arrows high in the air. They came down like hail into the faces and
on the heads of the English. Harold himself was pierced by one in the
eye. The Normans charged the fence again, and broke through; and, by
the time night came on, Harold himself and all his brave Englishmen
were dead. They did not flee away; they all staid, and were killed,
fighting to the last; and only then was Harold's standard of the
fighting man rooted up, and William's standard--a cross, which had
been blessed by the Pope--planted instead of it. So ended the battle
of Hastings, in the year 1066.

The land has had a great many "conquests" hitherto--the Roman conquest,
the English conquest, and now the Norman conquest. But there have
been no more since; and the kings and queens have gone on in one long
line ever since, from William of Normandy down to Queen Victoria.




CHAPTER VII.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. A.D. 1066--1087.


The king who had conquered England was a brave, strong man, who had
been used to fighting and struggling ever since he was a young child.

He really feared God, and was in many ways a good man; but it had not
been right of him to come and take another people's country by force;
and the having done one wrong thing often makes people grow worse and
worse. Many of the English were unwilling to have William as their