y the same stratagem on the part
of the Normans at Hastings. But his men, when deprived of his control,
would very naturally be led by their inconsiderate ardor into the
pursuit that proved so fatal to them. All the narratives of the battle,
however much they vary as to the precise time and manner of Harold's
fall, eulogize the generalship and the personal prowess which he
displayed until the fatal arrow struck him. The skill with which he had
posted his army was proved both by the slaughter which it cost the
Normans to force the position, and also by the desperate rally which
some of the Saxons made after the battle in the forest in the rear, in
which they cut off a large number of the pursuing Normans. This
circumstance is particularly mentioned by William of Poictiers, the
Conqueror's own chaplain. Indeed, if Harold or either of his brothers
had survived, the remains of the English army might have formed again in
the wood, and could at least have effected an orderly retreat and
prolonged the war. But both Gurth and Leofwine, and all the bravest
thanes of Southern England, lay dead on Senlac, around their fallen King
and the fallen standard of their country. The exact number that perished
on the Saxons' side is unknown; but we read that, on the side of the
victors, out of sixty thousand men who had been engaged, no less than a
fourth perished; so well had the English billmen "plyed the ghastly
blow," and so sternly had the Saxon battle-axe cloven Norman's casque
and mail. The old historian Daniel justly as well as forcibly remarks:
"Thus was tried, by the great assize of God's judgment in battle, the
right of power between the English and Norman nations; a battle the most
memorable of all others, and, however miserably lost, yet most nobly
fought on the part of England."

Many a pathetic legend was told in after years respecting the discovery
and the burial of the corpse of our last Saxon King. The main
circumstances, though they seem to vary, are perhaps reconcilable. Two
of the monks of Waltham Abbey, which Harold had founded a little time
before his election to the throne, had accompanied him to the battle. On
the morning after the slaughter they begged and gained permission of the
Conqueror to search for the body of their benefactor. The Norman
soldiery and camp followers had stripped and gashed the slain, and the
two monks vainly strove to recognize from among the mutilated and gory
heaps around them the features