I continue my blog on famous battlefields in England. Although as I have explained previously it is often illegal to Metal Detect on these fields, there is absolutely nothing wrong in contacting land owners in the vicinity and ask if you can detect on their land.
Battle Of Hastings
On September 27th, when at length the wind was favourable, William Duke of Normandy set sail for England, landing on the following day at Pevensey. The disembarkation, contrary to expectation, was unopposed, thanks probably to the absence of the English fleet, which had been withdrawn during August to act against the invaders of the east coast. Harold, too, was in the north, and hence, to all intents and purposes, the south was perfectly defenceless. It was owing to the withdrawal of the fleet that William had been enabled to move his expedition from its first mustering-place at the mouth of the Dive to a second base of operations at the mouth of the Somme.
The disembarkation of the invaders was conducted with all care and military precaution, the ships being run ashore in line. Armour, horses, and stores were prepared for landing, the men armed, and finally in military array the expedition formed up on the beach, William himself being traditionally the first to set foot on land. That William was a 'leader who had due regard for
details is evident, if old chroniclers and poets are to be credited even in part. The very orders issued to the fleet before starting point to this, so does the fact that the archers landed first and then spread in skirmishing order along the shore, to give time for the more heavily armed foot to form and the mailed knights to mount the horses as soon as they were hoisted out or forced over the low bulwarks of the vessels. No enemy, however,appeared, and Pevensey was duly occupied. There the invaders remained for the space of one day—a day busily occupied in either forming an entrenched camp or adapting some of the existing Roman earthworks, to the end that a garrison left therein should protect their ships.
On the morrow an advance was made to Hastings, and if by any road it must have been by a Roman road. Here, too, the invader met with no opposition, though a garrison (probably small) occupied the place. At Hastings William established his headquarters, and there sat down wisely to await events. Of its fortifications there are no records, and presumably the Norman camp was pitched on the hill where now the ruins of the castle stand. In the move from Pevensey to Hastings there was wisdom, since here roads run east, west, and north, the last named leading to London. At Hastings some kind of a fort was erected as a defence to the camp, and the balance of probability is that this took the form of a wooden castle similar in type to those known to have been at times constructed across the Channel, viz., a ditch within which was a mound and on the summit of the mound a wooden tower. William had not brought with him a large store of food—in fact, beyond wine his supply seems to have been scanty. Food to support an army was soon needed, and then foraging parties spread over the neighbouring country. Ravaging became the order of the day ; but this was a deliberate policy.
William, leaving his ships under a slender or even a strong guard at Pevensey, dared not march into the interior. That a battle and a great one must be fought he, despite all the soothsayers in the world, knew full well. Defeated near his ships there would at least be a chance of retreat; defeated far inland a retreat through miles of hostile country would in all probability have meant extermination. The fall both of garrison and ships might be anticipated if once his main body marched inland for any distance. William the invader therefore awaited with patience the Saxon host he well knew would soon appear and fight. Harold to defend his kingdom must come to the south coast ; William to obtain that kingdom would not budge without first forcing a battle on that coast.
This is noteworthy, for whether Yorkist, Lancastrian, Stuart,' or common rebel in later times landed on the coast the custom almost always was to march instantly into some town or city. But in civil strife to raise the country was ever the first intention. William the invader had no friends in England either pledged to rise or whom he could reasonably hope to win over. But the manner of the fight to come was as yet uncertain. He was defended in his Norman camp — a camp fortified after Norman military fashion — a stronghold which he and his knew full well how to defend.
Would Harold attack this camp? Could he be induced to? Or would it be possible to bring about a battle in the open ? In either of these cases the balance in favour of success lay with William. A third method of battle there was and this, as we know, was that adopted by Harold, who, with the utmost skill, selected and fortified his position, disposed his men according to the canons of Saxon defensive military art and fought as we all know how. But William, by giving over the country to fire and sword, knew best how to bring Harold on to him with speed, and in the face of an army to feed, the speedy appearance of Harold was that for which he devoutly prayed. Established at Hastings, news of the victory at Stamford Bridge reached William, though it is not easy to assign a date. Stamford Bridge had been fought on September 25th ; William landed on September 28th early in the morning. A Saxon thegn who witnessed the disembarkation, riding to York, announced the fact to Harold on October ist. Assuming that the news of the fight had by that time reached London it would have taken more than a day for it to spread to Hastings. Hence the probability is that not before October 3rd or 4th was William acquainted with the defeat of those on whose success some part at least of his scheme depended. Harold at once started for London, taking with him his own trusty house-carls and such men from the south as had accompanied him to Stamford Bridge—an army victorious but, alas ! sadly diminished. London was appointed as the place of muster, and thither Edwin and Morcar were enjoined to bring the levies raised from their earldoms. In the event, however, neither of these marched a step southwards or called out a man to assist their king. Men they did call out, but only to form a watching force—watching for the opportunity which never came, of turning Harold's troubles to their own advantage. But that Harold himself had no suspicion of their intention— call it Jukewarmness or desertion or treachery—is shown from the fact that during their expected absence he committed the charge of the north to the Sheriff Merlswegen.
