incident of the Malfosse is faithfully depicted : with its steep hill side and marshy bottom , and man and horse rolling over.
The Normans, at length , lost heart, but William ordered them to shoot upwards, and he also drew the English into an ambush by a preconcerted flight, by which they were so weakened that their outer line of entrenchments was forced . They fell back to the heights behind, and the Kentish wing probably wheeled round to face the west. Here the fight was renewed , and once more English valor prevailed , the Kentish men driving the Normans before them . But in so doing, they exposed their flank to William 's body-guard of a thousand knights, who rode in and cut them to pieces. The fight now pressed round the standard, and the wounded king was slain , and his banner taken . The left wing of the English , which had been comparatively free from attack throughout the day, (one proof of which ,as LOWER has well remarked, being that no relics of the fight are to be found in the railway cutting which traverses the extreme east of the position of both armies,) was still intact, and it retreated in good order across or skirting the valley upon which the church and deanery look ; and ascending the Caldbeck hill, it might have come upon the victorious Normans who had been pursuing the broken right and centre along High street and Mount street, and have inflicted on them such chastisement as to make Count Eustace doubt whether the day was yet their own,and to induce him to advise the Duke to -
