BOOK I. dispersed troops, and leading them in some fashion to London. "Duke William, surprised with joy, gave public charge for a solemn thanksgiving to God. Then he erected his pavilion in the midst of the field, among the thickest of those bodies whom death had made to lie quietly together. There he passed the residue of that night, and the next morning mustered his soldiers, buried those that were slain, and gave liberty to the English to do the like. The body of King Harold could not be known by the face, it was so deformed by death, and by his wound; by his armour, and by certain marks upon the body, it was known. As it lay upon the ground, a Norman soldier did strike it into the leg with his sword; for which unmanly action he was cassed by the duke with open disgrace. It was carried into the duke's pavilion, and there kept under the custody of William Mallet. And, when his mother made suit for it to be buried, the duke denied it at first, affirming that burial was not fit for him whose ambition was the cause of so many funerals. The mother, besides her lamentations and tears, offered for it (as one Norman writer affirms) the weight thereof in gold; but the duke, with a manly compassion, gave it freely, as holding it dishonourable both to value the body of a king, and make sale of a slain enemy. So his body was buried by his mother, at Waltham cross, within the monastery which he had founded. Verily there was nothing to be blamed in him, but that his courage could not stoop to be lower than a king. "The fight continued with very great both constancy and courage, and variety of fortune, from seven of the clock in the morning until night. Of the Normans were slain six thousand and more, besides those that were CHAP. IV. drowned and beaten down in the water. The slaughter of the English is uncertainly reported, but certainly it was far greater than that of the Normans. Certain, also, that their death was most honourable and fair, not any one basely abandoning the field; not any one yielding to be taken prisoner. And yet one circumstance more I hold fit to be observed, that this victory was gotten only by the means of the blow of an arrow ; the use whereof was by the Normans first brought into this land. Afterwards the English being trained to that fight, did thereby chiefly maintain themselves, with honourable advantage against all nations with whom they did contend in arms, being generally reputed the best shot in the world. returns to Hastings. "The next day after the victory, the duke returned to William Hastings, about seven miles from the place of the encounter, partly to refresh his army, and partly to settle in advice and order, for his further prosecution. First, he despatched messengers to signify his success to his friends abroad. To the pope he sent King Harold's standard, which represented a man fighting, wrought curiously with gold and precious stones. Afterwards placing a strong garrison at Hastings, he conducted his army toward London, not the direct way, but coasted about through Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, and Berkshire; the ways where he passed being as free from resistance as his thoughts were from change. At Wallingford, he passed over the Thames, and then marched forward through Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire, until he came to the castle at Berkhamstead. In this passage many of his soldiers languished and died of the flux. And whether it were open licentiousness, after the late victory, or whether from want of necessary provision, or BOOK I. whether to strike terror into the English, or whether to leave no danger at his back, he permitted the sword to range at large, to harass freely, to defile many places with ruin and blood. The clergy surrender the rights of England. "Aldred, archbishop of York, Wolstane, bishop of Worcester, Wilfire, bishop of Hereford, and many other prelates of the realm went unto the duke at Berkhamstead, accompanied with Edgar Atheline (the only rightful heir), Earl Edwin, Earl Morchard, and divers others of the nobility; who gave pledges for their allegiance, and were thereupon received to subjection and favour. The duke presently despatched to London, was received with many declarations of joy, the lesser in heart, the fair in appearance, and, upon Christmas day next following, was crowned king." The consternation into which the kingdom was thrown, on the news of this battle and its issue, was but too well grounded on an anticipation of the cruel and disasterous effects to the conquered Saxons, which followed it. Numbers, from that unhappy day, were hurled from affluence to want, and all from a state of comparative independence to that of slaves. The inhabitants of the eastern part of Sussex appear to have been the first objects of William's vengeance after the battle. The manors of Sir John Ashburnham were particularly the marks of his vengeance, from his brave and noble conduct, and the patriotic efforts he made, by raising the posse comitatus as high sheriff of the county, for the purpose of joining Harold, and of defending his country against the foreign invaders. After the battle, this gallant knight is said to have retreated, with his followers, to Dover but was pursued thither by William, who forced the castle to surrender, and put Sir John and many others to the sword.* The conquering army remained a week CHAP. IV. at Hastings, to bury their dead and recover from dysentery. From revenge and other motives, the policy of William towards the English appears to have been marked with every thing sanguinary and vindictive. Their lands were confiscated almost in one general mass, and divided among his Norman followers. The thanes, or nobles, were driven into exile; and the ceorls, or yeomen, were ejected from their possessions with the most relentless barbarity, and became slaves of the soil they had heretofore tilled as masters. The very serfs or slaves themselves were not deemed sufficiently harmless, from their low and abject state and condition, to escape the weight of this Norman cruelty, the detail of which would be deemed incredible. The landed property of the country at this time passed into the hands of new possessors, from one extremity of it to the other; and so completely did William succeed in humbling and crushing his prostrate foes, that he left scarcely an English family of note as a vestige of their former consequence. Time, however, and an undisturbed possession of property on the one hand, and the hopelessness of resistance on the other, gradually softened down all mutual animosities, and by degrees settled and established the social compact on that basis on which it has continued to rest through succeeding ages, dispensing equal laws and liberty, with all their attendant blessings to the country. The Rev. Mr. Hay, in his " History of Chichester," says, "I am credibly informed that King Harold's letter to Sir John (desiring his aid and services on the landing of William) is still in the possession of his descendants, a monument of antiquity which confers more honour on that family, than their descent from Charlemagne. CHAPTER V. STATE OF SURREY AND SUSSEX AFTER THE NORMAN CONQUEST. tions by the BOOK I, THE series of confiscations which followed the accession Confisca- of William, produced a complete revolution in the tenure Conqueror. of English lands. The feudal system, which had previously prevailed, in some degree, amongst the Anglo Saxons, was now generally adopted by the conqueror, and his barons tyrannized over, and enslaved the dejected people. Domains, wrested from their rightful owners, were conferred by William on his trust-worthy followers, who, of course became tenentes in capite, ready to espouse the quarrels of their sovereign, and to march at the head of their vassals to his aid in war. The ceorls were, in many instances, expelled from their homes, and reduced to beggary in order to enrich a foreign favourite; or if they retained possession of their little property, they were compelled to hold it of a superior, on conditions somewhat analogous to those on which he held his possessions of the crown. The extensive estate which the unfortunate Harold held in Sussex, was thus siezed by the conqueror, and granted in military tenure to his foreign favourites, amongst whom the earl of Warren was one of the most distinguished. He had married the daughter of the conqueror, when duke of Normandy, and had accompanied him in his successful expedition as a frier d and a valiant fellow |