I have now shown that my opponents are still as unable as ever to agree among themselves on the subject of the alleged English defence, and that as to Mr. Oman, he contradicts himself, not only in successive works, but even in a single chapter. A little _clique_ of Oxford historians, mortified at my crushing _exposé_ of Mr. Freeman’s vaunted accuracy, have endeavoured, without scruple, and with almost unconcealed anger, to silence me at any cost. And they cannot even wait until they have agreed among themselves. How entirely impotent they are to stay the progress of the truth is shown by the fact that a German writer, Dr. Spatz, who has independently examined the authorities and the ground, goes even farther than myself in rejecting Mr. Freeman’s narrative, and especially the palisade.[98] Sir James Ramsay also, on similarly independent investigation, has been driven to the same conclusion, which his recently published work embodies. Does Mr. Oman refer to Dr. Spatz, whose work is a well-known one? No, he coolly states that “the whole balance of learned opinion” is against me on this matter,[99] although, as we have seen, neither he nor Mr. Archer accepts Mr. Freeman’s narrative,[100] while their own recorded views hopelessly differ (see pp. 43, 49). Again, Mr. Oman writes: I do not see what should have induced him [Wace] to bring the wattled barrier into his narrative, unless it existed in the tale of the fight as it had been told him, etc. (p. 153). And yet he made use of my ‘Feudal England,’ in which I set forth prominently (pp. 409–416), as I had previously done in the ‘English Historical Review’ (viii. 677 _et seq._; ix. 237), my theory that the passage in Wace “is nothing but a metrical, elaborate, and somewhat confused paraphrase of the words of William of Malmesbury,” and that he was clearly misled by the words “conserta ... testudine,” which he did not understand. Mr. Archer discussed this theory, but did not venture to reject it (Ibid.). Mr. Oman finds it safer to ignore it, and to profess that he cannot imagine where Wace got the idea from, except from oral tradition. It is the same with the arrangement of the English host. In his latest work, Mr. Oman states, as a matter of fact, that the “house carles” formed the centre, and that the fyrd, divided no doubt according to its shires, was ranged on either flank (p. 155). There is no authority whatever for this view in any account of the battle, and it is wholly at variance with Mr. Oman’s own view, as stated in his earlier works.