His promises. things had happened, and Robert and his partisans had now before them the harder task of driving William from a throne which was already his, instead of merely hindering him from mounting it. Up to this time Robert had done nothing; but now, in answer to the urgent prayers of his uncles, he did get together a force for their help, and promised that he would himself follow it before long.[1]
William marches on Pevensey.
The English besiege Odo in Pevensey.
The castle of Pevensey.
The news of Odo's presence at Pevensey at once
changed the course of William's march. Wherever the
Bishop of Bayeux was, there was the point to be aimed
at.[2] Instead of going on to Rochester, the King turned
and marched straight upon Pevensey. The exact line
of his march is not told us, but it could not fail to cross,
perhaps it might for a while even coincide with, the line of
march by which Harold had pressed to the South-Saxon
coast on the eve of the great battle. Things might seem
to have strangely turned about, when an English army,
led by a son of the Conqueror, marched to lay siege to
the two brothers and chief fellow-workers of the Conqueror
within the stronghold which was the very first-fruits
of the Conquest. The Roman walls of Anderida
were still there; but their whole circuit was no longer
desolate, as it had been when the Conqueror landed, and
as we see it now again. One part of the ancient city had
again become a dwelling-place of man. As Pevensey
now stands, the south-eastern corner of the Roman en-*
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1088. "Betwyx þissum se eorl of Normandige Rod-*beard, þes cynges broðer, gaderode swiðe mycel folc, and þohte to gewinnane Englelande mid þæra manna fultume þe wæron innan þisan lande ongean þone cyng, and he sende of his mannan to þisum lande, and wolde cuman himsylf æfter."
- ↑ Florence seems here to translate what the Chronicler had said a little before (see above, p. 67); "Inito itaque salubri consilio, illum eo usque cum exercitu persequitur, sperans se belli citius finem assequuturum, si ante triumphare posset de principibus malorum prædictorum."
