Wulf the Saxon: A Story of the Norman Conquest by G. A. Henty (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📗

and see to their comfort. I will not tell the story of the battle until you return, for doubtless you are burning to hear it, and in truth it will be famous in all times, both as one of the sturdiest fights ever heard of, and because such great issues depended on its results."

When Guy returned with his friends and a meal had been eaten, De Burg told the story of the battle of Senlac.

"Such is the story as far as I know it," he added in conclusion, "but in truth beyond the beginning and the end, and the fact that we twice fell back and at one time were flying in headlong rout to our ships, I know nothing. All day I was striving to break through a living wall, and striving in vain. I can see now the close line of shields, the helmet covered faces above them, and the terrible axes rising and falling, cleaving through helmet and hauberk as if they had been pasteboard. It may well-nigh be said that we have no wounded, for each man struck fell in his track as if smitten by lightning. Can you add more, thanes?"

Beorn shook his head.

"It is like a dream," Wulf said. "We never moved through the long day. At times there was a short lull, and then each man was fighting as best he could. I know that my arms grew tired and that my axe seemed to grow heavier, that horse and foot swept up to us, and there was occasionally breathing time; that the royal brothers' voices rose ever cheeringly and encouragingly until Gurth and Leofwin fell, and after that Harold's alone was heard, though I think it came to my ears as from a distance, so great was the tumult, so great our exertions. When Harold died I knew that all was lost, but even that did not seem to affect me. I had become a sort of machine, and fought almost mechanically, with a dim consciousness that the end was close at hand. It was only at the last, when Beorn and I stood back to back, that I seemed myself again, and was animated with new strength that came, I suppose, from despair."

"It was an awful day," De Burg said. "I have fought in many battles under the duke's banner, but the sternest of them were but paltry skirmishes in comparison to this. Half of the nobles of Normandy lie dead, half the army that filled the mighty fleet that sailed from St. Valery have fallen. William is King of England, but whether that will in the end repay Normandy for the loss she has suffered seems to me very doubtful. And now let us to bed. I sleep not well on shipboard, and in truth I had such dreams of death and slaughter that I ever awoke bathed with sweat, and in such fear that I dared not go to sleep again."

At the end of a week the baron sailed again for England. To the two young Englishmen the following weeks passed pleasantly. Ships came frequently from England with news of what was doing there. William had tarried for some time at his camp at Hastings, expecting to receive the submission of all England. But not an Englishman came to bow before him. The Northern earls had hurried to London as soon as they heard of the defeat at Senlac and the death of the king and his brothers, and a Witan was instantly summoned to choose his successor to the throne.

Edwin and Morcar thought that the choice of the nation would surely fall upon one or other of them, as in rank and position they were now the first men in the realm. They exerted themselves to the utmost to bring this about, but no true-hearted Englishman could forgive either their acceptance of Harold Hardrada as their king, or the long and treacherous delay that had left Southern England to stand alone on the day of battle. The choice of the Witan fell on the young Edgar, the grandson of Edmund Ironside, the last male survivor of the royal blood. Edgar, however, was never crowned, as that ceremony could only take place at one of the festivals of the church, and it was therefore postponed until Christmas. London was eager for resistance. Alfred had fought battle after battle against the Danes, and though without their natural leaders, the people throughout Southern England looked forward to a long and determined struggle. With the army of the North as a rallying centre a force more numerous than that which Harold had led might soon be gathered. But these hopes were dashed to the ground by the treacherous Northern earls. Had one of them been chosen to sit on the vacant throne they would doubtless have done their best to maintain that throne, but they had been passed over, and oblivious of the fact that it was to the South they owed the rescue of their earldoms from the sway of the King of Norway and Tostig, they sullenly marched away with their army and left the South to its fate.

While the cause of England was thus being betrayed and ruined, William was advancing eastward along the coast ravaging and destroying. Romney was levelled to the ground and its inhabitants slain. Dover opened its gates. It is probable that most of the male population had joined Harold, and had fallen at Senlac; and that the terrible fate of Romney had struck such terror into the hearts of the inhabitants, who knew there was no army that could advance to their assistance, that they surrendered at the Conqueror's approach. To them William behaved with lenity and kindness. His severity at Romney and his lenity at Dover had their effect. There being no central authority, no army in the field, each town and district was left to shift for itself; and assuredly none of them unaided could hope to offer prolonged resistance to the Normans. As, after eight days' stay at Dover, William advanced towards Canterbury, he was met by a deputation of the citizens offering their submission, and soon from all parts of Kent similar messages came in.

Kent had done its full share in the national defence on the hill near Hastings, and was not to be blamed if, when all England remained supine and inactive, its villagers refused to throw away their lives uselessly. The duke was detained by sickness for a month near Canterbury, and there received the submission of Kent and Sussex, and also that of the great ecclesiastical city of Winchester; but the spirit of resistance in London still burned brightly, and William was indisposed to risk the loss that would be incurred by an assault upon its walls. He, therefore, moved round in a wide circle, wasting the land, plundering and destroying, till the citizens, convinced that resistance could only bring destruction upon themselves and their city, and in spite of the efforts of their wounded sheriff, sent an embassy to the duke at Berkhampstead to submit and do homage to him.

Not London alone was represented by this embassy. The young king, elected but uncrowned, was with it; two archbishops, two bishops, and many of the chief men in England accompanied it, and although they were not the spokesmen of any Witan, they might be said fairly to represent London and Southern England.

Deserted by the North, without a leader, and seeing their land exposed to wholesale ravages, the South and West Saxons were scarcely to be blamed for preferring submission to destruction. They doubtless thought that William, the wise ruler of Normandy, would make a far better king than the boy they had chosen, who was himself almost as much a foreigner as William, save that there was a strain of English royal blood in his veins. So had England accepted Canute the Dane as her king, and he had ruled as an English monarch wisely and well.

The embassy offered William the crown. The Norman prelates and priests, who held