Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Part 6

He paused and calculated, waiting so long that Tostig, in his impatience, went to Norway, and tried to find a prompter for Harold.

Messages in the meantime pa.s.sed between Normandy and England without effect. William claimed the performance of the oaths at Rouen, and Harold denied any obligation to him, offering to be his ally if he would renounce the throne, but otherwise defying him as an enemy.

Having at length decided, William summoned his va.s.sals to meet at Lillebonne, and requested their aid in a.s.serting his right to the English Crown.

When he left them to deliberate, all with one consent agreed that they would have nothing to do with foreign expeditions. What should they gain? The Duke had no right to ask their feudal service for aught but guarding their own frontier. Fitzosborn should he the spokesman, and explain the result of their parliament.

In came the Duke, and Fitzosborn, standing forth, spoke thus: "Never, my lord, were men so zealous as those you see here. They will serve you as truly beyond sea as in Normandy. Push forward, and spare them not. He who has. .h.i.therto furnished one man-at-arms, will equip two; he who has led twenty knights, will bring forty. I myself offer you sixty s.h.i.+ps well filled with fighting men."

Fitzosborn was stopped by a general outcry of indignation and dissent, and the a.s.sembly tumultuously dispersed; but not one of the va.s.sals was allowed to quit Lillebonne till after a private conference with William, and determined as they might be when altogether, yet not a count or baron of them all could withstand the Duke when alone with him; and it ended in their separately engaging to do just as Fitzosborn had promised for them; and going home to build s.h.i.+ps from their woods, choose out the most stalwart villains on their estates to be equipped as men-at-arms and archers, to cause their armorers to head the cloth-yard shafts, repair the hawberks of linked chains of steel, and the high-pointed helmets, as yet without visors, and the face only guarded by a projection over the nose. Every one had some hope of advantage to be gained in England; barons expected additional fiefs, peasants intended to become n.o.bles, and throughout the spring preparations went on merrily; the d.u.c.h.ess Matilda taking part in them, by causing a vessel to be built for the Duke himself, on the figure-head of which was carved a likeness of their youngest son William, blowing an ivory horn.

William, in the meantime, sought for allies in every quarter, beginning with writing to beg the sanction of the Pope, Alexander II., as Harold's perjury might be considered an ecclesiastical offence.

The Saxons were then in no favor at Rome; they had refused to accept a Norman Primate appointed by Edward; and Stigand, their chosen Archbishop, was at present suspended by the Court of Rome, for having obtained his office by simony: the whole Anglo-Saxon Church was reported to be in a very bad and corrupt state, and besides, Rome had never enjoyed the power and influence there that the Normans had permitted her. Lanfranc, Abbot, of St. Stephens, at Caen, and one of the persons most highly esteemed by William, was an Italian of great repute at Rome, and thus everything conspired to make the Pope willing to favor the attempt upon England.

He therefore returned him a Bull (a letter so called from the golden bull, or bulla, appended to it), appointing him, as the champion of the Church, to chastise the impious perjurer Harold, and sent him a consecrated banner, and a gold ring containing a relic of St. Peter.

Thus sanctioned, William applied to his liege lord Philippe I. of France, offering to pay homage for England as well as Normandy; but Philippe, a dull, heavy, indolent man, with no love for his great va.s.sal, refused him any aid; and William, though he made the application for form's sake, was well pleased to have it so.

"If I succeed," he said, "I shall be under the fewer obligations."

When he requested aid from Matilda's brother Baldwin, Count of Flanders, the answer he received was a query, how much land in England he would allot as a recompense. He sent, in return, a piece of blank parchment; but others say, that instead of being an absolute blank, it contained his signature, and was filled up by Baldwin, with the promise of a pension of three hundred marks.

Everything was at length in readiness; nine hundred s.h.i.+ps, or rather large open boats, were a.s.sembled at the mouth of the Dive; lesser barks came in continually, and counts, barons, and knights, led in their trains of hors.e.m.e.n and archers.

All William's friends were round him, and his two half-brothers, the sons of Arlette, Robert, Count of Eu, and Odo, the warlike Bishop of Bayeux. Matilda was to govern in his absence, and his eldest son, Robert, a boy of thirteen, was brought forward, and received the homage of the va.s.sals, in order that he might be owned as heir of Normandy, in case any mishap should befall his father on the expedition.

Nothing delayed the enterprise but adverse winds, and these prevailed so long that the feudal army had nearly exhausted their forty days' stock of provisions; knight and man-at-arms murmured, and the Duke was continually going to pray in the Church of St. Valery, looking up at the weatherc.o.c.k every time he came out.

On the eve of St. Michael, the Duke's anxious face became cheerful, for a favorable wind had set in, and the word was given to embark. Horses were led into the s.h.i.+ps, the s.h.i.+elds hung round the gunwale, and the warriors crowded in, the Duke, in his own Mora, leading the way, the Pope's banner at his mast's head, and a lantern at the stern to guide the rest.

