The “John’s Cross” inn, the old toll-house, and a few cottages sum up the hamlet, and the rest of the way to Battle is of almost unbroken loneliness, except for the railway level-crossing, mid-way. If, before we come into the town of Battle, we re-read the stirring story of the Norman invasion of 1066, and of the Battle of Senlac, known more generally to the world as the Battle of Hastings, fought on Saturday, October 14th, in that year, so fatal to English liberties, on the spot where Battle Abbey stands,—if, I say, before approaching Battle, we read anew the story of that history-making day of carnage, we shall come into the quiet town with highly exalted feelings, and shall find it a place of many and deep significances to us. With the tale of that historic struggle thus freshened in our memories, it is not merely the quiet little Sussex country town to which we now come, but to the commanding hill of Senlac, overlooking the seven miles of wooded lesser hills and vales by which the Norman host advanced from Hastings. The Norman invasion of England, the catastrophe of Senlac, and the woes that then befell the English may all be traced to the weak character and foolish policy of Edward the Confessor, a king whose reputation for piety has, during all these intervening centuries, glozed over his lack of the first qualities of kingship. Firm rule, wise and far-seeing policy at home and abroad—those are the qualities, above all others, we look for in a king, and mere saintliness of character in a ruler has never yet, nor ever will, serve the turn of any nation. Edward the Confessor has, time beyond the memory of man, been held up as a pattern of all the virtues. We are told how he founded the Abbey of St. Peter, which we now call Westminster Abbey, on Thorney Isle; we listen, with what faith we may, to the story of how successfully he prayed away the nightingales who were disturbing his orisons at Havering-atte-Bower. We know that Rome, in the fulness of time, canonised him; but we know also that, however fitted he was in life for the cloister, however unaffected his piety, however mild and urbane his rule, certainly, from the patriotic view-point, his _métier_ was not _d’être roi_, for he it was who brought over the Normans to his court, and by his favours to them showed them how desirable a country was this England.