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.
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