I may have wandered somewhat from 'Senlac', but my object was to show that Mr Freeman misunderstood twelfth-century writers by assigning to them his own peculiarities. It did not in any way follow from their speaking of a 'Battle of Hastings' that they 'grotesquely' supposed it to have been fought at the town itself: they allowed themselves an elasticity, both in word and phrase, which was so alien to himself that he could not realize its existence, and therefore accused them of ignorance because their language was different from his. In the same spirit he would never admit that the 'Castellum Warham' of Domesday Book was no other than Corfe Castle, although, as Mr Eyton and Mr Bond have shown, the fact is certain. But the _crux_ is yet to come. To any one acquainted with 'Old English' it must instantly occur that 'Senlac' is not an English name. Mr Freeman glided over this by simply ignoring the difficulty, but was he aware that the name in question, as 'Senlecque' (or 'Senlecques'), is actually found--in France? One is reminded of his own criticism on the name 'Duncombe Park': When the lands of Helmsley were made to take the name of Duncombe, a real wrong was done to geography.... How came a _combe_ in Yorkshire? The thing is a fraud on nomenclature as great as any of the frauds which the first Duncombe, 'born to carry parcels and to sweep down a counting-house', contrived to commit on the treasury of the nation. How came a French 'Senlac' in 'Old English' Sussex? The name is as obviously foreign as 'Senlis' itself, and the occurrence, in later days of 'Santlachæ' as a local field-name, cannot avail against this fact, or prove that this open down, in days before the Conquest, could have borne such a title. Therefore, when Mr Freeman wrote that the English king 'pitched his camp upon the ever memorable heights of Senlac', he was guilty, not only of anachronism, but of a 'real wrong to geography', and, in the name of accuracy, he introduced error.[3] I have gone thus carefully into this matter because the name has been meekly adopted by historians, and even by journalists, thereby proving the power of that tendency to fashion and imitation on which, in his _Physics and Politics_, Mr Bagehot loved to insist. For my part I make an earnest appeal to all who may write or teach history to adhere to the 'true ancient name' of the Battle of Hastings, and to reject henceforward an innovation which was uncalled for, misleading, and wrong.[4] THE PALISADE