Book: Harold, Book 12.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Harold, Book 12.




"Impossible," said Harold, calmly. "And if the army cannot retreat,
of all men to stand firm, surely it is the captain and the King. I,
Gurth, leave others to dare the fate from which I fly! I give weight
to the impious curse of the Pope, by shrinking from its idle blast! I
confirm and ratify the oath, from which all law must absolve me, by
forsaking the cause of the land, which I purify myself when I guard!
I leave to others the agony of the martyrdom or the glory of the
conquest! Gurth, thou art more cruel than the Norman! And I, son of
Sweyn, I ravage the land committed to my charge, and despoil the
fields which I cannot keep! Oh, Haco, that indeed were to be the
traitor and the recreant! No, whatever the sin of my oath, never will
I believe that Heaven can punish millions for the error of one man.
Let the bones of the dead war against us; in life, they were men like
ourselves, and no saints in the calendar so holy as the freemen who
fight for their hearths and their altars. Nor do I see aught to alarm
us even in these grave human odds. We have but to keep fast these
entrenchments; preserve, man by man, our invincible line; and the
waves will but split on our rock: ere the sun set to-morrow, we shall
see the tide ebb, leaving, as waifs, but the dead of the baffled
invader."

"Fare ye well, loving kinsmen; kiss me, my brothers; kiss me on the
cheek, my Haco. Go now to your tents. Sleep in peace and wake with
the trumpet to the gladness of noble war!"

Slowly the Earls left the King; slowest of all the lingering Gurth;
and when all were gone, and Harold was alone, he threw round a rapid,
troubled glance, and then, hurrying to the simple imageless crucifix
that stood on its pedestal at the farther end of the tent, he fell on
his knees, and faltered out, while his breast heaved, and his frame
shook with the travail of his passion:

"If my sin be beyond a pardon, my oath without recall, on me, on me, O
Lord of Hosts, on me alone the doom. Not on them, not on them--not on
England!"




CHAPTER VII.


On the fourteenth of October, 1066, the day of St. Calixtus, the
Norman force was drawn out in battle array. Mass had been said; Odo
and the Bishop of Coutance had blessed the troops; and received their
vow never more to eat flesh on the anniversary of that day. And Odo
had mounted his snow-white charger, and already drawn up the cavalry
against the coming of his brother the Duke. The army was marshalled
in three great divisions.

Roger de Montgommeri and William Fitzosborne led the first; and with
them were the forces from Picardy and the countship of Boulogne, and
the fiery Franks; Geoffric Martel and the German Hugues (a prince of
fame); Aimeri, Lord of Thouars, and the sons of Alain Fergant, Duke of
Bretagne, led the second, which comprised the main bulk of the allies
from Bretagne, and Maine, and Poitou. But both these divisions were
intermixed with Normans, under their own special Norman chiefs.

The third section embraced the flower of martial Europe, the most
renowned of the Norman race; whether those knights bore the French
titles into which their ancestral Scandinavian names had been
transformed--Sires of Beaufou and Harcourt, Abbeville, and de Molun,
Montfichet, Grantmesnil, Lacie, D'Aincourt, and D'Asnieres;--or
whether, still preserving, amidst their daintier titles, the old names
that had scattered dismay through the seas of the Baltic; Osborne and
Tonstain, Mallet and Bulver, Brand and Bruse [262]. And over this
division presided Duke William. Here was the main body of the
matchless cavalry, to which, however, orders were given to support
either of the other sections, as need might demand. And with this
body were also the reserve. For it is curious to notice, that
William's strategy resembled in much that of the last great Invader of
Nations--relying first upon the effect of the charge; secondly, upon a
vast reserve brought to bear at the exact moment on the weakest point
of the foe.

All the horsemen were in complete link or net mail [263], armed with
spears and strong swords, and long, pear-shaped shields, with the
device either of a cross or a dragon [264]. The archers, on whom
William greatly relied, were numerous in all three of the corps [265],
were armed more lightly--helms on their heads, but with leather or
quilted breastplates, and "panels," or gaiters, for the lower limbs.

