escend
with terrific force upon the heads of the foe, and work great
execution. The command was carried out, and one of the first to fall
was the English king himself, his right eye pierced by a shaft.

With Harold fell the English fortunes. His soldiers struggled on
desperately till night closed down, but their valour was in vain, and
after a day's continuous fighting the Normans were left the victors of
the field.

Building operations were duly commenced, and proceeded apace. The
growing Abbey was richly endowed, and its Superior granted numerous and
great privileges. Not, however, till William had been dead some seven
years was it finished. Then for several centuries it enjoyed a
flourishing existence, extending its scope and increasing its wealth.
The great gateway was added in 1338, and was the work of Abbot Retlyng.

The income of the Abbey was enormous, and the wanton generosity of the
brothers made Battle a happy hunting-ground for the pilgrims and
vagabonds and ne'er-do-wells in the south-east of England. But its
long years of prosperity proved its undoing, for slothful ease gave way
to greater evils. The great place decayed in every sense, and when, in
1538, Henry's commissioners appeared at its gate, it was in a fit
condition to be suppressed. Layton, the chief commissioner, says of
it: "So beggarly a house I never see, nor so filthy stuff. I will no
20s. for all the hangings in this house, as the bearer can tell you....
So many evil I never see, the stuff is like the persons"; and he
further speaks of the inmates as "the worst that ever I see in all
other places, whereat I see specially the blake sort of dyvellyshe
monks".

As we pass through the magnificent gateway, worthy indeed to guard the
treasure within, our pleasure increases at every step, for though the
ruins are but few and fragmentary they are enshrined in that most
glorious of settings, a beautiful garden. The great church itself has
long since disappeared, for Sir Anthony Browne, to whom the place was
given after the visit of the vandal commissioners, saw nothing of worth
in it. Just a fragment of the nave wall is pointed out in the woodyard
at the back of the modern mansion, and a piece of the cloister arcading
on the east side. But we can get a very good idea of its great size
from the disposition of the ruins. The spot to which we turn with
eagerness is the site of the high altar, the death-place of Harold. It
is a spot of