hill, to pray and watch the combat. A Norman, named Taillefer, spurred his horse in front of the array, and began the song, famous throughout Gaul, of Charlemagne and Roland. As he sang, he played with his sword, throwing it far into the air, and catching it, as it fell, in his right hand; the Normans repeated the burthen, or shouted, Dieu aide! Dieu aide! 

Coming within shot, the archers began to discharge their arrows, and the cross bowmen their bolts; but most of the shots were rendered useless by the high parapets of the Saxon redoubts. The infantry armed with lances, and the cavalry, advanced to the gates of the redoubts, and endeavoured to force them. The Anglo-Saxons, all on foot around their standard, planted in the ground, and forming behind their palisades a compact and solid mass, received the assailants with heavy blows of their axes, ævissimæ secures, as the historian calls them, one blow of which broke the lances and cut through the coats of mail. The Normans, not being able to penetrate the redoubts, or to tear up the stakes, fell back, fatigued with their useless attack, upon the division commanded by William. The duke then made all his archers advance, and ordered them not to shoot straightforward, but into the air, so that the arrows might fall into the enemy’s camp. Many of the English were wounded, most of them in the face, by this manœuvre; Harold himself had his eye pierced with an arrow; but nevertheless, continued to issue his orders and to fight. The attack of the infantry and cavalry again commenced, amid cries of Notre Dame! Dieu aide! Dieu aide! But the Normans were driven back from one of the gates of the camp, to a deep ravine, covered with brushwood and grass, the growth of time, into which they and their horses fell one upon the other, and thus perished in great numbers. There was a moment of terror in the foreign army. The report spread that the duke had been killed, and at this news a retreat commenced. William threw himself before the fugitives and barred their passage, threatening them, and striking them with his lance; then uncovering: “I am here,” he exclaimed; “look at me, I still live, and, with the help of God, I will conquer.” 

The cavalry returned to the redoubts, but they could not force the gates or make a breach; the duke then thought of a stratagem to induce the English to quit their position; he ordered a thousand horse to advance and immediately retreat. The sight of this feigned flight made the Saxons lose their coolness; they all rushed in pursuit, their axes hanging from their necks. At a certain distance, a body previously disposed, joined the fugitives, who turned; and the English, surprised in their disorder, were assailed on every side by blows of lances and swords, from which they could not defend themselves, having both their hands occupied in wielding their great battle axes. When they had lost their ranks, the redoubts were forced; horse and foot made their way into them, but the combat was still fierce, hand to hand. William had his horse killed under him; Harold and his two brothers fell dead at the foot of their standard, which was torn up and replaced by the banner sent from Rome. The wreck of the English army, without chief and without standard, prolonged the struggle till the end of the day, so late that the combatants of the two parties only recognised each other by their language.

Then, and not till then, did this desperate resistance end. Harold’s followers dispersed, many dying upon the roads of their wounds and the fatigue of the combat. The Norman horse pursued them, granting quarter to none. The victors passed the night on the field of battle, and the next day at sunrise, duke William drew up his troops and called over the names of all those who had crossed the sea with him, from the list which had been drawn up before their departure, at St. Valery. Numbers of these lay, dead or dying, beside the conquered.1 The fortunate survivors had, for the first fruits of their victory, the spoils of the dead enemy. In turning over the bodies, thirteen were found with a monk’s habit under their armour; they were the abbot of Hide and his twelve companions: the name of their monastery was the first written in the black book of the conquerors.