Happily the exact spot on which the final struggle of the day took place is clearly ascertained. The writer of the _Battle Abbey Chronicle_ tells us, that the King having resolved to commemorate his victory by the erection of a Christian temple, the high altar was placed upon the precise spot where the standard was observed to fall.[106] Long after all traces of the Abbey Church had been obliterated, the finger of tradition faithfully pointed to the spot so interesting to all Englishmen. In the year 1817, the proprietor of the soil, anxious to test the truth of the popular belief, made the necessary excavations, and in the very place indicated, at the depth of several feet below the surface, found the remains of an altar in the easternmost recess of the crypt of the church.[107]
William on that day fought well--as well he might, for he had engaged in a desperate venture--“many a blow did he give, and many receive, and many fell dead under his hand.” Two horses were killed under him. After the English had been exterminated, or had forsaken the field, the Duke returned thanks to God, and ordered his gonfanon to be erected where Harold’s standard had stood. Here, too, he raised his tent. Amidst the dying and the dead he partook of his evening meal and passed the night.
The next morning which dawned upon that sad battle field was the Sabbath. On that first day of the week no heavenly choir sang of peace on earth and good will toward men. The human family was exhibited in its most painful aspect, “hateful and hating one another”--that field but recently covered over with the golden sheaves of harvest, now bore upon its surface the gory fruits of man’s ambition.
“When William called over the muster-roll, which he had prepared before he left the opposite coast, many a knight, who on the day when he sailed, had proudly answered to his name, was then numbered with the dead. The land which he had done homage for was useless to him now.”[108] He had come to win large domains and baronial honours--six feet of common earth was all he got. “The Conqueror had lost more than one-fourth of his army.”[109] Both parties spent the day in burying the dead. “The noble ladies of the land also came, some to seek their husbands, and others their fathers, sons, or brothers.”