Stories from English History Part 7

'My lord the king,' said the messenger, 'I am from Pevensey--the Normans have landed--Duke William--sixty thousand men--laying waste the country--ships, horses, men-at-arms----'

'Ha!' said Harold; 'he has chosen a time when the men who guard the coast are at their harvest; scattered over the country; and there is no one save myself to gather them together. How long is it since you left?'

'I hardly know,' replied the messenger; 'I took no count of time. I have galloped all the way--ridden day and night, changing horses where I could.'

'Thanks, brave messenger,' said the king; 'by your speed you may have saved your country. We must set off without delay,' he said, turning to his guests; 'there is no more time for rest--who is ready to start for Suss.e.x?'

'I--and I--and I,' said the n.o.bles, hurrying to fetch their followers; and soon the hall was deserted.

In an hour's time the army was once more upon the march. The two earls, Edwin and Morcar, whose sister Harold had married, remained in the north, promising to collect their forces and to follow the king with all speed.

As Harold approached the south of England, he was joined by hundreds of men who had fled from the invaders, and were eager to avenge the destruction of their homesteads.

'The English,' reported Duke William's outposts to their master, 'rush onward through their pillaged country with the fury of madmen.'

'Let them come, and come soon!' was the duke's reply.

At Senlac, near the town of Hastings in Suss.e.x, the English came in sight of their foes. The Normans lay encamped upon the plain, while Harold posted his army on a hill, with a little wood behind, and an old mossy apple-tree a little to one side.

Night came on, clear and cold; and the two armies lay in sight of one another's camp-fires, where they could hear the clinking of the armourer's hammers, and the rough voices of the men on the other side.

When all was ready, the Normans lay down quietly to sleep, and awoke in the morning refreshed and eager for the fray.

The English sat around their watch-fires, pa.s.sing the horns of ale and mead from hand to hand, and singing glees and war-songs. Over all brooded the thought of the broken oath, and of the curse which had been p.r.o.nounced against England; but they knew that the curse was unjust, and were resolved to fight to the last against the invader.

Harold rode round the camp to speak a last word of encouragement to his men before they slept. He still hoped that the northern earls, Edwin and Morcar, would come up before the battle; but Edwin and Morcar were traitors. They had said to themselves, 'If Harold falls, we shall divide England with Duke William, and be kings of our share of the country instead of earls.' So they remained in the north; and the sacrifice that Harold had made in marrying their sister proved to be in vain.

Morning dawned, and the two armies drew themselves up in order of battle. The English numbered only twenty thousand men, while William had brought against them sixty thousand; but the English had the advantage of a stronger position.

Harold drew up his bodyguard on the crest of the hill, where he had planted his standard, the Golden Dragon of Wess.e.x. Close by were the men of London, who had the right of fighting by the side of their king.

These men were all clad in coats of mail, and carried battle-axes, and javelins for throwing. On the sides of the hill were posted the other soldiers and the country people, many of whom were armed only with darts, knives, and pitchforks, for they had come in very hastily from the fields. Round the hill the men had dug a trench, and fortified it with a stockade; and behind the stockade Harold posted a line of soldiers, standing close together, shield touching shield.

Then Harold and his two brothers rode through the army, saying, 'Keep your ranks, men! Stand shoulder to shoulder, and we shall win the day.

But if you leave your line, or allow the Normans to break it, we are lost. Stand firm!'

After having pa.s.sed from rank to rank, and spoken to all the men, Harold and his brothers rode back to the royal standard and dismounted, for they were resolved to fight on foot and take what came like the meanest of their soldiers.

Meanwhile Duke William had drawn up his men in three divisions, with a long line of archers in front. In the centre were posted the Norman knights with William at their head; and the sacred banner, the three lions of Normandy, floating above them.

Suddenly there burst from the Norman lines their battle-cry of 'G.o.d aid us!' and the vast army began to move across the plain. At the head rode a minstrel-knight, singing an old battle-song, and whirling up his sword in the air and catching it again as it fell.