By morning, however, he outstripped all the fleet, and the sailor at the mast-head could see not one; but gradually first one sail, then another, came in sight, and by the evening of Michaelmas-day, 1066, the whole nine hundred were bearing, down upon Pevensey.

Those adverse winds had done Willium more favor than he guessed, for they had delayed him till Harold had been obliged to quit his post of observation in Suss.e.x, and go to oppose the Northmen at York, and thus there was no one to interfere with the landing of the Normans, who disembarked as peacefully at Pevensey as if it had been Rouen itself.

William was almost the first to leap on sh.o.r.e; but as he did so, his foot slipped, and he fell. Rising, with his hands full of mud, he called out, "Here have I taken possession of the land which by G.o.d's help I hope to win!" Catching his humor, one of his knights tore a handful of thatch from a neighboring cottage, and put it into his hand, saying, "Sir, I give you seizin of this place, and promise that I shall see you lord of it before a month is past."

The troops were landed first, then the horses, and lastly the carpenters, who set up at once three wooden forts, which had been brought in the s.h.i.+ps prepared to be put together. After dinner, William ordered all the s.h.i.+ps to be burnt, to cut off all hope of return. He continued for several days at Pevensey, exercising the troops: and viewing the country. In one of these expeditions, he gave, what was thought, a remarkable proof of strength; for on a hot day, as they were mounting a steep hill, Fitzosborn grew faint and exhausted by the weight of his ponderous iron hawberk. The Duke bade him take it off, and putting it on over his own, climbed the hill and returned to his camp wearing both at once.

His landing, though he saw no one, had in reality been watched by a South-Saxon Thane, who, having counted Ins s.h.i.+ps and seen his array, mounted, and, without resting day or night, rode to York, where, as Harold was dining, two days after the battle of Stamford Bridge, he rushed into the hall, crying out, "The Normans are come! they have built a fort at Pevensey!"

No time was to be lost, and at the dawn Harold and all his army were marching southward, sending a summons to the thanes and franklins of each county as he pa.s.sed, to gather to the defence of the country.

His speed was too great, however, for the great ma.s.s of the people to be able to join him, even if they had been so minded, and they were for the most part disposed to take no part in the struggle, following the example of the young Earls of Mercia, Edwin and Morkar, who held aloof, unwilling alike to join Harold or the Normans.

When Harold reached London, his army was so much lessened by fatigue and desertion, that his mother, Gytha, and his two youngest brothers, Gyrtha and Leofwyn, advised him not to risk a battle, but to lay the country waste before the Normans, and starve them out of England. Harold answered, with the generous spirit that had been defaced and clouded by his ambition, "Would you have me ruin my kingdom? By my faith, it were treason. I will rather try the chances of a battle with such men as I have, and trust to my own valor and the goodness of my cause."

"Yet," said Gyrtha, "if it be so, forbear thyself to fight. Either willingly or under force, thou art sworn to Duke William. Thine oath will weigh down thine arm in battle, but we, who are all unpledged, are free to fight in defence of our realm. Thou wilt aid us if we are defeated, avenge us if we are slain."

Harold disregarded this advice, and was resolved to lead the host himself; he gathered his followers from Kent and Wess.e.x, and marched southward.

CAMEO VII. THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. (1066.)

The first night after leaving London, Harold slept at Waltham Abbey, and had much conference with the Abbot, who was his friend, and appointed two Monks, named Osgood and Ailric, to attend him closely in the coming battle.

On the 12th of October, Harold found himself seven miles from the enemy, and halted his men on Heathfield-hill, near Hastings, the most advantageous ground he could find.

On the highest point he planted his standard bearing the figure of a man in armor, and marshalling his Saxons round it, commanded them to entrench themselves within a rampart and ditch, and to plant within them a sort of poles, on the upper part of which, nearly the height of a man from the ground, they interwove a fence of wattled branches, so that while the front rank might pa.s.s under to man the rampart, the rear might be sheltered from the arrows of the enemy.

These orders given, Harold and Gyrtha rode together to a hill, whence they beheld the Norman camp, when for a moment Harold was so alarmed at the number of their tents that he spoke of returning to London and acting as his mother had advised; but Gyrtha showed him that it was too late; he could not turn back from the very face of the enemy, without being supposed to fly, and thus yielding his kingdom at once.

Three Saxons presently came to the brothers who had been seized as spies by the Normans, and, by order of William, led throughout his camp, and then sent away to report what they had seen. Their story was that the Norman soldiers were all Priests, at which Harold laughed, since they had been deceived by the short-cut locks and smooth chins of the Normans, such as in England were only worn by ecclesiastics, warriors always wearing flowing locks and thick moustaches.

Several messages pa.s.sed between the two camps, William sending offers of honors and wealth to Harold and Gyrtha if they would cease their resistance; but when all were rejected, he sent another herald to defy Harold as a perjured traitor under the ban of the Church;--a declaration which so startled the Saxons, that it took strong efforts on the part of the gallant Gyrtha to inspirit them to stand by his brother.

