Yet still the standard floated in the midst of a brave band who-- “Though thick the shafts as snow. Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Still fought around their King.” All who came near that close-serried ring of steadfast Saxon strength were cut down, and the piles of dead Normans round them were becoming ramparts, when twenty knights bound themselves by an oath that the standard should be taken, spurred their horses against the ranks, and by main force, with the loss of ten of their number, forced an opening. Ere the ranks could close, William and his whole force were charging into the gap made for a moment, trampling down the brave men, slaughtering on all sides, yet still unable to break through to the standard. “Till utter darkness closed her wing O’er their thin host and wounded King.” Man by man the noble Saxons were hewn down as the Normans cut their way through them, no more able to drive them back than if they had been the trees of the forest. Gyrtha, the true-hearted and noble, fell under the sword of a Norman knight, Leofwyn lay near him in his blood, yet still Harold’s voice was heard cheering on his men, and still his standard streamed above their heads. At sunset, that well-known voice was no longer heard, and the setting sun beheld Tunstan the White perform the crowning achievement of the day, uproot the standard banner of Normandy that the morning beams had seen committed to his charge. Not an earl or thane of Wessex was living; and heaps of slain lay thick on Heathfield hill, and the valley round a very lake of blood. Senlac, or Sanglac, was its old name, and sounded but too appropriate to the French ears of the Conqueror, as, in a moment of sorrow for the fearful loss of life he beheld, he vowed that here should stand an Abbey where prayer should be made for pardon for his sins and for the repose of the souls of the slaughtered. Darkness came on; but the Saxons, retreating under its cover, were still so undaunted that the Normans could hardly venture to move about the field except in considerable parties, and Eustace of Boulogne, while speaking to the Duke, was felled to the earth by a sudden blow. In the morning, Gytha, the widow of Godwin, who had lost four children by the perjury and ambition of one of them, came to entreat permission to bury. Gyrtha and Leofwyn lay near together at the foot of the banner. Harold was sought in vain, till Edith of the Swan neck, a lady he had loved, was brought to help in the melancholy quest. She declared a defaced and mangled corpse to be that of Harold, and it was carried, with those of the two brothers, to the Abbey of Waltham, where it was placed beneath a stone bearing the two sorrowful words, “Infelix Harold.”