battle," he cried, "and you have not any man who will serve you more truly; I will strike with my sword till it shall be dyed in your enemies' blood!"[1]
It is interesting to the Sussex antiquary to observe that all the great baronial houses, whose estates lay in this county, owed their lands to the prowess of their ancestors on the field of Hastings:— Roger de Montgomeri, afterwards earl of Chichester and Arundel, was there, and commanded one wing of the army; the men of Brius were there, and at their head was doubtless William, the subsequent lord of Bramber; William de Warenne, afterwards lord of Lewes, came too, "his helmet setting gracefully on his head;" Robert earl of Mortaine, the future lord of Pevensey, "never went far from the duke's side, and brought him great aid; "Robert, earl of Eu, the counsellor of William, was there, and for his services received the rape of Hastings. He "demeaned himself as a brave man, and those whom his blows reached were ill handled." The names of D'Albini, De Aquila, Monceux, Mowbray, and Tregoz, all afterwards eminent in Sussex, also receive honourable mention in the Chronicle of Wace.
At length amidst the sound "of many trumpets, of bugles, and of horns," the Normans were drawn up in order of battle, and the duke harangued them in a set speech, which is variously reported by the different chroniclers. What he really said must have been inaudible to the great majority of his sixty thousand followers. The alleged cruelty and perfidy of the Saxons, the perjury of Harold, and the rich rewards which awaited the invaders in the event of conquest, formed excellent topics for declamation, and were no doubt seized upon. "On then! in God's name, and chastise these English for their misdeeds!" is the laconic but inspiriting peroration put into his mouth by one of the chroniclers.
They now proceeded to march from Telham Hill, and to cross the valley which separates that elevation from the one upon which Harold's army was encamped; the graceful and gradually rising spot upon which "the Abbey of the Battel" now rears its time-stained turrets. A finer site for a camp
- ↑ Rom. de Rou, pp. 168, 169.
