res "near the town."
Nothing, or almost nothing, remains of their house.

Besides these two religious houses, Winchelsea possessed three
hospitals, those of St John, St Bartholomew and Holy Cross.

The Hospital of St Bartholomew was near the New Gate on the south-west
of the town, and dated from the refounding of Edward. Nothing remains
of it, or of the Hospital of Holy Cross, which had existed in old
Winchelsea and was set up in the new town also near the New Gate. But
the oldest and the most important of the three hospitals was that of
St John. A fragment of this remains where the road turns towards
Hastings to the north of the churchyard. Close by is the thirteenth-
century Court House.

It is always with regret I leave Winchelsea when I must, and even the
beautiful road through Icklesham into Hastings will not reconcile one
who has known how to love this place, to departure. And yet how fair
that road is and how fair is the Norman church of St Nicholas at
Icklesham upon the way! The road winds up over the low shore towards
Fairlight, ever before one, and at last as one goes up Guestling Hill
through a whole long afternoon and reaches the King's Head Inn at
sunset, suddenly across the smoke of Hastings one sees Pevensey Level,
and beyond, the hills where fell the great fight in which William Duke
of Normandy disputed for England with Harold the King. At sunset, when
all that country is half lost in the approaching darkness, one seems to
feel again the tragedy of that day so fortunate after all, in which
once more we were brought back into the full life of Europe and renewed
with the energy Rome had stored in Gaul.

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

It is not often on one's way, even in England of my heart, that one
can come upon a place, a lonely hill-side or a city, and say: this is
a spot upon which the history of the world was decided; yet I was able
on that showery morning, as I went up out of Hastings towards Battle
and saw all the level of Pevensey full of rain, to recall two such
places in which I had stood already upon my pilgrimage. For I had
lingered a whole morning upon the battlefield where the Romans first
met and overthrew our forefathers and thus brought Britain within the
Empire; while at Canterbury I had been in the very place where, after
an incredible disaster, England was persuaded back again out of
barbarism into the splendour of the Faith and of civilisation. These
places are mo