But before the chiefs and captains rode to their several posts they
assembled round William, whom Fitzosborne had called betimes, and who
had not yet endued his heavy mail, that all men might see suspended
from his throat certain relics chosen out of those on which Harold had
pledged his fatal oath. Standing on an eminence in front of all his
lines, the consecrated banner behind him, and Bayard, his Spanish
destrier, held by his squires at his side, the Duke conversed cheerily
with his barons, often pointing to the relics. Then, in sight of all,
he put on his mail, and, by the haste of his squires, the back-piece
was presented to him first. The superstitious Normans recoiled as at
an evil omen.

"Tut!" said the ready chief; "not in omens and divinations, but in
God, trust I! Yet, good omen indeed is this, and one that may give
heart to the most doubtful; for it betokens that the last shall be
first--the dukedom a kingdom--the count a king! Ho there, Rou de
Terni, as Hereditary Standard-bearer take thy right, and hold fast to
yon holy gonfanon."

"Grant merci," said De Terni, "not to-day shall a standard be borne by
me, for I shall have need of my right arm for my sword, and my left
for my charger's rein and my trusty shield."

"Thou sayest right, and we can ill spare such a warrior. Gautier
Giffart, Sire de Longueville, to thee is the gonfanon."

"Beau Sire," answered Gautier; "par Dex, Merci. But my head is grey
and my arm weak; and the little strength left me I would spend in
smiting the English at the head of my men."

"Per la resplendar De," cried William, frowning;--"do ye think, my
proud vavasours, to fail me in this great need?"

"Nay," said Gautier; "but I have a great host of chevaliers and paid
soldiers, and without the old man at their head will they fight as
well?"

"Then, approach thou, Tonstain le Blanc, son of Rou," said William;
"and be thine the charge of a standard that shall wave ere nightfall
over the brows of thy--King!" A young knight, tall and strong as his
Danish ancestor, stept forth, and laid gripe on the banner.

Then William, now completely armed, save his helmet, sprang at one
bound on his steed. A shout of admiration rang from the Quens and
knights.

"Saw ye ever such beau rei?" [266] said the Vicomte de Thouars.

The shout was caught by the lines, and echoed afar, wide, and deep
through the armament, as in all his singular majesty of brow and mien,
William rode forth: lifting his hand, the shout hushed, and thus he
spoke "loud as a trumpet with a silver sound."

"Normans and soldiers, long renowned in the lips of men, and now
hallowed by the blessing of the Church!--I have not brought you over
the wide seas for my cause alone; what I gain, ye gain. If I take the
land, you will share it. Fight your best, and spare not; no retreat,
and no quarter! I am not come here for my cause alone, but to avenge
our whole nation for the felonies of yonder English. They butchered
our kinsmen the Danes, on the night of St. Brice; they murdered
Alfred, the brother of their last King, and decimated the Normans who
were with him. Yonder they stand,--malefactors that await their doom!
and ye the doomsmen! Never, even in a good cause, were yon English
illustrious for warlike temper and martial glory [267]. Remember how
easily the Danes subdued them! Are ye less than Danes, or I than
Canute? By victory ye obtain vengeance, glory, honours, lands,
spoil,--aye, spoil beyond your wildest dreams. By defeat,--yea, even
but by loss of ground, ye are given up to the sword! Escape there is
not, for the ships are useless. Before you the foe, behind you the
ocean. Normans, remember the feats of your countrymen in Sicily!
Behold a Sicily more rich! Lordships and lands to the living,--glory
and salvation to those who die under the gonfanon of the Church! On,
to the cry of the Norman warrior; the cry before which have fled so
often the prowest Paladins of Burgundy and France--'Notre Dame et Dex
aide!'" [268]

