of a great and inexcusable breach of humanity, of which even his enemies do not accuse him. "He traversed the field, and selecting the dead bodies of his friends, buried them in the bowels of the earth;[1] but left the corses of the English strewed upon the ground to be devoured by worms, and wolves, and birds, and dogs."
Lustravit campum, tollens et cæsa suorum
Corpora dux, terræ condidit in gremio;
Vermibus atque lupis, avibus canibusque voranda,
Deserit Anglorum corpora strata solo."—V. 669—572.
Ordericus, however, says that William gave the Saxons permission to bury their dead.[2] And Wace informs us that the noble ladies of the land came also, some to seek their husbands, and others their fathers, sons, or brothers. They bore the bodies to the villages, and interred them at the churches; and the clerks and priests of the country were ready, and, at the request of their friends, took the bodies that were found, and prepared graves and laid them therein.[3] The body of Harold was found frightfully gashed with wounds and not easily to be identified among the mass of his followers. The story of his mistress, Edith Swanhals, having been called in for this purpose, rests upon slender authority, and appears quite improbable. According to the Carmen, the duke had the lacerated corse wrapped in purple linen and carried to his marine camp (castra marina) at Hastings, where by his command it was buried upon the cliff, beneath a stone insolently inscribed with the words: "By the orders of the Duke, you rest here, King Harold, as the guardian of the shore and the sea."
per mandata ducis, rex hic heralde, quiescis,
ut custos maneas litoris et pelagi."[4]
- ↑ During the recent excavations for this the railway from Hastings to Tunbridge Wells, which passes within a few hundred yards eastward of Battel Abbey, it was rather confidently expected that some traces of the battle, such as arms or human bones, would be brought to light; but this expectation was not realised, and proves, I think, the correctness of my opinion, that the battle and the retreat took place in the opposite, or westerly and north-westerly direction.
- ↑ Ord. Vit., ii, 153.
- ↑ Rom. de Rou, p. 258.
- ↑ Vv. 591, 592.
