Baudri describes the English as 'consertos',⁶² and the Brevis Relatio as 'spissum agmen'. Bishop Guy writes of the 'spissum nemus Angligenarum', and styles them 'densissima turba'; Henry of Huntingdon, we saw, tells us that they were arranged 'in una acie strictissime', and were thus 'impenetrabiles Normannis'.

No feature of the great battle is more absolutely beyond dispute. It was the denseness of the English ranks that most vividly struck their foes. 'Shield to shield, and shoulder to shoulder', as Æthelred describes them at the Battle of the Standard, they wedged themselves together so tightly that the wounded could not move, nor even the corpses drop. And so they stood together, the living and the dead.⁶³

And we must remember that this mass of men was 'ranged so closely together in the thick array of the shield-wall, that while they only kept their ground the success of an assailant was hopeless'.⁶⁴ The Conqueror saw, Mr Freeman reminds us, 'that his only chance was to tempt the English to break their shield-wall'.⁶⁵ I need not insist on the point further: I need not even have said so much, but that some of those who read these pages may not have realized the true character of Mr Archer's phantasies. The 'scutorum testudo', as William of Malmesbury describes the famous shield-wall,⁶⁶ is depicted, with his usual painstaking care, by the designer of the Bayeux Tapestry. We read of the 'testudo' at Ashdown fight, even in the days of Alfred;⁶⁷ it was, again, with the shield-wall that 'glorious Æthelstan' won the day on the hard-fought field of Brunanburh (937);⁶⁸ we hear of it at Maldon (991), where Brihtnoth, we read, 'bade his men work the war-hedge',—'that is, had made his men form the shield-wall, a sort of fortress made by holding their shields close together'.⁶⁹ And we do, in Mr Freeman's words, meet with it 'down to the end', when the war-hedge of Maldon was wrought anew, by Harold, on the hill of battle, and stood once more as if a fortress—'quasi castellum'.

THE DISPOSITION OF THE ENGLISH

To render clear the problem involved, I must first sketch as briefly as possible the nature of the ground the English held. The hill of battle is so fully described in Mr Freeman's narrative that I here need only explain that it was a long narrow spur of the downs, running nearly east and west, of which the south front was defended by the English and attacked by the Normans. The one and only point that is certain is that 'on the very crown of the hill', the site of the high altar in the future, was erected the standard of Harold.⁷⁰ This, then, the centre of the hill, was the centre of the English host. But the ground to which our attention is directed, as having 'really played the most decisive part in the great event of the place', lay to the west of this, 'where the slope is gentlest of all, where the access to the natural citadel is least difficult'.⁷¹ Mr Freeman assumes that this ground—the 'English right', as he terms it—where the 'ascent is easiest in itself', was allotted to 'the least trustworthy portion of the English army', to 'the sudden levies of the southern shires'.⁷² For this assumption, I hasten to add, there is no authority whatever. He further assumes that the first English to leave their post, in pursuit of the enemy, 'were, of course, some of the defenders of the English right'.⁷³ William, he holds, at the crisis of the battle, resolved to draw them again from their post by a partial feigned retreat, that 'meanwhile another division might reach the summit through the gap thus left open'. Accordingly, tempted by this stratagem, 'the English on the right wing rushed down and pursued', and their error proved 'fatal to England'.⁷⁴

The Duke's great object was now gained; the main end of Harold's skilful tactics had been frustrated by the inconsiderate ardour of the least valuable portion of his troops. Through the rash descent of the light-armed on the right, the whole English army lost its vantage-ground. The pursuing English had left the most easily accessible portion of the hill open to the approach of the enemy.... The main body of the Normans made their way on to the hill, no doubt by the gentle slope at the point west of the present buildings. The great advantage of the ground was now lost; the Normans were at last on the hill.⁷⁵

Such is Mr Freeman's explanation of how the battle was won,⁷⁶ for in this episode he discovers the decisive turning-point of the day.⁷⁷

