Page:Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 6.djvu/58

 improve and elevate our race; a battle was won—a conquest gained—for which we have infinite cause to be thankful.

"Then," says Master Wace, "William returned thanks to God, and in his pride ordered his gonfanon to be brought and set up on high, where the English standard had stood, and that was the signal of his having conquered." What follows is not a little revolting to those unaccustomed to the horrors of war: "He ordered his tent to be raised on the spot among the dead, and had his meat brought thither, and his supper prepared there. His barons pressed round him to offer their congratulations and to extol his deeds. Never had there been such a knight, they said, since Rollant and Oliver. "And the duke stood among them, of noble mien and stature, and rendered thanks to the King of glory, through whom he had the victory; and thanked the knights around him, mourning frequently for the dead. And he ate and drank among the dead, and made his bed that night upon the field."

The sabbath morning that dawned upon the scene brought few of the calm, and bright, and holy concomitants, proper to the season. Nought was there to tell of "peace upon earth and goodwill to men;" but instead of it, the sad and sickening fruits of pride, ambition, and the primal curse. Even the iron-hearted Conqueror is said to have wept at the spectacle. Then calling to his presence a clerk who, previously to the departure of the armament from St. Valery, had written down the names of the chief men of the army, he caused him to read the roll to ascertain who had fallen and who had survived; and Bishop Odo, truer now to his sacred functions, "sang mass for the souls that were departed." The document alluded to, if preserved, was the true Roll of Battel Abbey, but it has not come down to our times, and the various lists which we possess are of subsequent date, and more or less apocryphal in their character.

William's next duty, before setting out for his castellum at Hastings, was to see to the interment of the dead. If we may trust the author of the Carmen, he was in this matter guilty