Now the battle began in real earnest.

A flight of arrows was let loose upon the English host, then the Normans charged up to the palisade.

As well might they have flung themselves against a stone wall.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, the English swung their huge battle-axes, which clove their way through armour and shirts of mail.

Again and again the Normans charged against the barricade, the duke himself at their head, his eyes shining like b.a.l.l.s of living fire and his voice like a trumpet; but they were driven back like waves breaking around the base of a cliff.

On all sides the battle raged. Lances clashed, sword rang upon sword, arrows whizzed through the air, and battle-axes crashed through steel armour; while the cries of the wounded mingled with the blasts of the war-horn and English cries of 'Out, out!' answered the Norman shouts of 'G.o.d aid us!'

Stoutest of the English was Harold, whose heavy battle-axe would cut down horse and rider at a blow. Among the Normans there arose a cry that the duke was slain.

'Here am I,' shouted William, tearing off his helmet, 'and by G.o.d's aid will yet win the day!'

Maddened with war fury, he spurred up the hill, broke single-handed through the barrier, and rode straight to Harold. The brother of the king stepped before him, and was hewn down by a blow from William before the duke himself was unhorsed and fell to the ground. Mounting again quickly, William cut his way through his foes and was back again in the Norman lines before any one could harm him.

A body of Normans having given way, the Kentish men in their eagerness overleaped the barricade and gave chase to their flying foes.

Instantly William saw his advantage. The Normans turned, galloped up the hill, and poured by thousands into the gap thus left undefended.

This proved the turning point of the day.

'Slowly and surely,' says an old writer, 'the Norman horse pressed along the crest of the hill, strewing the height with corpses as the hay is strewn in swaths before the mower.'

Still the ring round the standard remained unbroken, and in the centre Harold and his bodyguard held their ground, dealing blows around them with their great battle-axes. Beyond the ring the dead lay piled up in heaps, English and Norman together.

'Shoot upward,' cried the duke to his archers, 'that your arrows may fall like bolts from heaven.'

A shower of arrows fell upon the heads and shoulders of the English, killing and wounding many a brave fighter.

The battle had lasted since early morning; and just as the sun went down an arrow pierced Harold's right eye.

The king dropped his battle-axe, and fell forward with a short, sharp cry of pain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Death of Harold.]

Twenty Norman knights rushed forward, seized the standard, and dealt Harold a mortal blow as he lay beside the dead bodies of his two brothers.

The English, having lost their leader, left the field fighting to the last, and then scattered over the country to carry far and wide the ill-tidings that King Harold was slain and the Norman master of England.

All was quiet when the moon rose over the hill where the Golden Dragon had been hauled down and the sacred banner of the Normans raised in its stead. The ground having been hastily cleared, William's tent was pitched upon the spot where Harold and his brothers had made their last stand, and the duke slept there all night.

The next day was a Sunday, and as the bells tinkled mournfully in the churches, Englishwomen came flocking to the field of battle, with pale faces and eyes red with weeping, to beg leave to look for their husbands and brothers and sons among the slain. Among them was the mother of Harold, offering William its weight in gold for the body of her son.

The conqueror gave her leave to search, and for a long time the n.o.ble English lady wandered over the battle-field, seeking vainly among the dead.

Then came Aldwyth, Harold's wife; but she too, was unable to find the body of her husband.

Last of all came Edith of the Swan's Neck, whom Harold had loved; and she sought long for the body.

At last she came to a corpse that was lying upon a heap of dead, disfigured with so many wounds that only she could have known it.

'That is Harold,' she said.

William gave orders that the last of the English kings should be buried upon the cliffs that guard the sh.o.r.es of England, and a heap of stones raised upon it.

'Let him lie there,' he said; 'he kept the sh.o.r.e manfully while he lived; let him stay and guard it ever, now he is dead.'