Uprose that sea! as if it heard The mighty Master's signal-word: Long did the rescued pilot tell When grey hairs o'er his forehead fell, While those around would hear and weep That fearful judgment of the deep. Still when the storm of Bottreau's waves Peal their deep notes beneath the tide:" Robert Stephen Hawker XXXIX. BATTLE OF SENLAC.* AND now the fight began.1 It was one of the sacred hours of the Church, it was at the hour of prime, three hours before noonday, that the first blows were exchanged between the invaders and the defenders of England. The Normans had crossed the English fosse,2 and were now at the foot of the hill, with the palisades and the axes right before them. The trumpet sounded, and a flight of arrows from the archers in all the three divisions of William's army was the prelude to the onslaught of the heavy-armed foot. But, before the two armies met hand to hand, a juggler or minstrel, known as Taillefer (the cleaver of iron) rode forth from the Norman ranks as if to defy the whole force of England in his single person. He craved and obtained the Duke's leave to strike the first blow. He rode forth, singing songs of Roland and of Charlemagne-so soon had the name and exploits of the great German become the spoil of the enemy. He threw his sword into the air, and caught it again; but he presently showed that he could use warlike weapons for other purposes than for jugglers' tricks of this kind; he pierced one Englishman with his lance, he struck down another with his sword, and then himself fell beneath the blows of their comrades. * From The History of the Norman Conquest of England. 3 A bravado of this kind might serve as an omen, it might stir up the spirits of men on either side; but it could in no other way affect the fate of the battle. William was too wary a general to trust much to such knight-errantry as this. After the first discharge of arrows, the heavier foot followed to the attack, and the real struggle now began. The French infantry had to toil up the hill, and to break down the palisade, while a shower of stones and javelins disordered their approach, and while club, sword, and axe greeted all who came within the reach of hand-strokes. The native Normans had to do this in the face of the fiercest resistance, in the teeth of the heaviest axes, wielded by the hands of men with whom to fight had ever been to vanquish, the kinsmen and Thegns and Housecarls of King Harold. Their own missiles, hurled from below, could do comparatively little damage. Both sides fought with unyielding valour; the war-cries rose loud on either side; the Normans shouted "God help us;" the English, from behind their barricades, mocked with cries of "Out, out" every foe who entered or strove to enter. But our fathers also mingled piety with valour; they too called on holy names to help them in that day's struggle; they raised their national warcry of "God Almighty;" and in remembrance of the relic which their king so well loved to honour, they called on the "Holy Cross," the Holy Cross of Waltham, little knowing perhaps of the awful warning which that venerated rood had given to their king and to his people. 5 The Norman infantry had now done its best, but that best had been in vain. The choicest chivalry of Europe now pressed on to the attack. The knights of Normandy, and of all the lands. from which men had flocked to William's standard, now pressed on, striving to make what impression they could with the whole strength of themselves and their horses on the impenetrable fortress of timber, shields, and living warriors. But the advantage of ground enjoyed by the English, their greater physical strength and stature, the terrible weapons which they wielded, all joined to baffle every effort of Breton, Picard, Norman, and of the mighty Duke himself. Javelin and arrow had been tried in vain; every Norman missile had found an English missile to answer it. The lifted lances had been found wanting; the broad sword had clashed in vain against the two-handed axe; the maces of the Duke and of the Bishop had done their best. But few who came within the unerring sweep of an English axe ever lived to strike another blow. Rank after rank of the best chivalry of France and Normandy pressed on to the unavailing task. All was in vain; the old Teutonic tactics, carried on that day to perfection by the masterskill of Harold, proved too strong for the arts and the valour of Gaul and Roman. Not a man of them swerved; not an inch of ground was lost; the shieldwall was still unbroken, and the Dragon of Wessex still soared unconquered over the hill of Senlac. The English had thus far stood their ground well and wisely. The tactics of Harold had thus far completely answered. Not only had every attack failed, but the great mass of the French army altogether lost heart. The Bretons and the other auxiliaries on the left were the first to give way. Horse and foot alike, they turned and fled. A body of English troops was now rash enough, in direct defiance of the king's orders, to leave its post and pursue. These were of course some of the defenders of the English right. They may have been, as is perhaps suggested by a later turn of the battle, the detachment which guarded the small outlying hill. Or they may have been the men posted at the point just behind the outlying hill, where the slope is easiest, and where the main Breton attack would most likely be made. They had succeeded in beating back their assailants, and the temptation to chase the flying enemy must have been almost irresistible. And it may even be that old differences of race added keenness to the encounter, and that Englishmen felt a special delight in cutting down Bret-wealas even from beyond sea. At any rate, the whole of William's left wing was thrown into utter confusion. The central division could hardly have seen the cause of that confusion; the press of the fugitives disordered their ranks, and soon the whole of the assailing host was falling back; even the Normans themselves, as their historian is driven unwillingly to confess, were at last carried away by the contagion. For the moment the day seemed lost; men might well deem that the Bastard had no hope of being changed into the Conqueror, the |