Page:The Antiquities of Hastings and the Battlefield.pdf/100

Fairlight to Telham , and its western side a line of heights from Crowhurst park , running through Hollington to the sea . Two streamswhich take their rise from opposite sides of the High street of Battle, diverging -- one to the south, the other to the east -- and known as the Asten and the Brede, with the adjoining marshes, cut off all access to this triangle, except by the narrow pass of Battle, and formed vast ditches as it were, to the great natural fortress they enclosed . These heights once occupied by William , his flanks were secured and his armament screened from observation. But at the apex of this triangle (marked by a windmill), the great road to London , dipped , as it still does, with a gentle slope into the valley before Battle. To guard this pass must have been stationed the vanguard under the Count of Boulogne, some thousands strong, encamped along the ridge called Telham ,which faces to the north . And here I differ from those who assert with Professor AIRY that Harold designedly occupied the pass of Battle, on the contrary, I think all accounts show that he was in utter ignorance of the true state of affairs until it was too late ; that he believed that the great expedition he had been watching all the summer months had been irretrievably damaged by a storm that strewed the coast of Normandy with wrecks and drowned bodies ; and that when flushed with victory at York , and learning that William had actually landed with a small body (for the landing was not completed in a day ) he reckoned that he had to do with only a small part of that Armada, and that if he came upon them quickly -