Meanwhile, no less vigilant, and in his own strategy no less skilful,
Harold had marshalled his men. He formed two divisions; those in
front of the entrenchments; those within it. At the first, the men of
Kent, as from time immemorial, claimed the honour of the van, under
"the Pale Charger,"--famous banner of Hengist. This force was drawn
up in the form of the Anglo-Danish wedge; the foremost lines in the
triangle all in heavy mail, armed with their great axes, and covered
by their immense shields. Behind these lines, in the interior of the
wedge, were the archers, protected by the front rows of the heavy
armed; while the few horsemen--few indeed compared with the Norman
cavalry--were artfully disposed where they could best harass and
distract the formidable chivalry with which they were instructed to
skirmish, and not peril actual encounter. Other bodies of the light
armed; slingers, javelin throwers, and archers, were planted in spots
carefully selected, according as they were protected by trees,
bushwood, and dykes. The Northumbrians (that is, all the warlike
population, north the Humber, including Yorkshire, Westmoreland,
Cumberland, etc.), were, for their present shame and future ruin,
absent from that field, save, indeed, a few who had joined Harold in
his march to London. But there were the mixed races of Hertfordshire
and Essex, with the pure Saxons of Sussex and Surrey, and a large body
of the sturdy Anglo-Danes from Lincolnshire, Ely and Norfolk. Men,
too, there were, half of old British blood, from Dorset, Somerset, and
Gloucester. And all were marshalled according to those touching and
pathetic tactics which speak of a nation more accustomed to defend
than to aggrieve. To that field the head of each family led his sons
and kinsfolk; every ten families (or tything) were united under their
own chosen captain. Every ten of these tythings had, again, some
loftier chief, dear to the populace in peace; and so on the holy
circle spread from household, hamlet, town,--till, all combined, as
one county under one Earl, the warriors fought under the eyes of their
own kinsfolk, friends, neighbours, chosen chiefs! What wonder that
they were brave?

The second division comprised Harold's house-carles, or bodyguard,--
the veterans especially attached to his family,--the companions of his
successful wars,--a select band of the martial East-Anglians,--the
soldiers supplied by London and Middlesex, and who, both in arms,
discipline, martial temper and athletic habits, ranked high among the
most stalwart of the troops, mixed, as their descent was, from the
warlike Dane and the sturdy Saxon. In this division, too, was
comprised the reserve. And it was all encompassed by the palisades
and breastworks, to which were but three sorties, whence the defenders
might sally, or through which at need the vanguard might secure a
retreat. All the heavy armed had mail and shields similar to the
Normans, though somewhat less heavy; the light armed had, some tunics
of quilted linen, some of hide; helmets of the last material, spears,
javelins, swords, and clubs. But the main arm of the host was in the
great shield, and the great axe wielded by men larger in stature and
stronger of muscle than the majority of the Normans, whose physical
race had deteriorated partly by inter-marriage with the more delicate
Frank, partly by the haughty disdain of foot exercise.

Mounting a swift and light steed, intended not for encounter (for it
was the custom of English kings to fight on foot, in token that where
they fought there was no retreat), but to bear the rider rapidly from
line to line [269], King Harold rode to the front of the vanguard;--
his brothers by his side. His head, like his great foe's, was bare,
nor could there be a more striking contrast than that of the broad
unwrinkled brow of the Saxon, with his fair locks, the sign of royalty
and freedom, parted and falling over the collar of mail, the clear and
steadfast eye of blue, the cheek somewhat hollowed by kingly cares,
but flushed now with manly pride--the form stalwart and erect, but
spare in its graceful symmetry, and void of all that theatric pomp of
bearing which was assumed by William--no greater contrast could there
be than that which the simple earnest Hero-king presented, to the brow
furrowed with harsh ire and politic wile, the shaven hair of monastic
affectation, the dark, sparkling tiger eye, and the vast proportions
that awed the gaze in the port and form of the imperious Norman. Deep
and loud and hearty as the shout with which his armaments had welcomed
William, was that which now greeted the King of the English host: and
clear and full, and practised in the storm of popular assemblies, went
his voice down the listening lines.

