Nothing delayed the enterprise but adverse winds, and these prevailed so long that the feudal army had nearly exhausted their forty days’ stock of provisions; knight and man-at-arms murmured, and the Duke was continually going to pray in the Church of St. Valery, looking up at the weathercock every time he came out.
On the eve of St. Michael, the Duke’s anxious face became cheerful, for a favorable wind had set in, and the word was given to embark. Horses were led into the ships, the shields hung round the gunwale, and the warriors crowded in, the Duke, in his own Mora, leading the way, the Pope’s banner at his mast’s head, and a lantern at the stern to guide the rest.
By morning, however, he outstripped all the fleet, and the sailor at the mast-head could see not one; but gradually first one sail, then another, came in sight, and by the evening of Michaelmas-day, 1066, the whole nine hundred were bearing, down upon Pevensey.
Those adverse winds had done Willium more favor than he guessed, for they had delayed him till Harold had been obliged to quit his post of observation in Sussex, and go to oppose the Northmen at York, and thus there was no one to interfere with the landing of the Normans, who disembarked as peacefully at Pevensey as if it had been Rouen itself.
William was almost the first to leap on shore; but as he did so, his foot slipped, and he fell. Rising, with his hands full of mud, he called out, “Here have I taken possession of the land which by God’s help I hope to win!” Catching his humor, one of his knights tore a handful of thatch from a neighboring cottage, and put it into his hand, saying, “Sir, I give you seizin of this place, and promise that I shall see you lord of it before a month is past.”
The troops were landed first, then the horses, and lastly the carpenters, who set up at once three wooden forts, which had been brought in the ships prepared to be put together. After dinner, William ordered all the ships to be burnt, to cut off all hope of return. He continued for several days at Pevensey, exercising the troops: and viewing the country. In one of these expeditions, he gave, what was thought, a remarkable proof of strength; for on a hot day, as they were mounting a steep hill, Fitzosborn grew faint and exhausted by the weight of his ponderous iron hawberk. The Duke bade him take it off, and putting it on over his own, climbed the hill and returned to his camp wearing both at once.