by Pierre Du Plessis

Created on: November 21, 2008

The Battle of Hastings

"I have seen many battles," I thought to myself, "But this will have to be the biggest one I'll ever see."

It was true. Christened as Marorin of Plessis in 1031, I considered myself to be one of William's most trusted knights. I fought in several cavalry skirmishes in Val-s-Dunes, and wherever William rode after that, I rode at his side. I helped him drive back Henry when he grew jealous of the Duke's power. I fought by his side when he took Maine, and guarded his back during the Breton War when William had the traitor, Harold, fighting for him. When William called his knights together for the invasion, I had noted with considerable pleasure that I had been one of the first to arrive.

Having landed at a place the Saxons called Pevensy, we plundered several villages and small towns. I didn't exactly approve of that why slaughter those who will soon serve you? but William surely had his reasons. We then fortified a position at a place called Hastings. Since then, we have been waiting for the Saxons to get back from killing the Viking invaders. The Saxons would be demoralised and tired after the long walk from the north back to England. Shielding my eyes against the sun, I observed the positioning of the enemy army. The front ranks looked spectacular enough with huge heavily armoured axmen what did the Saxons call them, housecarls? but behind them were mere poorly-trained farm boys armed only with spears or sword that their grandfathers had owned and perhaps a shield. "They'll break on the first charge," I muttered. But there would be none of that today. The housecarls had formed a shield wall all the way along a ridge called Senlac Hill, and the only job the farm boys would have to fulfil was to make the Saxons look like many and stop us from getting through any holes in the line.

"What?" my friend Aran of Bayeux asked me incredulously. Aran had faced as many battles as I had, and was no fool. "We will have a hard time breaking those housecarls at all." He said housecarls strangely because it was a foreign word.
The Saxons had a strange language, another thing that would have to change once William became king.

I turned to survey our own forces. The Saxons may have more men than us, but we hadn't brought untrained farm boys with to fight. The centre of our line was made up of over two thousand foot soldiers in chainmail with swords, with perhaps five hundred archers in front. Our knights, of which I was proud to be one of, were positioned behind

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