ics might have invested
it. They were not sure that their brother's excuse for setting it aside
would save him from the guilt and curse of perjury in the sight of
Heaven. So they proposed, on the eve of the battle, that Harold himself
should retire, and leave them to conduct the defense. "We can not deny,"
they said, "that you did take the oath; and, notwithstanding the
circumstances which seem to absolve you from the obligation, it is best
to avoid, if possible, the open violation of it. It will be better, on
the whole, for you to leave the army and go to London. You can aid very
effectually in the defense of the kingdom by raising re-enforcements
there. We will stay and encounter the actual battle. Heaven can not be
displeased with us for so doing, for we shall be only discharging the
duty incumbent on all, of defending their native land from foreign
invasion."

Harold would not consent to adopt this plan. He could not retire
himself, he said, at the hour of approaching danger, and leave his
brothers and his friends exposed, when it was _his_ crown for which
they were contending.

Such were the circumstances of the two armies on the evening before the
battle; and, of course, in such a state of things, the tendency of the
minds of men would be, in Harold's camp, to gloom and despondency, and
in William's, to confidence and exultation. Harold undertook, as men in
his circumstances often do, to lighten the load which weighed upon his
own heart and oppressed the spirits of his men, by feasting and wine. He
ordered a plentiful supper to be served, and supplied his soldiers with
abundance of drink; and it is said that his whole camp exhibited, during
the whole night, one wide-spread scene of carousing and revelry, the
troops being gathered every where in groups around their camp fires,
some half stupefied, others quarreling, and others still singing
national songs, and dancing with wild excitement, according to the
various effects produced upon different constitutions by the
intoxicating influence of beer and wine.

In William's camp there were witnessed very different scenes. There were
a great many monks and ecclesiastics in the train of his army, and, on
the night before the battle, they spent the time in saying masses,
reading litanies and prayers, chanting anthems, and in other similar
acts of worship, assisted by the soldiers, who gathered, in great
congregations, for this wild worship, in the open spaces among the