It is said that the night of October 13th was passed by Harold and his men in feasting and in jollity, while the Normans confessed their sins and received absolution.  However that may be, in the full daylight, about nine o’clock of Saturday, October 14th, the battle was joined.

This tremendous affair which was to have such enormous consequences was opened by the minstrel Taellefer, who had besought leave of Duke William to strike the first blow.  Between the two armies he rode singing the Song of Roland, and high into the air he flung his lance and caught it three times e’er he hurled it at last into the amazed English, to fall at last, slain by a hundred javelins as he rode back into the Norman front.

Thus was begun the most famous battle ever fought in England.  It endured without advantage either way for some six hours till the Norman horse, flung back from the charge, fell into the Malfosse in utter confusion, and the day seemed lost to the Normans.  But Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, retrieved it and from that time, about three o’clock, the Normans began to have the advantage.  The battle seems to have been decided at last by two clever devices attributed to William himself.  He determined to break Harold’s line, and since he had not been able to do this by repeated charges, he determined to try a stratagem.  Therefore he ordered his men to feign flight, and thus to draw the English after them in pursuit.  This was successfully done, and when the English followed they were easily surrounded and slain.  William’s other device is said to have been that of shooting high into the air so that the arrows might turn and fall as from the sky upon the foe.  This stratagem is said to have been the cause of Harold’s death; for it was an arrow falling from on high and piercing him through the right eye that killed him or so grievously wounded him that he was left for dead, to be finally killed by Eustace of Boulogne and three other knights.

With Harold down there can have been little hope of victory left to his men, and indeed before night William had planted the Pope’s banner where Harold’s had floated and held the battlefield.  There he supped among the dead, and having spent Sunday, October 15th, in burying the fallen, he set out not for London, but for Dover, for his simple and precise plan was to secure all the entries into England from the continent before securing the capital.  When he had done this he marched up into England by the Watling Street, burned Southwark, crossed the Thames at Wallingford, received there the submission of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and at Berkhampstead the submission of London and the offer of the Crown which he received at Westminster at Mass upon Christmas Day; twelve days less than a year after Harold had been crowned in the same place.

One comes to Battle to-day along that great and beautiful road, high up over the sea plain, which still seems full with memories of the Norman advance from Hastings, thinking of all that great business.  If one comes up on Tuesday, upon payment of sixpence, one is admitted to the gardens of the house in which lie the ruins of the abbey William founded in thankfulness to God for his victory, the high altar of which was set upon the very spot where Harold fell:  “Hic Harold Rex interfectus est.”