"This day, O friends and Englishmen, sons of our common land--this day
ye fight for liberty. The Count of the Normans hath, I know, a mighty
army; I disguise not its strength. That army he hath collected
together, by promising to each man a share in the spoils of England.
Already, in his court and his camp, he hath parcelled out the lands of
this kingdom; and fierce are the robbers who fight for the hope of
plunder! But he cannot offer to his greatest chief boons nobler than
those I offer to my meanest freeman--liberty, and right, and law, in
the soil of his fathers! Ye have heard of the miseries endured in the
old time under the Dane, but they were slight indeed to those which ye
may expect from the Norman. The Dane was kindred to us in language
and in law, and who now can tell Saxon from Dane? But yon men would
rule ye in a language ye know not, by a law that claims the crown as
the right of the sword, and divides the land among the hirelings of an
army. We baptized the Dane, and the Church tamed his fierce soul into
peace; but yon men make the Church itself their ally, and march to
carnage under the banner profaned to the foulest of human wrongs!
Outscourings of all nations, they come against you: Ye fight as
brothers under the eyes of your fathers and chosen chiefs; ye fight
for the women ye would save from the ravisher; ye fight for the
children ye would guard from eternal bondage; ye fight for the altars
which yon banner now darkens! Foreign priest is a tyrant as ruthless
and stern as ye shall find foreign baron and king! Let no man dream
of retreat; every inch of ground that ye yield is the soil of your
native land. For me, on this field I peril all. Think that mine eye
is upon you wherever ye are. If a line waver or shrink, ye shall hear
in the midst the voice of your King. Hold fast to your ranks,
remember, such amongst you as fought with me against Hardrada,--
remember that it was not till the Norsemen lost, by rash sallies,
their serried array, that our arms prevailed against them. Be warned
by their fatal error, break not the form of the battle; and I tell you
on the faith of a soldier who never yet hath left field without
victory,--that ye cannot be beaten. While I speak, the winds swell
the sails of the Norse ships, bearing home the corpse of Hardrada.
Accomplish this day the last triumph of England; add to these hills a
new mount of the conquered dead! And when, in far times and strange
lands, scald and scop shall praise the brave man for some valiant deed
wrought in some holy cause, they shall say, 'He was brave as those who
fought by the side of Harold, and swept from the sward of England the
hosts of the haughty Norman.'"

Scarcely had the rapturous hurrahs of the Saxons closed on this
speech, when full in sight, north-west of Hastings, came the first
division of the Invader.

Harold remained gazing at them, and not seeing the other sections in
movement, said to Gurth, "If these are all that they venture out, the
day is ours."

"Look yonder!" said the sombre Haco, and he pointed to the long array
that now gleamed from the wood through which the Saxon kinsmen had
passed the night before; and scarcely were these cohorts in view, than
lo! from a third quarter advanced the glittering knighthood under the
Duke. All three divisions came on in simultaneous assault, two on
either wing of the Saxon vanguard, the third (the Norman) towards the
entrenchments.

In the midst of the Duke's cohort was the sacred gonfanon, and in
front of it and of the whole line, rode a strange warrior of gigantic
height. And as he rode, the warrior sang:

"Chaunting loud the lusty strain
Of Roland and of Charlemain,
And the dead, who, deathless all,
Fell at famous Roncesval." [270]

And the knights, no longer singing hymn and litany, swelled, hoarse
through their helmets, the martial chorus. This warrior, in front of
the Duke and the horsemen, seemed beside himself with the joy of
battle. As he rode, and as he chaunted, he threw up his sword in the
air like a gleeman, catching it nimbly as it fell [271], and
flourishing it wildly, till, as if unable to restrain his fierce
exhilaration, he fairly put spurs to his horse, and, dashing forward
to the very front of a detachment of Saxon riders, shouted:

"A Taillefer! a Taillefer!" and by voice and gesture challenged forth
some one to single combat.

