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.76

Such is Mr. Freeman's explanation of how the battle was won,76 for in this episode he discovers the decisive turningpoint of the day."7

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 tread the battle-field 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," when, first riddled by Norman arrows and then

75 Ibid., 490.

we

76"The battle was lost through the error of those light-armed troops who, in disobedience to the King's orders, broke their line to pursue " (Ib., 505).

77"The day had now turned decidedly in favour of the invaders" (I., 491). I am obliged to quote these two passages, because my opponents have not shrunk from impugning (Cont. Rev., 353; E.H.R., ix. 70) the accuracy of the words in the text (which are from Q.R., July, 1892, P. 17).

78 Q.R., July, 1893, 101.

79 N.C., iii. 472.

Harold's Alleged Tactics

361 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, 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

80 To have placed some of them as an advanced post on the “small detached hill" in front would have been to leave them en l'air, exposed to certain destruction from an attack which they could not check. For Mr. Freeman held that, even if occupied by an outpost, it was only by the "light-armed." (See Q.R., July, 1893, pp. 99, 100.)

81 On what ground are the Bretons so described? Guy, quoted by Mr. Freeman (iii. 459) writes of them here: "Gensque Britannorum quorum decus exstat in armis, Tellus ni fugiat est fuga nulla quibus."

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: Ethelred 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." 88

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,8 but who now wishes to withdraw it.85 Henry of Huntingdon, however,-like Ethelred, a contemporary authorityagrees with him in describing the dismounted knights, men with shields and lorica like the "housecarls" at Hastings, as forming an "iron wall" along the English front. If

82 I have replied in E.H.R. (ix. 255) to Miss Norgate's characteristic quibble (Ib., p. 75) that these quotations apply to the Scottish army alonefor the principle applies alike to armati" and "armatos," to "milites" and to "militibus."

88 Down to this point the present section is all reprinted from my original article (Q.R., July, 1892), as not calling for any alteration or correction.

84"The general mass of the less well-armed troops of the shire in the rear." (England under the Angevin Kings, i. 290.)

85 E.H.R., ix. 611.

86 When the Scotch, he writes, "amentatis missilibus et lanceis longis

The Battle of the Standard

87

363

then mailed warriors formed the front line, it is difficult to see where the "inermis plebs," as Ethelred 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, 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, simis super aciem equitum nostrorum loricatam percutiunt, quasi muro ferreo offendentes, impenetrabiles [compare the "impenetrabiles" ranks of the English at Hastings, supra, p. 357] invenerunt . . . Equitantes enim nulla ratione diu persistere potuerunt contra milites loricatos pede persistentes et immobiliter coacervatos" (pp. 264-5). Miss Norgate follows him, writing: "The wild Celts of Galloway dashed headlong upon the English front, only to find their spears and javelins glance off from the helmets and shields of the knights as from an iron wall.”

❝87 Tota namque gens Normannorum et Anglorum in una acie circum Standard conglobata, persistebant immobiles" (Hen. Hunt.) "Australes, quoniam pauci erant, in unum cuneum sapientissime glomerantur" (Æth. Riv.)

28 It is no less interesting than curious that the Bayeux Tapestry enables us to see how the archers were combined with the mailed knights at the Battle of the Standard. It shows us (on its principle of giving a type) an English archer of whom Mr. Freeman has well observed :-" He is a small man without armour crouching under the shield of a tall Housecarl, like Teukros under that of Aias" (iii. 472). So Æthelred writes that the mailed warriors "sagittarios ita sibi inseruerunt ut, militaribus armis protecti, tanto acrius quanto securius vel in hostes irruerent, vel exciperent irruentes."

circa signum

89" Proceres qui maturioris ætatis fuerunt regium constituuntur, quibusdam altius ceteris in ipsa machina collatis" (Eth. Riv.). “Circum Standard in pectore belli condensantur "(Ric. Hex.). 90 "Reliqua autem multitudo undique conglomerata eos circumvallabat" (Ib.)

with the archers crouching for shelter behind their "iron wall."

91

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." 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 Eschylus, 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."9" "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 01 N.C., i. 383. 92 Ib., iii. 472.

Old English History, p. 331. 94 E.H.R., ix. 75.

96 Old English History, p. 333