Now, let us consider what is involved in the theory here set forth. 'Harold's skilful tactics', we find, consisted in entrusting his weakest point, the least defensible portion of his position, to 'the least trustworthy portion of the English army'. The natural result of these insane tactics was that his weak point was forced, and the English right turned.⁷⁸ And Mr Freeman, having made this clear, complains of 'the criticisms of monks on the conduct of a consummate general', and insists that 'nowhere is Harold's military greatness so distinctly felt as when ... we tread the battlefield of his own choice'. But there is worse to come. Such tactics as these would have been mad enough, even if these raw peasants had stood behind a barricade; but if, as I hold, that barricade is a purely imaginary creation, we ask ourselves what would have happened to these unhappy creatures, protected by no 'shield-wall', and armed with 'such rustic weapons as forks and sharp stakes',⁷⁹ when, first riddled by Norman arrows and then attacked by Norman infantry, they were finally, broken and defenceless, charged by heavy cavalry. The first onslaught would have scattered them to the winds, and have won, in so doing, the key of the English position.⁸⁰ Remembering this, it is strange to learn that 'the consummate generalship of Harold is nowhere more conspicuously shown than in this memorable campaign', and that his was 'that true skill of the leader of armies, which would have placed both Harold and William high among the captains of any age'. But if the generalship of Harold was shown by entrusting to his worst troops his weakest and most important point, while posting 'the flower of the English army' just where his ground was strongest, what are we to say of 'the generalship of William, his ready eye, his quick thought', if he failed to detect and avail himself of this glaring blunder? For instead of concentrating his attack upon Harold's weak point, he left it to be assailed, we learn, by 'what was most likely the least esteemed' portion of his host,⁸¹ while he himself with his picked troops dashed himself against an impregnable position like a mad bull against a wall. 'We read,' says Mr Freeman, 'with equal admiration of the consummate skill with which Harold chose his position and his general scheme of action, and of the wonderful readiness with which William formed and varied his plans.' For myself, I should have thought that the tactics he describes—tactics which stirred him to a burst of admiration for 'the two greatest of living captains'—would have disgraced the most incompetent commander that ever took the field.

But Harold, after all, was no fool. Are we then justified in accusing him of this supreme folly? Mr Freeman held that 'the relative position of the different divisions in the two armies seems beyond doubt'. There is, however, as I said, absolutely no evidence for Mr Freeman's assumption that the English right was entrusted to the raw levies. Against it is the fact that in this quarter the first assault was soonest repulsed: against it also is all analogy drawn from the study of English tactics. Snorro's description of Stamfordbridge is evidence, at least, that 'the fortress of shields' had a continuous line of bucklers along its whole front: Æthelred gives us the reason in his story of the Battle of the Standard; namely, that it was the front line which had to meet the shock ('periculosum dicebant si primo aggressu inermes armatis occurrerent'). It was therefore an essential principle of tactics 'quatinus armati armatos impeterent, milites congrederentur militibus'.⁸² Therefore on Cowton Moor (1138), as (I hold) on the hill of Battle (1066), we find the 'strenuissimi milites in prima fronte locati'.⁸³

The words 'and the lighter troops behind them', which originally followed here, have been objected to by Miss Norgate, who had originally made the same statement,⁸⁴ but who now wishes to withdraw it.⁸⁵ Henry of Huntingdon, however—like Æthelred, a contemporary authority—agrees with him in describing the dismounted knights, men with shields and loricæ like the 'housecarls' at Hastings, as forming an 'iron wall' along the English front.⁸⁶ If then mailed warriors formed the front line, it is difficult to see where the 'inermis plebs', as Æthelred terms it, could be but 'behind them'. The fact is that the Battle of the Standard, for which we have excellent authorities, is of no small value for the study of the Battle of Hastings, as my opponents seem to be uncomfortably aware. 'The tactics,' Mr Freeman admits, 'were English.' We find there again the same dense array,⁸⁷ the same tactics for defence, though now rendered less passive by the development of the bowman.⁸⁸ There can, I think, be little question, if we combine the several accounts, that the Standard, with the older chiefs around it, formed the kernel of the host;⁸⁹ that the rude levies of the shire were massed round about them;⁹⁰ and that the outer rim was formed by the mailed knights, with the archers crouching for shelter behind their 'iron wall'.

