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Updated: June 9, 2025
A common hostility to the conquering baronage gave the nation leaders in its foreign sovereigns, and the sword which had been sheathed at Senlac was drawn for triumphs which avenged it. It was under William the Red that English soldiers shouted scorn at the Norman barons who surrendered at Rochester.
Henceforth it was impossible that the two peoples should remain parted from each other; so quick indeed was their union that the very name of Norman had passed away in half a century, and at the accession of Henry's grandson it was impossible to distinguish between the descendants of the conquerors and those of the conquered at Senlac.
Orderic, a writer of the twelfth century, gossipy and confused but honest and well-informed, tells us much of the religious movement in Normandy, and is particularly valuable and detailed in his account of the period after the battle of Senlac.
True, it had failed to prosper the poor English, who knelt before it, ere they went to die at Senlac; but of course that was because the Pope was against them, and had suspended the flow of spiritual benediction. At least, so said the Normans, and they extolled the Black Cross as much as their predecessors.
"A Saxon peasant," said De Graville, "told me that the ground was called Senlac or Sanglac, or some such name, in their musicless jargon." "Grammercy!" quoth Grantmesnil, "methinks the name will be familiar eno' hereafter; no jargon seemeth the sound to my ear a significant name and ominous, Sanglac, Sanguelac the Lake of Blood."
Wisely he led his men to the hill of Senlac, near Hastings, a spot now occupied by the small town of Battle, so named in memory of the great fight. Here he built intrenchments of earth, stones, and tree-trunks, behind which he waited the Norman assault. Marshy ground covered the English right.
Later on, in honour of Henry, Wace told in the Roman de Rou the story of his Norman ancestors, and the poem, especially in the account of Senlac, has given some brilliant details to history.
He had fought against England on Senlac, and was one of four who had dealt the last blow to the wounded Harold. But the oppression of Ode made the Kentishmen glad to seek any help against him. Eustace, now William's enemy, came over, and gave help in an unsuccessful attack on Dover castle.
Do you remember that in Wales we agreed that it was always well to have a way of retreat in case of defeat? Well, I feel that defeat this time will mean not only the defeat of an army but the ruin of England." On Friday afternoon the army reached rising ground near the village of Senlac, which Harold had beforehand fixed upon as the place where he would give battle to the invaders.
She was in her chamber, with her son and daughter the three were together for the last time on earth. They had been talking of the happy days when the husband and father was yet alive, before the fatal day of Senlac. Alone with her children, she felt far more at peace than usual; it seemed, she said, like the dear old times.
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