The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London
with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion: in
concert with Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of great
authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and endeavored
to put the people in a posture of defence, and encourage them to
resist the Normans.[*] But the terror of the late defeat, and the near
neighborhood of the invaders, increased the confusion inseparable from
great revolutions; and every resolution proposed was hasty, fluctuating,
tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction; ill planned, and worse
executed.
William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their
consternation or unite their counsels, immediately put himself in motion
after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise which nothing
but celerity and vigor could render finally successful. His first
attempt was against Rornney, whose inhabitants he severely punished, on
account of their cruel treatment of some Norman seamen and soldiers, who
had been carried thither by stress of weather, or by a mistake in their
course;[**] and foreseeing that his conquest of England might still be
attended with many difficulties and with much opposition, he deemed it
necessary, before he should advance farther into the country, to make
himself master of Dover, which would both secure him a retreat in
cast of adverse fortune, and afford him a safe landing-place for such
supplies as might be requisite for pushing his advantages.
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