Harking back to Sherstone fight (1016), we encounter precisely the same formation. 'The King,' Mr Freeman writes, 'placed his best troops in front, and the inferior part of his army in the rear.' And he added, 'we must remember these tactics when we come to the great fight of Senlac'.⁹¹ This was, unhappily, just what he failed to do. 'William of Poitiers,' he strangely complained, 'has his head full of Agamemnon and of Xerxes, but this obvious analogy does not seem to have occurred to him.' Have we also the reason why our author himself overlooked these obvious analogies in the fact that to illustrate the Battle of Hastings he quotes some five and twenty times from the Odyssey and the Iliad, from Herodotus and Xenophon, from Æschylus, Plutarch, and Dio Cassius; from Livy, Tacitus, Ammianus, and even Ælius Spartianus? In his later edition, however, he inserted in a footnote the words: 'On placing the inferior troops in the rear, see the tactics of Eadmund at Sherstone.'⁹² 'In the rear?' Yes, but that is precisely my contention. The assumption that I am assailing is that they formed the wings.

But we are not even here at the end of Mr Freeman's confusion. He had meanwhile, in another work, published about the same time as the first edition of his third volume, written thus:

As far as I can see, King Harold put these bad troops in the back ... But his picked men he put in front, where the best troops of the enemy were likely to come.⁹³

This is exactly my own view; it is that 'essential principle of tactics' on which I have insisted throughout, and on which Miss Norgate has rashly endeavoured to pour contempt.⁹⁴ Mr Freeman, moreover, further on, wrote of his 'light armed' as 'the troops in the rear',⁹⁵ which is again my contention. What seems to have happened is that he got into his head (I can imagine how) that the 'light-armed' formed the wings, and arranged the battle on that assumption. Then remembering, when it was too late, that, according to his own precedent, they ought to have been in the rear, he hesitated to introduce a change which would affect his whole theory of the battle, and compel him to approach it de novo.⁹⁶

But indeed, even apart from this, it seems doubtful, examining Mr Freeman's narrative, whether he had formed a clear conception of how the English troops were arranged, and whether, if so, he kept it in view, consistently, throughout. If we honestly seek to learn what his conception was, a careful comparison of pp. 472, 473, 475, 490, and 505, with the ground-plan, will show that the whole right wing was composed of 'light-armed troops, who broke their line to pursue'. And this view seems to be accepted and defended by Miss Norgate, who, writing as his champion, declares that to her the conclusion embodied in his ground-plan 'seems irresistible'.⁹⁷ On the other hand, pp. 471, 480, 487, and 732 most undoubtedly convey the impression that, as I have maintained, the heavy-armed English were extended along the whole front,⁹⁸ and that their defeat, in Mr Freeman's words (p. 732), was 'owing to their breaking the line of the shield-wall'. I suspect that he was led thus to contradict himself by the obvious concentration of his interest on 'the great personal struggle which was going on beneath the standard' (p. 487). Here, as is often the case throughout his work, Mr Freeman's treatment of his subject was essentially dramatic. To bring his heroes into high relief, he thrust into the background the rest of his scene as of comparatively small account. In this spirit, for instance, he wrote:

A new act in the awful drama of that day had now begun. The Duke himself, at the head of his own Normans, again pressed towards the standard.... A few moments more and the mighty rivals might have met face to face, and the war-club of the Bastard might have clashed against the lifted axe of the Emperor of Britain (p. 483).

Homer, doubtless, would have made them meet; but a great dramatic opportunity was lost: the 'mighty rivals' seem never to have got within striking distance. Meanwhile, however, the warring hosts are left quite in the background; their fate is that of a stage crowd engaged in a stage battle. I do not mean, of course, that Mr Freeman ignores them, but that he was so engrossed in the personal exploits of his heroes as to be impatient of that careful study which the battle as a whole required, and comparatively careless of consistency in his allusions to the English array.

The charge, in short, that I have brought throughout against the disposition of the English in Mr Freeman's narrative is that his view, 'with all that it involves, was based on no authority, was merely the offspring of his own imagination, and was directly at variance with the only precedent that he vouched for the purpose'.⁹⁹ There is absolutely not a scrap of evidence that—as shown on the 'accurate' ground-plan—the English army was drawn up in three divisions, the 'housecarls' forming the centre, and the 'light-armed' the two wings. We do not even know that it formed an almost straight line.¹⁰⁰ The whole arrangement is sheer guesswork, and analogy, here our only guide, is wholly against it.

