Here we have no tortuous imaginings, but, in plain and straightforward words, 'what historians in general evidently mean' when they speak of a 'shield-wall', what it meant to Mr Freeman, what it means to Mr Hunt, and it is admitted, to myself.[53] Such was the English shield-wall, according to Mr Freeman, at 'Senlac'; it was what Mr Archer definitely declares it cannot possibly have been. Lastly, as to the ground on which Mr Archer pronounces impossible a continuous shield-wall[54]--namely, that the English could not have fought in such close order,[55] and that the axe-men being 'shieldless ... could not have formed the shield-wall'; one need only confront him with Mr Freeman's words. MR FREEMAN MR ARCHER Referring to the mode of fighting It is enough for me that common of an English army in that age, sense, the tapestry, Wace,[58] and to 'the usual tactics of the our Italian chronicler, and his shield-wall', Mr Freeman wrote of later Old French translator all 'the close array of the show that the English axe-men battle-axe men' (p. 444). He had could not or did not form the already written of 'the English shield-wall (_English house carls with their ... huge Historical Review_, ix. p. 14). battle-axes', accustomed to Possibly they [the house carls] fight in 'the close array to the may have formed a genuine shield-wall.'[56] shield-wall; but while forming it they cannot have been _using_ 'They still formed their the 'bipennis', or the two-handed shield-wall and fought with axe (_Ibid._, p. 20, note). their great axes.'[57] I am compelled to repeat what I said in the _Quarterly Review_. We almost hesitate to waste our own and our readers' time on a writer who, professing to vindicate Mr Freeman's view as against us, devotes his energies to proving that view to be utterly absurd.[59] Nor will Mr Archer derive comfort from 'our only English "specialist" on mediaeval warfare';[60] who holds, as I had pointed out, that 'the English axemen' did fight 'arranged in a compact mass'.[61] It is significant that the fact Mr Archer so confidently rejects is precisely that on which I am at one with Mr Freeman, Mr Hunt, and Mr Oman, and to which the original authorities bear witness with peculiar unanimity. Thus William of Poitiers, an authority of the first rank, describes the English as 'maxime conferti', speaks of their 'nimia densitas', and proceeds to dwell on the terrible effect of their weapon, the famous battle-axe. William of Malmesbury tells us that the axemen 'impenetrabilem cuneum faciunt'. Even Mr Archer's authority, Wace, writes of these warriors: A pie furent _serrement_.