man, and bore him down under his horse, wounding him grievously, and trampling him altogether under foot."[1]
The fair hands that wrought the embroidered history of the Conquest have introduced several such encounters, without giving us the names of the champions concerned. They have also strewed not only the main portion of the design, but its borders, with the "Scuta virûm, galeasque, et fortia corpora" of the slain. In a spirit the opposite of that of most of his brother chroniclers, the monk of Battel thus expatiates on the scene: "A fearful spectacle! The fields were covered with dead bodies, and on every hand nothing was to be seen but the red hue of blood. The dales all around sent forth a gory stream, which increased at a distance to the size of a river. . . . Oh! how vast a flood of human gore was poured out in that place where these unfortunates fell and were slain! What dashing to pieces of arms; what clashing of strokes; what shrieks of dying men; what grief, what sighs, were heard! How many groans; how many bitter notes of direst calamity then sounded forth, who can rightly calculate? What a wretched exhibition of human misery was there to call forth astonishment! In the very contemplation of it our pen fails us."[2]
The time when Harold received the arrow-wound may be regarded as the moment from which the tide of battle turned in favour of the Normans. His patriotic warriors fought on still, but the struggle had become with them one of fierce despair rather than of courageous and confident hope. Now it was that twenty of the Norman knights bound themselves to each other by a solemn vow that they would break the Saxon's ranks and bear off his standard, or perish in the attempt. In this hazardous enterprise many fell, but the rest, hacking a path with their swords, made themselves masters of the prize.[3] With this ensign of his regal authority fell Harold himself. An armed man," says Wace, "came in the throng of the battle and struck him on the ventaille of the
- ↑ Rom. de Rou, p. 209, et seq. The reader will understand that the citations from Wace in this paper are from the excellent translation, by Edgar Taylor, Esq., f.s.a., of so much of the Roman as relates to the Norman Conquest; except in the few instances where the original Norman-French is quoted.
- ↑ Chron. of Battel Abbey.
- ↑ Henr. Hunt, in Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 763. "Signum regium, quod vocatur Standard."