I cannot insist too strongly on the charge I have here made. It is no 'matter of secondary importance';¹⁰¹ nor is it the case that my argument as to the 'palisade' is, as Mr Archer pretended, 'the only definite and palpable charge' that I bring 'against Mr Freeman's account of the great battle'.¹⁰² For, as I wrote from the very first, 'rejecting Mr Freeman's views on the groupings of the English host, we reject with them in toto the story he has built upon them'.¹⁰³

My own view is based upon the fact that, in the military tactics as in the military architecture of the age, the defence trusted largely to its power of passive resistance: this was the essential principle of the ponderous Norman keep; and precisely as the walls of that keep were formed of an ashlar face of masonry backed by masses of rubble, so the fighting line of a force standing on the defensive was composed of a compact facing of heavily-armed troops backed by a rabble of half-armed peasants, or at best by what we may term the light infantry of the day. When the foe was advancing to the attack, these rear lines could discharge such weapons as they possessed—darts, arrows, stones, etc.—from behind the shelter of their comrades,¹⁰⁴ while at the moment of actual shock they would form a passive backing, which would save the front ranks from being broken by the enemy's impact. As the great object of the attack was to break through the line, a formation which virtually gave the advantage now possessed by a solid over a hollow square would naturally commend itself to the defence.

Now in these tactics we have the key to the true story of the battle. But, first, we must dismiss from our minds Mr Freeman's fundamental assumption, and understand that the English 'hoplites' were not massed in the centre, but were extended along the whole front, precisely as they were in battles fought both before and after. The fighting face of Harold's host was composed of this heavy soldiery, clad in helmets and mail. Arrayed in the closest order, they presented to an advancing enemy the aspect of a living rampart ('quasi castellum').

How the Normans attacked that rampart it will now be my task to show.

THE NORMAN ADVANCE

From Telham Hill Duke William scanned that living rampart, and saw clearly that 'his only chance was to tempt the English to break their shield-wall'.¹⁰⁵ It is chiefly from Baudri's poem that we learn how he set about it.¹⁰⁶

There is no question that the fight began with an advance of the Norman infantry. William of Poitiers and Bishop Guy are in complete accordance on the fact.¹⁰⁷ But as my description of the infantry has been challenged,¹⁰⁸ I may show that it is quite beyond dispute.¹⁰⁹ To my argument, as reprinted below, it has been objected that I fail 'to take account of the distinction between light-armed and heavy-armed infantry'.¹¹⁰ It will be seen that my argument turns, not on the armour, but on the weapons of the foot. I have challenged my opponents to produce mention of any weapons but crossbows,¹¹¹ or bows and arrows, and need scarcely say that they cannot.

Describing the 'armour and weapons of the Normans', Mr Freeman, avowedly following the Tapestry, represented the infantry as all archers,¹¹² and divided them into two classes: (1) those 'without defensive harness'; (2) those who 'wore the defences common to the horse and foot of both armies ... the close-fitting coat of mail ... and the conical helmet'.¹¹³ Now this division is exactly reproduced in the words of William of Poitiers, who divides his 'pedites' into two classes, distinguished only by the fact that in one were the 'firmiores et loricatos'. He does not say that the latter were not archers, or crossbowmen, nor did Mr Freeman venture to assign them any other weapons.¹¹⁴ Bishop Guy, moreover, distinctly tells us that they were crossbowmen (vide infra). The advance, therefore, in modern language, consisted of skirmishers, represented by archers and perhaps some crossbowmen; supports, namely, crossbowmen who, as a somewhat superior class, would mostly have defensive armour; and, lastly, the cavalry as reserve.¹¹⁵

