Note 1193 — Chapter XV · THE NORMAN INVASION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS.[1055]

Ib. 11761;

“En dreit un tertre s’arestut,

Ke alquanz d’els ne l’aparçut;

Iloc s’estut, si esgarda

Coment la grant flote ariva.”

Wace’s account is of course confused by his primary blunder of reversing the geographical order, by making William land at Hastings, and thence go to Pevensey (see above, p. 400). His Thegn is therefore made to set out from Hastings, and the scene is apparently laid at Hastings. For Wace makes the Thegn hide himself behind a hill (“tertre”), which it would be easy to do at Hastings, but hard at Pevensey, as the mound of the later castle, then close to the landing-place, would hardly serve the purpose. The expression is clearly borrowed from Guy of Amiens’ description of his messenger from Hastings (149);

“Ex Anglis unus, latitans sub rupe marinâ.”

But a man who saw the actual landing, and at once started for York, must have started from Pevensey, and the fort which he saw thrown up must have been the fort at Pevensey, not the fort at Hastings. No doubt a messenger from Hastings, the messenger described by Guy of Amiens, would soon follow the messenger from Pevensey, and Wace, in his geographical confusion, rolled the two into one.

The words of Florence also would imply that news was brought straight from Pevensey; “Nuntiatum est ei Willelmum Comitem gentis Normannicæ ... advenisse ... et in loco qui Pefnesea dicitur suam classem adpulisse.”