Her ancient connection with Paris had been doubtless broken off, when the Normans occupied the lower course of the Seine, and so interrupted the voyage to St. Denis. But
the Confessor,half Norman in blood , renewed the connection with the opposite coast, by bestowing Rye, Winchelsea and the Bourne Valley, not then included in Hastings, as de pendencies of the Abbey of Fecamp, in Normandy: and we shall presently see reason to believe that in consequence of the great prosperity of the mother-town, a new Hastings arose on the abbot's land in the valley of the Bourne.
However this be, the Confessor, by placing the keys of Sussex in the hands of an immediate vassal of William , materially assisted the great enterprise of the Duke, who may have been welcomed by the neighbourhood rather as a suzerain than as a foe.[1] The details of the great event which has given Hastings a world -wide fame will be found further on ; suffice now to say that on Edward 's death and Harold's accession to the throne, William assembled a formidable expedition in the vast estuary of the Somme, overlooked by the old town of St. Valeri, that weighing anchor from Noyelles-sur-mer he crossed to Pevensey Bay, and disembarked at Bulverhythe. The stone on which, tradition says, he dined , though I should prefer to think with Mr. J. C . SAVERY that it once -
- ↑ Remigius,a monk of Fecamp became afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, and had great influence with the Conqueror, and encouraged him in his design of building Battle Abbey. Walcott's Battle Abbey. 11. After the Conquest William made a prolonged stay at the Abbey of Fecamp.