Now what was the intention of this advance? Mr Freeman assumed, without hesitation, that the foot 'were to strive to break down the palisades ... and so to make ready the way for the charge of the horse' (p. 467); that 'the infantry were, therefore, exposed to the first and most terrible danger' (Ibid.); 'that the French infantry had to toil up the hill, and to break down the palisade' (p. 477).¹¹⁶ But we find, on reference, that the above writers say nothing of any such intention, and do not even mention the existence of a palisade.¹¹⁷ Moreover, the only weapons they speak of are crossbows and bows and arrows, which are scarcely the tools for pioneers. But William of Poitiers puts us on the track of a very different explanation: 'Pedites itaque Normanni propius accedentes provocant Anglos, missilibus in eos vulnera dirigunt atque necem'. Here Baudri comes to our aid:

The Normans dared not face the serried ranks of the English: the maxim that cavalry should not charge unbroken infantry was asserting itself already. But the only means of breaking those ranks, of throwing the English into confusion, was to gall them by archers and slingers till some of them should sally forth, when their assailants would turn tail and leave them to be caught in the open and ridden down. As Bishop Guy expresses it:

These tactics, says Baudri, were crowned with success; the maddened English, as they dashed forth to strike their tormentors to the ground, were cut off in every direction by the horsemen waiting their chance:

This account is both intelligible and consistent, but differs wholly from that of Mr Freeman. It had, however, been virtually anticipated by Mr Oman, who in his Art of War in the Middle Ages (p. 25), points out, with much felicity, that

the archers, if unsupported by the knights, could easily have been driven off the field by a general charge. United, however, by the skilful tactics of William, the two divisions of the invading army won the day. The Saxon mass was subjected to exactly the same trial which befell the British squares in the battle of Waterloo: incessant charges by a gallant cavalry were alternated with a destructive fire of missiles. Nothing can be more maddening than such an ordeal to the infantry soldier, rooted to the spot by the necessities of his formation.

Let us compare the two theories. Mr Freeman's, here again, is not even consistent. He first tells us that for the knights to charge, with 'the triple palisade still unbroken, would have been sheer madness'; in fact it was 'altogether useless' for them to advance until the infantry had broken down the palisade.¹¹⁸ But this the infantry failed to do,¹¹⁹ whereupon—the cavalry charged 'the impenetrable fortress of timber' (p. 479)! One is surely reminded of the immortal Don, when 'a todo el galope de Rocinante', he charged the windmill.

My own theory involves no such inconsistencies. I hold—not as a conjecture based on a hypothetical palisade, but on the excellent authority of Baudri and William of Poitiers, that the infantry were used for the definite purpose of galling the English by their missiles, and so enticing them to leave their ranks and become a prey to the horse. As soon as their line had thus been broken, the cavalry were to charge.

Up to this point, the English army, as a whole, had kept its formation; but now the strain on its patience had become too great to be borne. Breaking its ranks, with one accord, the whole host rushed upon its foes, and drove them before it in confusion right up to the Duke's post:

This explains what had always been to me a difficulty, namely, the panic-stricken flight of the Normans at this stage of the battle. That they should have 'lost heart' (p. 480) at the firmness of the English is natural enough; but that they should have 'turned and fled' (Ibid.) from a force which did not pursue them seemed improbable. The difficulty is solved by Baudri's mention of the wild onslaught by the English. Moreover, Bishop Guy's description of the rout of the assailants—which Mr Freeman assigned to this stage of the battle—agrees well with that of Baudri:

Again, Baudri's poem suggests a novel view by its definite statement that the Normans in their flight reached the Duke's post. Mr Freeman imagined that the Duke himself had been fighting in the front line (pp. 479, 480), but a careful comparison of his two authorities, William of Poitiers and Bishop Guy (p. 482), will show that, on the contrary, they support Baudri's statement. Each speaks of the Duke as 'meeting' (occurrens—occurrit) the fugitives, a difficulty which Mr Freeman evaded by writing that 'he met or pursued the fugitives'.

From this flight the Normans were rallied by the desperate efforts of the Duke himself, who, as is usual at such moments, was believed to have fallen. I deem this episode a fixed point, and it conveniently divides the battle. All our four leading authorities—the Tapestry, William of Poitiers, Bishop Guy, and Baudri—are here in complete agreement. William describes the Duke as 'nudato insuper capite'; Guy tells us that 'iratus galea nudat et ipse caput'; Baudri writes 'subito galeam submovet a capite'; in the Tapestry, 'William (writes Dr Bruce), when he wishes to show himself in order to contradict the rumour that he has been killed, is obliged to lift his helmet almost off his head' (p. 98). It is singular that so striking and well-established an episode is wholly ignored by Wace.

