Note 1 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 3)

It might well be thought the height of rashness to attempt criticism, even in detail, of Mr Freeman's narrative of the Battle of Hastings. For its story, as his champion has well observed, is 'the centre and the very heart of Mr Freeman's work; if he could blunder here in the most carefully elaborated passage of his whole history he could blunder anywhere; his reputation for accuracy would be gone almost beyond hope of retrieving it'.1 And indeed, it may fairly be described as Mr Freeman's greatest achievement, the point where he is strongest of all. He himself described the scene as the 'battle which is the centre of my whole history', and reminded us that