markk

This has proven an even more interesting read than I expected, thanks to passages like this one about William of Normandy awaiting favorable sailing conditions:

It was then that William, confronted by the powerlessness of man and the perversity of nature, fell back upon his faith; and at his asking the body of St. Valéry, who had founded the abbey there in the seventh century, was carried in its shrine, with the abbot and monks in procession, and placed on a carpet spread upon the ground and exposed to the general view of the army. The great host, kneeling in ranks above the shrine, prayed for a favourable wind; offerings of money, to be used in beautifying the shrine, accompanied the prayers, and coins were showered down in such numbers that the saint's casket was soon covered.

     On the next day (Wednesday the 27th) the weather cleared; and glancing at the vane on the abbey tower, William saw that the breath of God, at the intercession of St. Valéry, had shifted to the south.

It's a passage I would expect to find in a work written in the twelfth century rather than the twentieth. It's not atypical of the book, either, as Compton sees God's disfavor with Harold as the basis for his defeat. It's little wonder that modern-day historians steer clear of this book.