A fiery young thegn who knew the Romance tongue, started forth and
crossed swords with the poet; but by what seemed rather a juggler's
sleight of hand than a knight's fair fence, Taillefer, again throwing
up and catching his sword with incredible rapidity, shore the unhappy
Saxon from the helm to the chine, and riding over his corpse, shouting
and laughing, he again renewed his challenge. A second rode forth and
shared the same fate. The rest of the English horsemen stared at each
other aghast; the shouting, singing, juggling giant seemed to them not
knight, but demon; and that single incident, preliminary to all other
battle, in sight of the whole field, might have sufficed to damp the
ardour of the English, had not Leofwine, who had been despatched by
the King with a message to the entrenchments, come in front of the
detachment; and, his gay spirit roused and stung by the insolence of
the Norman, and the evident dismay of the Saxon riders, without
thought of his graver duties, he spurred his light half-mailed steed
to the Norman giant; and, not even drawing his sword, but with his
spear raised over his head, and his form covered by his shield, he
cried in Romance tongue, "Go and chaunt to the foul fiend, O croaking
minstrel!" Taillefer rushed forward, his sword shivered on the Saxon
shield, and in the same moment he fell a corpse under the hoofs of his
steed, transfixed by the Saxon spear.

A cry of woe, in which even William (who, proud of his poet's
achievements, had pressed to the foremost line to see this new
encounter) joined his deep voice, wailed through the Norman ranks;
while Leofwine rode deliberately towards them, halted a moment, and
then flung his spear in the midst with so deadly an aim, that a young
knight, within two of William, reeled on his saddle, groaned, and
fell.

"How like ye, O Normans, the Saxon gleeman?" said Leofwine, as he
turned slowly, regained the detachment, and bade them heed carefully
the orders they had received, viz., to avoid the direct charge of the
Norman horse, but to take every occasion to harass and divert the
stragglers; and then blithely singing a Saxon stave, as if inspired by
Norman minstrelsy, he rode into the entrenchments.




CHAPTER VIII.


The two brethren of Waltham, Osgood and Ailred, had arrived a little
after daybreak at the spot in which, about half a mile, to the rear of
Harold's palisades, the beasts of burden that had borne the heavy
arms, missiles, luggage, and forage of the Saxon march, were placed in
and about the fenced yards of a farm. And many human beings, of both
sexes and various ranks, were there assembled, some in breathless
expectation, some in careless talk, some in fervent prayer.

The master of the farm, his sons, and the able-bodied ceorls in his
employ, had joined the forces of the King, under Gurth, as Earl of the
county [272]. But many aged theowes, past military service, and young
children, grouped around: the first, stolid and indifferent--the last,
prattling, curious, lively, gay. There, too, were the wives of some
of the soldiers, who, as common in Saxon expeditions, had followed
their husbands to the field; and there, too, were the ladies of many a
Hlaford in the neighbouring district, who, no less true to their mates
than the wives of humbler men, were drawn by their English hearts to
the fatal spot. A small wooden chapel, half decayed, stood a little
behind, with its doors wide open, a sanctuary in case of need; and the
interior was thronged with kneeling suppliants.

The two monks joined, with pious gladness, some of their sacred
calling, who were leaning over the low wall, and straining their eyes
towards the bristling field. A little apart from them, and from all,
stood a female; the hood drawn over her face, silent in her unknown
thoughts.

By and by, as the march of the Norman multitude sounded hollow, and
the trumps, and the fifes, and the shouts, rolled on through the air,
in many a stormy peal,--the two abbots in the Saxon camp, with their
attendant monks, came riding towards the farm from the entrenchments.

The groups gathered round these new comers in haste and eagerness.

"The battle hath begun," said the Abbot of Hide, gravely. "Pray God
for England, for never was its people in peril so great from man."

The female started and shuddered at those words.

