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Chap. 1.
Introductory.
THREE years ago a letter appeared in the Hastings and St. Leonards News, suggesting the desirability of the celebration of the Octocentenary of the Battle of Hastings, and calling upon some townsmen of Hastings by name to undertake the task, (myself and Mr. Savery amongst the number.) I accepted the challenge, observing that we should not merely be celebrating the fatal Battle, fraught with so many consequences to all our race, but should be marking at the self-same time that 800 years of freedom from foreign conquest date from that day.
It has been the annual custom of the Hastings and St. -
