Note 126 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

To resume: accepting provisionally Mr Freeman's view (iii. 770) that there were two disasters to the horse, one 'happening comparatively early in the battle', and the other 'which William of Poitiers, Orderic and the Battle chronicler place at the very end of the battle', as occurring in the pursuit of the defeated English, we find that the former is mentioned by five writers. The Tapestry and Wace agree absolutely in making it an episode of the real flight of the Normans before the great rally; Henry of Huntingdon assigns it to the great feigned flight, later in the battle; William of Malmesbury seems to make it happen during the pursuit by the Normans after their feigned flight; the anonymous writer quoted by Andresen (ii. 713) from Le Prevost may be left out of the question. Yet, in spite of all this contradiction, Mr Freeman assigns this striking episode, not as a conjecture, but as historic fact, to the pursuit of the English by the 'Bretons'126 after the feigned flight (p. 489). Let me make my position clear. We expect an historian to weigh, as an expert, the evidence before him: we look to him for guidance where that evidence is conflicting. But we have a right to protest against the statement, as historic fact, of hypotheses which cannot be established, and which are quite possibly wrong. Where the evidence is flatly contradictory, the fact that it is so should be made clear; conflicting statements should not be evaded, nor evidence, such as that of the Tapestry, appealed to, when it proves to be opposed to, not in favour of, the writer's hypothesis. Dealing with the Conqueror's march on London, after his great victory, Mr Parker has insisted with much force, on the principle for which I am contending.