Marching rapidly southwards Harold was joined by men on all sides. From Wessex, from East Anglia and Eastern Mercia they flocked in to his standards. From North-west Mercia they came not, nor from Northumberland, as we have said, save unofficially perhaps. Huntingdon and Northampton sent their contingents as in duty bound. Practically at Hastings the whole of England save the earldoms of Edwin and Morcar was represented by contingents of fighting men.
Harold reached London on October 5th—a truly marvellous march, especially when the work of the few days preceding that march is taken into consideration. Here he halted to give time for the men of the distant parts of the kingdom to come up, and here he expected in vain the forces of Edwin and Morcar. Of the traditional visit to Waltham and the story of the alleged miracle there nothing need be said here. bar more to the purpose is it to note the messages and negotiations which took place between the king and the invader. While halting in London Harold received at least one message from William, the messenger being Hugh Margot, a- monk of Fecamp. Harold received him in state, listened to his demands, and was then with some difficulty restrained from venting his wrath on the person of the ecclesiastic. Harold by him sent a reply in which William's claim was denied and the grounds thereof traversed, and which wound up with a challenge appointing the Saturday following as the day of battle. One account is that Harold offered William bribes to return to Normandy. Gurth, the brother of Harold, now in council proposed that he should lead the army, the king remaining in London, to save his oath. This proposal was negatived and similar rejection attended Gurth's scheme for wasting all the country between Hastings and London. Harold absolutely refused to accede to cither; yet the advice was good, and shows Gurth to have been both a soldier and even more than a soldier. Gurth victorious, the ravaged land behind him would have been a cheap price to have paid for the crushing of the invader, and Harold would be both safe and unperjured. Gurth defeated and slain Harold would still be safe and unperjured,but the devastated land betwixt Hastings and the City would have effectually barred any forward movement of the invader. Nay more, starvation or retreat must have swiftly followed. To Harold's ships the task of discomfiture would then have fallen, or failing discomfiture at sea the duty of preventing a second attempt at invasion. Harold marched from London on October 12th at the head of whatever troops had by that time mustered, augmented by the Londoners. On his road through Kent more men came to his standard, and the spot selected for battle was reached on October 13th. Spies had of course been at work, and the king knew to a nicety what the number of the enemy amounted to, where he was stationed, and how his camp was defended. That he ever had the design of attacking that camp is on the face of it absurd.
The site of the battle is one which was selected with thegreatest care, and in the selection the generalship of the Saxon king is most plainly manifest. Here his army was to be opposed by an invading force, armed with weapons and in a manner with which he personally was acquainted, but which to the majority of his men would be a revelation in the art of war, and led by a man who was both a brave soldier and skilled in arrhs, likewise experienced in and a master of his native method of war. For all military qualities without doubt Harold gave William credit to the utmost limit, and he set himself to marshal his battle array so as to place the invader at a disadvantage. On Senlac, therefore, he drew up his men and planted the Dragon Standard and the Fighting Man.
