. England, from earliest times to the Great Charter . o the credit of the Saxon men. While the King lay dying his huscarls, twenty in number, gathered round him and the standards. Soon, however, most of them had paid for valour with their lives. The Saxons were compelled to retreat. The Dragon and Fighting Man fell into Norman hands, the latter to be sent to the Pope, together with untold gold and silver ornaments which would have been reckoned splendid even in Constantinople, as a thank-offering for victory. There too, where the King of England lay mutilated by the ferocity of the Normans, la
. England, from earliest times to the Great Charter . o the credit of the Saxon men. While the King lay dying his huscarls, twenty in number, gathered round him and the standards. Soon, however, most of them had paid for valour with their lives. The Saxons were compelled to retreat. The Dragon and Fighting Man fell into Norman hands, the latter to be sent to the Pope, together with untold gold and silver ornaments which would have been reckoned splendid even in Constantinople, as a thank-offering for victory. There too, where the King of England lay mutilated by the ferocity of the Normans, later a stately abbey was raised, the altar of which marked the spot referred to in those words which Matilda worked into the Bayeux Tapestry : Hie Harold. Rex interfectus est. 1 Apart from the fact that the men then fought in extremely heavy coatsof mail, etc., it must be remembered that every blow was made, not bythe explosion of some chemical, but by the muscles of the soldiers, who werehacking and slashing all the time, or warding off heavy o M >X Mi-t COMING OF THE NORMANS After the Battle : The MALFOssi: It was probably some time after the battle had been won ^that the English, hastening by devious routes northward, closelyfollowed by the victorious Normans, took refuge in an ancientfortification, where it may be they were reinforced by the menwho were hastening from London to strengthen Haroldsforces. One thing at least is certain : the Normans, at aspot known as Malfosse, received a sharp check. Most of themodern historians have described the reverse at Malfosse asan incident in the main battle, but, as Mr Stevenson says, The account of the check of the Normans . . endorsedby Orderic seems to imply that its site was some old fortifica-tion. From William of Poitiers, who refers this reverse in amarked manner to the night following the battle, it wouldseem to have occurred at some distance from the hill of Senlacor Sandlake. It is indeed probable that William now
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