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 William now set about collecting a great army of the best fighting men that France, Brittany and Flanders could produce. Our brave Harold, on his side, got the Wessex men under arms, and kept them watching all the summer. Northern England could not help him, for, a month before William landed from France, a mighty Norwegian host appeared in the Humber.

Harold, then, had to prepare to meet two invasions; and most gallantly he met them. He flew to York, smashed the Norwegians to pieces at Stamford Bridge, and flew south again: but before he reached London William had landed in Sussex. There, upon October 14, on or near the spot where Battle Abbey now stands, was fought the battle of Hastings, one of the most decisive battles in history. It was the fight of French cavalry and archers against the English and Danish foot-soldiers and axe-men, a fight of valour and cunning against valour without cunning. All day they fought, till, in the autumn darkness, the last of Harolds axemen had fallen beside their dying King, and the few English survivors had fled towards London. One of them left a bag of coins in a ditch at Sedlescombe, which was dug out a few years ago; the poor little silver pieces are a token of the many foreign countries with which Old England had dealings.

The battle of Hastings decided, though not even William knew it, that the great, slow, dogged, English race, was to be governed and disciplined (and at first severely bullied in the process) by a small number of the cleverest, strongest, most adventurous race then alive. Nothing more was wanted to make our island the greatest country in the world. The Saxons had been sinking down into a sleepy, fat, drunken, unenter-