The Kentish men were placed in the van; a post which they had always claimed as their due: the Londoners guarded the standard; and the king himself, accompanied by his two valiant brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dismounting, placed himself at the head of his infantry, and expressed his resolution to conquer or to perish in the action.

The first attack of the Normans was desperate, but was received with equal valor by the English; and after a furious combat, which remained long undecided, the former, overcome by the difficulty of the ground, and hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax their vigor, then to retreat; and confusion was spreading among the ranks; when William, who found himself on the brink of destruction, hastened, with a select band, to the relief of his dismayed forces.

His presence restored the action; the English were obliged to retire with loss; and the duke, ordering his second line to advance, renewed the attack with fresh forces and with redoubled courage.

Finding that the enemy aided by the advantage of ground, and animated by the example of their prince, still made a vigorous resistance, he tried a stratagem which was very delicate in its management, but which seemed advisable in his desperate situation, where, if he gained not a decisive victory, he was totally undone: he commanded his troops to make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy from their ground by the appearance of flight.

The artifice succeeded against those unexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and sanguine in their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the plain.