This over, William addressed his soldiers from a little hillock, and put on his armor, hanging-round his neck, as a witness of Harold's falsehood, one of the relics on which the oath had been taken. He chanced to put on his hawberk with the wrong side before, and seeing some of his men disconcerted, fancying this a token of ill, he told them that it boded that his dukedom should be turned to a kingdom.

His horse was a beautiful Spanish barb sent him by the King of Castile; and so gallantly did he ride, that there was a shout of delight from his men, and a cry, "Never was such a Knight under Heaven! A fair Count he is, and a fair king he will be! Shame on him who fails him!"

William held in his hand the Pope's banner, and called for the standard-bearer of Normandy; but no one liked to take the charge, fearful of being hindered from gaining distinction by feats of personal prowess. Each elder knight of fame begged to be excused, and at last it was committed to Tunstan the White, a young man probably so called because he had yet to win an achievement for his spotless s.h.i.+eld.

The army was in three troops, each drawn up in the form of a wedge, the archers forming the point; and the reserve of horse was committed to Bishop Odo, who rode up and down among the men, a hawberk over his rochet and a club in his hand.

On went the Normans in the light of the rising sun of the 13th of October, Taillefer, a minstrel-knight, riding first, playing on his harp and singing the war-song of Roland the Paladin. At seven o'clock they were before the Saxon camp, and Fitzosborn and the body under his command dashed up the hill, under a cloud of arrows, shouting, "Notre Dame! Dieu aide!" while the Saxons within, crying out, "Holy Rood!" cut down with their battle-axes all who gained the rampart, and at length drove them back again.

A second onset was equally unsuccessful, and William, observing that the wattled fence protected the Saxons from the arrows, ordered the archers to shoot their arrows no longer point blank, but into the sky, so that they might fall on the heads of the Saxons. Thus directed, these shafts hara.s.sed the defenders grievously; and Harold himself was pierced in the left eye, and almost disabled from further exertion in the command.

Yet at noon, the Normans had been baffled at every quarter, and William, growing desperate, led a party to attack the entrance of the camp. Again he was repulsed, and driven back on some rough ground, where many horses fell, and among them his own Spanish charger. A cry arose that the Duke was slain; the Normans fled, the Saxons broke out of their camp in pursuit, when William, throwing off his helmet and striking with his lance, recalled his troops, shouting, "Look at me! I live, and by G.o.ds grace I will conquer." All the Saxons who had left the camp were slain, their short battle-axes being unfit to cope with the heavy swords and long lances of their enemies; and taught by this success, William caused some of his troops to feign a flight, draw them beyond the rampart, turn on them, and cut them down. The manoeuvre was repeated at different parts of the camp till the rampart was stripped of defenders, and the Normans forced their way into it, cut down the wattled fence, and gave admittance to the host of horse and foot who rushed over the outworks.

Yet still the standard floated in the midst of a brave band who--

"Though thick the shafts as snow.

Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Still fought around their King."

All who came near that close-serried ring of steadfast Saxon strength were cut down, and the piles of dead Normans round them were becoming ramparts, when twenty knights bound themselves by an oath that the standard should be taken, spurred their horses against the ranks, and by main force, with the loss of ten of their number, forced an opening. Ere the ranks could close, William and his whole force were charging into the gap made for a moment, trampling down the brave men, slaughtering on all sides, yet still unable to break through to the standard.

"Till utter darkness closed her wing O'er their thin host and wounded King."

Man by man the n.o.ble Saxons were hewn down as the Normans cut their way through them, no more able to drive them back than if they had been the trees of the forest. Gyrtha, the true-hearted and n.o.ble, fell under the sword of a Norman knight, Leofwyn lay near him in his blood, yet still Harold's voice was heard cheering on his men, and still his standard streamed above their heads.

At sunset, that well-known voice was no longer heard, and the setting sun beheld Tunstan the White perform the crowning achievement of the day, uproot the standard banner of Normandy that the morning beams had seen committed to his charge. Not an earl or thane of Wess.e.x was living; and heaps of slain lay thick on Heathfield hill, and the valley round a very lake of blood. Senlac, or Sanglac, was its old name, and sounded but too appropriate to the French ears of the Conqueror, as, in a moment of sorrow for the fearful loss of life he beheld, he vowed that here should stand an Abbey where prayer should be made for pardon for his sins and for the repose of the souls of the slaughtered. Darkness came on; but the Saxons, retreating under its cover, were still so undaunted that the Normans could hardly venture to move about the field except in considerable parties, and Eustace of Boulogne, while speaking to the Duke, was felled to the earth by a sudden blow.

In the morning, Gytha, the widow of G.o.dwin, who had lost four children by the perjury and ambition of one of them, came to entreat permission to bury. Gyrtha and Leofwyn lay near together at the foot of the banner.

Harold was sought in vain, till Edith of the Swan neck, a lady he had loved, was brought to help in the melancholy quest.