f Roland, the famous peer of
Charlemagne,[***] advanced, in order and with alacrity, towards the
enemy.

[* H. Hunting, p. 368. Brompton, p. 959. Gul.
Pict. p. 201.]

[** Gul. Pict. p. 201. Order. Vitalis, p. 501.]

[*** W. Malms, p. 101. Higden, p. 286. M. West. p.
223. Dr Cange's Glossary, in verbo Cantilena Rolandi.]

Harold had seized the advantage of a rising ground, and having likewise
drawn some trenches to secure his flanks, he resolved to stand upon the
defensive, and to avoid all action with the cavalry, in which he was
inferior. The Kentish men were placed in the van; a post which they had
always claimed as their due: the Londoners guarded the standard; and
the king himself, accompanied by his two valiant brothers, Gurth and
Leofwin, dismounting, placed himself at the head of his infantry, and
expressed his resolution to conquer or to perish in the action. The
first attack of the Normans was desperate, but was received with equal
valor by the English; and after a furious combat, which remained long
undecided, the former, overcome by the difficulty of the ground, and
hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax their vigor, then to
retreat; and confusion was spreading among the ranks; when William, who
found himself on the brink of destruction, hastened, with a select band,
to the relief of his dismayed forces. His presence restored the action;
the English were obliged to retire with loss; and the duke, ordering his
second line to advance, renewed the attack with fresh forces and with
redoubled courage. Finding that the enemy aided by the advantage of
ground, and animated by the example of their prince, still made a
vigorous resistance, he tried a stratagem which was very delicate in
its management, but which seemed advisable in his desperate situation,
where, if he gained not a decisive victory, he was totally undone: he
commanded his troops to make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy
from their ground by the appearance of flight. The artifice succeeded
against those unexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and
sanguine in their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the
plain. William gave orders, that at once the infantry should face about
upon their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault upon their wings,
and both of them pursue the advantage, which the surprise and terror
of the enemy must give them in that critical and decisive moment. The
Englis