THE FOSSE DISASTER

The serious character of the assailants' flight is duly recognized by Mr Freeman.¹²⁰ We could have no more eloquent witness to the fact than the admission even by William of Poitiers that the Duke's Normans themselves gave way, or the description of them by Bishop Guy as 'gens sua victa'. The only point in question here is whether what I call 'the fosse disaster' was an incident of this headlong flight or happened at a later stage of the battle. Mr Freeman, discussing 'the order of events',¹²¹ faced the difficulty frankly, observing that Guy had placed the feigned flight before what I have termed above the dividing incident of the day, and that this view 'may be thought to be confirmed by the Tapestry', etc., etc. We have here perhaps the most difficult problem raised in the course of the battle, and one which it would be easier and safer to pass over in silence. As to Guy, I suggest, as a possible solution—it does not profess to be more—that what he was describing was not the great feigned flight but the lesser manœuvres of the same character described by Baudri above. He may, of course, have transferred to these the importance of the later episode. On the real flight, at least, he is sound. Of the Tapestry I would speak with more confidence. 'In the nature of things,' Mr Freeman wrote, 'exact chronological order is not its strongest point' (p. 768). But in this case there was nothing to make it depart from that order, no reason why it should not place the incident of 'the fosse disaster' after the central incident of the day, instead of before, if that were its right position. Moreover, it is here, we find, in the closest agreement with Wace; and though I claim, as did Mr Freeman, the right of rejecting his testimony when wholly unsupported (as still more, when opposed to probability), yet such marked agreement as this is not to be lightly cast aside.

In any case, nothing can be more unfortunate than Mr Freeman's treatment of what he describes as the 'great slaughter of the French in the western ravine' (p. 489). This is a scene invented by Mr Freeman alone, and illustrates the peculiar use he made, at times, of his authorities. There is no question that the Norman knights suffered, in the course of the day, at least one such disaster as the nobles of France at Courtrai (1302) or her cuirassiers at Waterloo. But five authorities, so far as one can see, place the incident in the thick of the battle, while three others assign it to the pursuit of the defeated English. It is not strange, therefore, that some writers should have held that there was but one such incident: Mr Freeman, however, holds that there were two; and I expressly disclaim questioning his view, the matter being one of opinion. Assuming then, as he does, that the episode occurred in the course of the battle, I turn to the spirited version of Wace, as Mr Archer defies me to 'impeach Wace's authority' (p. 346). The 'old Norman poet' is here very precise. He first tells us (ll. 7869-70, 8103-6) that the English had made a 'fosse', which the Normans had passed unnoticed in their advance.¹²² These passages Mr Freeman accepts without question (p. 476). But then Wace proceeds to state (ll. 8107-20) that the Normans, driven back, as we have seen, by the English, tumbled, men and horses, into this treacherous 'fosse' and perished in great numbers. Now Wace, far from standing alone, is here in curiously close agreement with the Tapestry of Bayeux. Two successive scenes in that 'most authetic record' are styled 'Hic ceciderunt simul Angli et Franci in prœlio; hic Odo episcopus baculum tenens confortat pueros.' Wace describes these scenes in thirty-six lines (ll. 8103-38), devoting eighteen lines to the first and the same number to the second. Actual comparison alone can show how close the agreement is. Henry of Huntingdon, we may add, independently confirms the statement that English as well as French perished in the fatal fosse.¹²³

Now all this is quite opposed to Mr Freeman's 'conception of the battle'. He had, therefore, to adapt, with no gentle hands, his authorities to his requirements. Cinderella's stepmother, when her daughter's foot could not be got into the golden shoe, armed herself, we read, with axe and scissors, and trimmed it to the requisite shape. With no less decision the late Professor set about his own task. Wace's evidence he simply suppressed; Henry of Huntingdon's he ignored; but that of the Bayeux Tapestry could not be so easily disposed of. I invite particular attention to his treatment of this, his 'highest authority'. Retaining in its natural place (pp. 481-2) the second of the two scenes we have described, he threw forward the one preceding it to a later stage of the battle (p. 490). Nor did his vigorous adaptation stop even here. The scene thus wrenched from its place depicts a single incident: mounted Normans are tumbling headlong into a ditch at the foot of a mound, on which 'light-armed' English stand assailing them with their weapons. The fight is hand to hand; the bodies touch. And yet the Professor treats this scene as a description of two quite separate events happening at a distance from each other. These he terms (p. 489) the 'stand of the English at the detached hill'; and the 'great slaughter of the French in the western ravine'. But on referring to his own ground-plan, we find that this 'ravine' and the 'detached hill' were a quarter of a mile apart, with the slopes of the main hill between them.

