Note 70 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

To render clear the problem involved, I must first sketch as briefly as possible the nature of the ground the English held. The hill of battle is so fully described in Mr Freeman's narrative that I here need only explain that it was a long narrow spur of the downs, running nearly east and west, of which the south front was defended by the English and attacked by the Normans. The one and only point that is certain is that 'on the very crown of the hill', the site of the high altar in the future, was erected the standard of Harold.70 This, then, the centre of the hill, was the centre of the English host. But the ground to which our attention is directed, as having 'really played the most decisive part in the great event of the place', lay to the west of this, 'where the slope is gentlest of all, where the access to the natural citadel is least difficult'.71 Mr Freeman assumes that this ground—the 'English right', as he terms it—where the 'ascent is easiest in itself', was allotted to 'the least trustworthy portion of the English army', to 'the sudden levies of the southern shires'.72 For this assumption, I hasten to add, there is no authority whatever. He further assumes that the first English to leave their post, in pursuit of the enemy, 'were, of course, some of the defenders of the English right'.73 William, he holds, at the crisis of the battle, resolved to draw them again from their post by a partial feigned retreat, that 'meanwhile another division might reach the summit through the gap thus left open'. Accordingly, tempted by this stratagem, 'the English on the right wing rushed down and pursued', and their error proved 'fatal to England'.74