hat may be, in the full daylight,
about nine o'clock of Saturday, October 14th, the battle was joined.

This tremendous affair which was to have such enormous consequences
was opened by the minstrel Taellefer, who had besought leave of Duke
William to strike the first blow. Between the two armies he rode
singing the Song of Roland, and high into the air he flung his lance
and caught it three times e'er he hurled it at last into the amazed
English, to fall at last, slain by a hundred javelins as he rode back
into the Norman front.

Thus was begun the most famous battle ever fought in England. It
endured without advantage either way for some six hours till the
Norman horse, flung back from the charge, fell into the Malfosse in
utter confusion, and the day seemed lost to the Normans. But Odo,
Bishop of Bayeux, retrieved it and from that time, about three
o'clock, the Normans began to have the advantage. The battle seems to
have been decided at last by two clever devices attributed to William
himself. He determined to break Harold's line, and since he had not
been able to do this by repeated charges, he determined to try a
stratagem. Therefore he ordered his men to feign flight, and thus to
draw the English after them in pursuit. This was successfully done, and
when the English followed they were easily surrounded and slain.
William's other device is said to have been that of shooting high into
the air so that the arrows might turn and fall as from the sky upon
the foe. This stratagem is said to have been the cause of Harold's
death; for it was an arrow falling from on high and piercing him
through the right eye that killed him or so grievously wounded him
that he was left for dead, to be finally killed by Eustace of Boulogne
and three other knights.

With Harold down there can have been little hope of victory left to
his men, and indeed before night William had planted the Pope's banner
where Harold's had floated and held the battlefield. There he supped
among the dead, and having spent Sunday, October 15th, in burying the
fallen, he set out not for London, but for Dover, for his simple and
precise plan was to secure all the entries into England from the
continent before securing the capital. When he had done this he
marched up into England by the Watling Street, burned Southwark,
crossed the Thames at Wallingford, received there the submission of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and at Berkhampstead the submission of
Lon