Around Harold's banner, his chosen warriors had formed themselves into a compact circle, the "ring of death" as the Danes called it. Harold was there with his two brothers, Gurth and Leofwin. The fight recommenced furiously between the Normans and these brave men; not one of them receded; the heaps of bodies of the slain Normans formed a rampart for them, when twenty of their foes advanced together. They had sworn to cut a passage through the English or to perish to a man. Ten of them fell, but the ranks of the Saxons remained unbroken. William rushed to the attack, followed by his best warriors. The English soldiers were dying at their posts, immovable as the oaks in their forests. Gurth was dead, Leofwin was dying, bathed in blood, and Harold alone was still fighting at the foot of his banner. At sunset he fell, in his turn, and the standard of the pope replaced the golden Dragon of Wessex. All the English earls were stretched upon the field of battle, and the few Saxons who still remained were slowly retreating; yet so dauntless were they, even in defeat, that the Normans did not dare to disperse while it was still dark. Eustace of Boulogne, speaking to Duke William, was struck down by an unexpected blow. On the morrow, at daybreak, Godwin's widow, whom William's pretensions to the English crown had deprived of four sons, came and asked permission to take away the bodies of her relations. Gurth and Leofwin had fallen together, at the foot of the banner. No one could find the body of Harold. His own mother could not distinguish him, but was obliged to send for "Swan-necked" Edith, whom her son had loved. Edith pointed to a body covered with wounds and disfigured by sword-thrusts. "That is Harold!" she said. He was borne with his brothers to Waltham Abbey, where he was buried beneath a stone bearing simply this inscription: "Infelix Harold." {103} Chapter V. Establishment Of The Normans In England. 1066-1087.