CHAPTER X
THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS
It is not often on one's way, even in England of my heart, that one
can come upon a place, a lonely hill-side or a city, and say: this is
a spot upon which the history of the world was decided; yet I was able
on that showery morning, as I went up out of Hastings towards Battle
and saw all the level of Pevensey full of rain, to recall two such
places in which I had stood already upon my pilgrimage. For I had
lingered a whole morning upon the battlefield where the Romans first
met and overthrew our forefathers and thus brought Britain within the
Empire; while at Canterbury I had been in the very place where, after
an incredible disaster, England was persuaded back again out of
barbarism into the splendour of the Faith and of civilisation. These
places are more than English, they are European sanctuaries, two of
the greater sites of the history of Europe. Perhaps as much cannot
rightly be said for the hill where the town of Battle stands, the
landing-place at Pevensey and the port of Hastings.
And yet I don't know. What a different England it would have been if
William of Normandy had failed or had never landed here at all.
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