My criticism here is twofold. In the first place, Mr Freeman endeavoured to conceal the liberties he had taken with his leading authority. No one would gather from his narrative of the battle that any such violence had been used; nor would anyone who read of the 'hill' episode that 'the scene is vividly shown in the Tapestry' (p. 489), and, subsequently, of the 'ravine' disaster, that 'this scene is most vividly shown in the Tapestry' (p. 490), imagine that 'the incidents of the ravine and the little hill' (p. 768) are in the Tapestry one and the same. In the second place, the large part which the writer's own imagination plays in his narrative of the fight is here clearly seen. There is nothing, for instance, in any authority to connect 'the western ravine' with 'the great slaughter of the French'. It is placed by those who mention it in a 'fosse', 'fossatum', or 'fovea'. 'If Wace is any authority,' to quote Mr Archer's words, 'the question is settled once and for all';¹²⁴ the slaughter took place not in the 'ravine', but in a ditch which according to him, the English had dug to the south of the hill, and which, according to Henry of Huntingdon, they had cunningly concealed. Mr Freeman produces no authority in support of his own fancy; his only argument is that the slaughter

must have happened somewhere to the south or south-west of the hill. The small ravine to the south-west seems exactly what is wanted (p. 771).

The 'western ravine' however, does not fulfil these requirements (see ground-plan, where it lies to the north-west of the hill); while Wace's 'fosse', which—though here ignoring it—he had already accepted, lay, as required, to the south of the hill. Wace mentions another instance (ll. 1737-50) in which this stratagem was adopted,¹²⁵ but whether our ditch was dug, as he states, expressly or not, the fact of its existence does not depend on his evidence alone.

To resume: accepting provisionally Mr Freeman's view (iii. 770) that there were two disasters to the horse, one 'happening comparatively early in the battle', and the other 'which William of Poitiers, Orderic and the Battle chronicler place at the very end of the battle', as occurring in the pursuit of the defeated English, we find that the former is mentioned by five writers. The Tapestry and Wace agree absolutely in making it an episode of the real flight of the Normans before the great rally; Henry of Huntingdon assigns it to the great feigned flight, later in the battle; William of Malmesbury seems to make it happen during the pursuit by the Normans after their feigned flight; the anonymous writer quoted by Andresen (ii. 713) from Le Prevost may be left out of the question. Yet, in spite of all this contradiction, Mr Freeman assigns this striking episode, not as a conjecture, but as historic fact, to the pursuit of the English by the 'Bretons'¹²⁶ after the feigned flight (p. 489). Let me make my position clear. We expect an historian to weigh, as an expert, the evidence before him: we look to him for guidance where that evidence is conflicting. But we have a right to protest against the statement, as historic fact, of hypotheses which cannot be established, and which are quite possibly wrong. Where the evidence is flatly contradictory, the fact that it is so should be made clear; conflicting statements should not be evaded, nor evidence, such as that of the Tapestry, appealed to, when it proves to be opposed to, not in favour of, the writer's hypothesis. Dealing with the Conqueror's march on London, after his great victory, Mr Parker has insisted with much force, on the principle for which I am contending.

