The trip across the English Channel, late in September, was lighted up by the Comet, and under its lustre the Norman invaders first pitched their camp at Pevensey. Once more, when William’s Norman followers quailed at the fierce work before them, William pointed to the Comet as a token of coming victory. A fortnight later, directly after the disappearance of the Comet, the Battle of Hastings was fought, in which King Harold and his Saxon thanes lost their lives and their country. Afterwards, when Queen Matilda and her court ladies embroidered the pictorial story of her husband’s Conquest of England in the huge tapestry of Bayeux, they did not forget the Comet. They represented Harold cowering in alarm on his throne, whilst his people are huddled together, pointing with their fingers at the fearful omen in the sky, the birds even being upset at the sight. The Latin legend over the picture “Isti Mirant Stella” (they marvel at the star), makes it all plain. As I. C. Bruce, the editor of “The Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated,” has said: “This embroidery is remarkable for furnishing us with the earliest human representation we have of a Comet.” The Comet of 1066 will ever be famous for ushering in a new era for England. Even to-day Halley’s Comet is remembered as “The Comet of the Conquest.” [Illustration: WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. (An English Dream.) Halley’s Comet appeared in 1066—When William the Conqueror took England. Halley’s Comet is here to-day.—Kladderadatsch (Berlin).] 989 The appearance of the Comet this year was marked by bloody wars all over Europe. The Lombards under Otho were harrying the ancient Roman Empire, while the heathen Danes and Wends ravaged Germany. 912 The Comet appeared early in the year and was seen over Germany, as noted in the chronicles of the monks of St. Gallus in Switzerland. Immediately after the appearance of the Comet, Germany was ravaged by war, both inside and outside, the Empire being invaded on all sides by the Danes in the North, the Slavs in the Northeast, and the Magyars from Hungary. 837 The Chinese Astronomers record two Comets for this year, one in February, and the other in April. But the modern view is that this was the same Comet, as seen going to the Sun, and afterward, when it was coming away from the Sun. Immediately after the appearance of the Comet there followed a widespread rebellion in China with much bloodshed and fierce reprisals. The only Christian record of the Comet we have is that of Eginard, an astrologer employed at the Court of Louis the Debonair, in France. This is Eginard’s account of the Comet: “In the midst of the holy festival of Easter there shone forth in our sky a sign always ominous and of sad foreboding. As soon as the Emperor—who was in the habit of gazing up into the sky at night—first saw the Comet, he had me called before him, together with another learned star gazer. As soon as I came before him he asked me what I thought of the sign in heaven.”