The Norman fleet and army had been assembled, early in the summer, at the mouth of the small river Dive, and all the troops had been instantly embarked; but the winds proved long contrary, and detained them in that harbor. The authority, however, of the duke, the good discipline maintained among the seamen and soldiers, and the great care in supplying them with provisions, had prevented any disorder, when at last the wind became favorable, and enabled them to sail along the coast, till they reached St. Valori. There were, however, several vessels lost in this short passage; and as the wind again proved contrary, the army began to imagine that Heaven had declared against them, and that, notwithstanding the pope’s benediction, they were destined to certain destruction. These bold warriors, who despised real dangers, were very subject to the dread of imaginary ones; and many of them began to mutiny, some of them even to desert their colors, when the duke, in order to support their drooping hopes, ordered a procession to be made with the relics of St. Valori,[*] and prayers to be said for more favorable weather. [* Higden, p. 285. Order Vitalis, p. 500. M. Paris, edit. Pai anno 1644, p. 2.] The wind instantly changed; and as this incident happened on the eve of the feast of St. Michael, the tutelar saint of Normandy, the soldiers, fancying they saw the hand of Heaven in all these concurring circumstances, set out with the greatest alacrity: they met with no opposition on their passage. A great fleet which Harold had assembled, and which had cruised all summer off the Isle of Wight, had been dismissed on his receiving false intelligence that William, discouraged by contrary winds and other accidents, had laid aside his preparations. The Norman armament, proceeding in great order, arrived, without any material loss, at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army quietly disembarked. The duke himself, as he leaped on shore, happened to stumble and fall; but had the presence of mind, it is said, to turn the omen to his advantage, by calling aloud that he had taken possession of the country. And a soldier, running to a neighboring cottage, plucked some thatch, which, as if giving him seizin of the kingdom, he presented to his general. The joy and alacrity of William and his whole army was so great, that they were nowise discouraged, evan when they heard of Harold’s great victory over the Norwegians. They seemed rather to wait with impatience the arrival of the enemy.