=5. The Voyage of Duke William.=--In the course of August all was ready. The fleet was built and manned, and the army was ready to cross into England. The place of meeting was at the mouth of the Dive. The number of ships and of men is very differently told us; but the Norman poet Wace, whose father was there, says that the number of ships was 696. They were only large boats for transport, with a single mast and sail. When they were come together at the Dive, they were kept a whole month waiting for a south wind to carry them to England. It would have been better for England if the south wind had blown at once; for in August King Harold and his army were still ready to meet them; but, as it was, the Normans did not come till the first army was disbanded, and till Harold was busy with the war in the north. At last, though a south wind did not come, a west wind did, and the fleet sailed to Saint Valery at the mouth of the Somme, in Count Guy’s land of Ponthieu. They were now much nearer to England than they had been at the Dive; but they still could not cross till Wednesday, September 27, two days after the fight of Stamfordbridge. Then at last the south wind blew, and the fleet crossed in the night. The Duke’s own ship, the Mora, the gift of the Duchess Matilda, sailed first with a huge lantern at its mast to guide them. On Thursday morning the Duke of the Normans and his host landed at Pevensey in Sussex. They landed under the walls of the Roman city of Anderida, which had stood forsaken and empty, ever since it had been stormed by the South-Saxons nearly six hundred years before. There was just now no force in those parts able to hinder the Norman landing. There is a story that, as William landed, his foot slipped, and he fell. But, as he arose with his hands full of English earth, he turned and said that he had taken _seizin_ or possession of his kingdom, for that the earth of England was in his hands. Anyhow he took his first possession of English ground at Pevensey, where he left a force. He then, on Friday, September 29th, marched to Hastings, which he made his head-quarters. He there threw up a mound and made a wooden castle. And from this centre he began to harry the land far and wide, in order to make King Harold come the sooner and fight.