Though, by leaving out here and there the discrepancies, the residue may be worked up into a consecutive and consistent series of events, such a process amounts to making history, not writing it. Amidst a mass of contradictory evidence, it is impossible to arrive at any sure conclusion.... It is, however, comparatively easy to piece together such details as will fit of the various stories, and still more easy to discover reasons for the results which such mosaic work produces ... [but] it cannot be reasonably regarded as real history. The method by which the results are obtained bears too close a resemblance to that by which ... some of the legends described in the fifth chapter have come to be accepted as historical narratives.¹²⁷

That is the danger. Such a narrative as that which Mr Freeman has given us must 'come to be accepted as historical' if allowed to pass current without a grave warning. It will doubtless be replied that in his appendices, he frankly admits that 'it is often hard to reconcile the various accounts'; but the question at issue is whether one is justified when, as here, the various accounts are not only 'hard' but impossible to reconcile, in constructing a definite narrative at all, instead of honestly admitting that the matter must be left in doubt.

THE GREAT FEIGNED FLIGHT

There is no feature of the famous battle more familiar or more certain than that of the feigned retreat. It is necessary here to grasp Mr Freeman's view, because he discovers in this manœuvre and its results the decisive turning point of the day.¹²⁸

That there was a great feigned flight, which induced a large portion of the English to break their formation and pursue their foes, is beyond question.¹²⁹ But Mr Freeman, on this foundation, built up a legend, for which, we shall find, there exists no evidence whatever. He first assumed that it was 'most likely' the left wing of the assailants which 'turned in seeming flight'¹³⁰ (p. 488), and that it was, consequently, 'the English on the right wing' who 'rushed down and pursued them'. Thus:

Through the rash descent of the light-armed on the right, the whole English army lost its vantage ground. The pursuing English had left the most easily accessible portion of the hill open to the approach of the enemy (p. 490).

The result, of course, was that 'the main body of the Normans made their way on the hill, no doubt by the gentle slope' at this point (Ibid.).

The great advantage of the ground was now lost; the Normans were at last on the hill. Instead of having to cut their way up the slope, and through the palisades, they could now charge to the east right against the defenders of the standard (Ibid.).

These words are most important. They set forth Mr Freeman's theory that Harold now found the Normans charging down upon his right flank instead of attacking him in front. It was in this sense I wrote 'that his weak point was forced, and the English right turned', as the natural result of the 'insane' tactics attributed to him by his champion.¹³¹ The manœuvre assigned by Mr Freeman to the Duke is, in fact, that by which Marlborough won the battle of Ramillies, where he got on to the hill by dislodging the French right, and then wheeled to his own right, outflanking the French centre.

When we turn from this elaborate theory to the authorities on which it is supposed to be based, we find, with some astonishment, that it is all sheer imagination. William of Poitiers, on whom the writer seemed mainly to rely for the feigned flight, states that:

Normanni sociaque turba ... terga dederunt, fugam ex industriâ simulantes—

words which distinctly imply that this feigned flight was general. Henry of Huntingdon merely writes: 'Docuit Dux Willelmus genti suæ fugam simulare.' No one, certainly, says or implies that it was restricted to the left wing. As for the theory that 'the main body of the Normans' were, by this manœuvre, enabled to seize the western portion of the hill, and thus attack Harold on his flank, it is more imaginary, if possible, still.

The fact is that, as I explained in my original article,¹³² Mr Freeman had wholly misconceived the nature of William's manœuvre. The feigned flight was not a simple (as he supposed), but a combined movement. The best account of that movement is found in the Battle Chronicle:

Tandem strenuissimus Boloniæ comes Eustachius clam, callida præmeditata arte—fugam cum exercitu duce simulante—super Anglos sparsim agiliter insequentes cum manu valida a tergo irruit, sicque et duce hostes ferociter invadente ipsis interclusis utrinque prosternuntur innumeri.

This precise statement, which Mr Freeman omits,¹³³ affords the clue we seek, explaining the words of William of Poitiers, 'interceptos et inclusos undique mactaverunt'. The retreat of the pursuing English was cut off by the Count's squadrons, and, caught 'between two fires', they were cut down and butchered. The supposition that, while this was going on, the main body of the Normans was riding on to the hill is baseless. The whole host, we have seen, were below, surrounding the English who had left the hill. Had Mr Freeman kept in mind, as he had intended to do, the employment of this old Norman device at the relief of Arques (1053), he would have seen more clearly what really happened. But this, precisely as with his Sherstone precedent, he failed to do.

THE RELIEF OF ARQUES

He carefully distinguishes the two parties essential to the stratagem:¹³⁴