A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Anderida, the Duke mustered his troops and found that only two ships 

 had gone astray — possibly the detachment cut up by the men of Romney. 

 Leaving a small force to guard the ships the cavalry pressed on towards 

 Hastings to secure forage and provisions for the army. As soon as the 

 soldiers had occupied that town William caused them to construct a 

 fortification with fosse and mound and wooden palisade, probably upon 

 the commanding hill which is now crowned by the ruins of the later 

 masonry castle/ Meanwhile the invading host plundered and ravaged 

 the country round with fire and sword in the usual manner of troops in 

 an enemy's territory/ driving the terror-struck inhabitants to seek refuge 

 in the churches and cemeteries. 



While the Norman army was landing at Pevensey a local thegn 

 who had watched their movements took horse and rode to Harold's 

 camp, and from Hastings another messenger sped north with the evil 

 news.^ The tidings reached Harold as he was feasting with his soldiers 

 after the glorious victory of Stamford Bridge. He at once marched 

 down to London, and remained there a week collecting reinforcements, 

 drawing up plans for the coming campaign, and exchanging messages 

 with the Norman Duke, to all of whose demands and wily suggestions 

 of compromise he returned an indignant refusal.* Some of his counsellors 

 advised the isolation of the invaders by ravaging the district round 

 Hastings, and so cutting off supplies and compelling them to retire 

 without fighting, but Harold determined to fight and to command the 

 English troops in person.^ Accordingly on the twelfth he left London 

 and marched south towards Hastings through Kent and Sussex, and on 

 the next day, Friday, occupied the position which he decided to defend — 

 for it was his object to act on the defensive. The spot selected was well 

 chosen ; some seven miles north-west of Hastings, the present road to 

 London crosses, and is commanded by, a ridge of high land running east 

 and west, of no great altitude but somewhat steep ; from the centre of 

 this ridge on the London side a sort of isthmus runs back to the higher 

 land, while on the side toward Hastings the ground is broken and undulat- 

 ing with marshy land in the hollows." 



On this ridge stands now the town and ruined abbey of Battle, and 

 on it, then wild and desolate, marked only by an ancient apple-tree," 

 Harold drew up his men. His flanks were well protected by marsh 

 and woodland, and he hastily strengthened his front by digging a fosse,' 

 possibly covered with branches or in some way concealed, with three 

 entries or passages for his skirmishers. Having done all that could be 



> Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii. 407-11. 



2 There seems little proof of any exceptional harrying of the country as implied by Professor Free- 

 man (ibid. 412). 



3 Ibid. 418. « Ibid. 430-2. ^ Ibid. 434-6. « Ibid. 441-4. 



' The site of the battle was that part of Battle afterwards known as Sandlake, or Sentlache, which 

 Orderic adopted— Normanizing it as Senlac— for the name of the battle. Prof. Freeman pedantically 

 rejected the name of Hastings, which had been applied to the battle for eight hundred years, in favour 

 of Senlac — a name which, even if contemporary, was used by only one writer, and misspelled by him. 



8 According to Wace. For the destruction of Mr. Freeman's famous ' Palisade ' by Mr. Round, 

 see Feudal England, pp. 340-58. 



486 