Senlac, the site of the battle, is a long hill facing south. In the centre of this ridge the standards were placed, and around them the pick of his troops, the English house-carls were posted, forming a compact body, and on either flank were light-armed ' troops. The ground from the ridge sloped away steeply in the centre, less so on the left and quite easily on the right. In the rear of both left and right the ground is hollowed, and in rear of the centre a ridge runs northward. A ditch and some swampy ground, known as Malfosse, was in the hollow in rear of the left. The extreme right rested on a brook, where the soil was also swampy ; and rather east of this brook and in front of the right was a small detached hill. The balance of evidence is in favour of believing that a ditch protected the immediate front of the English line. Whether this was hastily dug on the night of October 13th, or whether it was an existing work, who can now say ? That, however, there was a ditch on the day of the battle is certain, and that the earth cast out therefrom was surmounted by rudely fashioned wattle hurdling is a reasonable supposition. In this wattling it would seem that by design openings were left. William (seven miles distant, at Hastings) left his camp early on the morning of October 14th, and soon reached Telhani, where from the high ground the English armyand its disposition was clearly visible. At Telham the heavy armour was assumed, and the force, drawn up in three columns, advanced over the intervening ground (some one and a half miles). William in person, accompanied by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert of Mortain, commanded the native Normans in the centre. The right, composed of the men of Picardy and others, was led by William FitzOsborn and Roger de Mont-gomery ; while the left, troops from. Brittany and Maine, was the charge of Alan of Brittany. It is stated that in this left wing was the only Englishman, one Ralph of Norfolk, who fought on the Norman side. Each division consisted of archers, heavy-armed foot and mounted knights. William himself is stated to have been armed with an iron mace. Among the archers, those belonging to the centre, who came from Evreux, were noted for their skill in the use of the bow. On nearing the English entrenchment the Normans deployed, throwing out their archers, apparently in skirmishing order, to annoy, by flights of arrows, the defenders, and if possible to lure them out. The ground over which the Normans had been compelled to advance was not favourable to cavalry, neither did it become more so as they neared the English position. The steep ascent rendered the archery fire very ineffectual. Any of the heavily armed infantry who reached the stockade fell before the Saxon axes. Charging up a stiff" hill, with a ditch and stockade at the top, is an awkward task for cavalry, whether lightly or heavily armed. Darts, stones, and javelins met the advancing Normans, and for those who escaped these missiles the ever-ready and terrible axe was present. Without wonder do we read that the first attack ended in a repulse, and that down the slope rolled the discomfited foot. William then tried a cavalry charge, with the same disastrous result', and this time the Norman left fled in confusion ; panic spread to the centre, and defeat was imminent. Presence of mind—a quality eminently possessed by William—restored the battle and reassured his troops. The Bretons fleeing on the left were handled somewhat severely by the light-armed English, who, contrary to orders, left the entrenchment in pursuit. When the battle was restored, the fugitives turned on their pursuers and inflicted great loss on them. But the demoralisation of the English right had very serious results, as will be seen. William's next charge was directed right on to the English standards, and therefore at the absolute centre of the English position. In this charge he lost his Spanish war-horse, and one authority states he slew Gurth. One of the knights in his immediate neighbourhood slew Leofwine, the brother of Gurth and Harold, but the king himself was as yet unhurt. This was a sad loss to the English ; still the injuries inflicted on the Normans had been so heavy that a few more similar attempts would have weakened them so as to preclude further attack. Hitherto their archers had been useless, thanks to the position taken up by Harold and the double defence of stockade and shield. William nowordered a renewed attack, and gave directions to the left to feint a retreat on nearing the stockade. If the English pursued, they were to turn again and rend them. .The stratagem succeeded, the supposed fugitives lured out the light-armed troops on the English right, and having got them in the open, turned and slaughtered them, though the losses of the Bretons were also immense. But this had cleared the most availableside of the English position of its defenders. Round swept the mailed Norman horsemen, and in column (they could not in line) charged the English centre on its right flank. Harold then resorted to the old formation of a ring of shields round the standard, and this kept even the Norman chivalry at bay. Then it was that the order to the archers was given by William to shoot at a very great elevation, so that the arrows fell perpendicularly Into the devoted ring of Englishmen. With what effect this order was carried out we know. Harold fell pierced through the right eye just as four knights had fought their way through the human rampart. How he was slain and mutilated we need not relate. The standard of the " Fighting Man " was overturned, that of the Dragon had already been captured. Yet resistance was by no means over. Doggedly the defeated English fought on, no longer in line or ring, but in scattered bodies, till the darkness put an end to the battle. Of Harold's personal foJlowers not a man turned his back on the field. Did one survive it was because he was too soreJy wounded to fight, and thus escaped. The light-armed troops were the first to leave the battle ; nor is it to be wondered at, seeing that they were totally unprovided with armour of a defensive kind, and were utterly unfit to cope with either the heavily armed foot or the mounted knights of the Normans. In their flight, however, they left their mark on the enemy, and in rather a curious way. Retreating in the direction of the ditch and bog already mentioned, a ditch called Malfosse, in consequence of what then happened, they were hotly pursued. In the boggy ground, however, in which a light man could with difficulty trust himself, the heavily armed Normans, and especially the knights, instantly sank. How many perished at that ill-omened ditch will never be known. This, as far as can be ascertained, is in brief the story of the battle of Hastings, fought on Senlac, October 14, 1066. The changes in the battlefield, both from the building of the grand abbey, and also the position of the present town, have rendered it impossible to obtain anything like a satisfactory view of the actual scene of the fight.
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