"And the King, the King," she cried, in a sudden and thrilling voice;
"where is he?--the King?"

"Daughter," said the abbot, "the King's post is by his standard; but I
left him in the van of his troops. Where he may be now I know not.
Wherever the foe presses sorest."

Then dismounting, the abbots entered the yard, to be accosted
instantly by all the wives, who deemed, poor souls, that the holy men
must, throughout all the field, have seen their lords; for each felt
as if God's world hung but on the single life in which each pale
trembler lived.

With all their faults of ignorance and superstition, the Saxon
churchmen loved their flocks; and the good abbots gave what comfort
was in their power, and then passed into the chapel, where all who
could find room followed them.

The war now raged.

The two divisions of the invading army that included the auxiliaries
had sought in vain to surround the English vanguard, and take it in
the rear: that noble phalanx had no rear. Deepest and strongest at
the base of the triangle, everywhere front opposed the foe; shields
formed a rampart against the dart--spears a palisade against the
horse. While that vanguard maintained its ground, William could not
pierce to the entrenchments, the strength of which, however, he was
enabled to perceive. He now changed his tactics, joined his
knighthood to the other sections, threw his hosts rapidly into many
wings, and leaving broad spaces between his archers--who continued
their fiery hail--ordered his heavy-armed foot to advance on all sides
upon the wedge, and break its ranks for the awaiting charge of his
horse.

Harold, still in the centre of the vanguard, amidst the men of Kent,
continued to animate them all with voice and hand; and, as the Normans
now closed in, he flung himself from his steed, and strode on foot,
with his mighty battle-axe, to the spot where the rush was dreadest.

Now came the shock--the fight hand-to-hand: spear and lance were
thrown aside, axe and sword rose and shore. But before the close-
serried lines of the English, with their physical strength and veteran
practice in their own special arm, the Norman foot were mowed as by
the scythe. In vain, in the intervals, thundered the repeated charges
of the fiery knights; in vain, throughout all, came the shaft and the
bolt.

Animated by the presence of their King fighting amongst them as a
simple soldier, but with his eye ever quick to foresee, his voice ever
prompt to warn, the men of Kent swerved not a foot from their
indomitable ranks. The Norman infantry wavered and gave way; on, step
by step, still unbroken in array, pressed the English. And their cry,
"Out! out! Holy Crosse!" rose high above the flagging sound of "Ha
Rou! Ha Rou!--Notre Dame!"

"Per la resplendar De," cried William. "Our soldiers are but women in
the garb of Normans. Ho, spears to the rescue! With me to the
charge, Sires D'Aumale and De Littain--with me, gallant Bruse, and De
Mortain; with me, De Graville and Grantmesnil--Dex aide! Notre Dame."
And heading his prowest knights, William came, as a thunderbolt, on
the bills and shields. Harold, who scarce a minute before had been in
a remoter rank, was already at the brunt of that charge. At his word
down knelt the foremost line, leaving nought but their shields and
their spear-points against the horse. While behind them, the axe in
both hands, bent forward the soldiery in the second rank, to smite and
to crush. And, from the core of the wedge, poured the shafts of the
archers. Down rolled in the dust half the charge of those knights.
Bruse reeled on his saddle; the dread right hand of D'Aumale fell
lopped by the axe; De Graville, hurled from his horse, rolled at the
feet of Harold; and William, borne by his great steed and his colossal
strength into the third rank--there dealt, right and left, the fierce
strokes of his iron club, till he felt his horse sinking under him--
and had scarcely time to back from the foe--scarcely time to get
beyond reach of their weapons, ere the Spanish destrier, frightfully
gashed through its strong mail, fell dead on the plain. His knights
swept round him. Twenty barons leapt from selle to yield him their
chargers. He chose the one nearest to hand, sprang to foot and to
stirrup, and rode back to his lines. Meanwhile De Graville's casque,
its strings broken by the shock, had fallen off, and as Harold was
about to strike, he recognised his guest.

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