The New Forest: its history and its scenery/Chapter 9

by John Richard de Capel Wise

 

CHAPTER IX.

MINESTEAD AND RUFUS'S STONE.

About four miles off from Lyndhurst lie Minestead and Rufus's Stone. There are three or four different roads to them. The most beautiful, though the longest, is over Emery Down, where, turning off to the left, you pass the woods of Kitt's Hill, and James Hill. Then crossing Millaford Bridge, and skirting on each side of the road the beeches of Holme Hill, and passing through Boldrewood, you make your way eastward across the stream below the Withy Bed Hat, and go through the woods of Puckpits and Stonehard.

Another road to the Stone is through Minestead by a footpath which crosses Mr. Compton's park, dotted with cottages, each with its garden full in the summer and autumn of flowers—yellow Aaron-rods, pink candy-tufts, colchicums, and marigolds, and tall sheaves of grey Michaelmas daisies.

In the village stands "The Faithful Servant," copied from the well-known picture at Winchester College. A little farther on we ascend Stoneycross Hill, the village orchards full of Mary-apples and Morrisses mingling their blossoms, in the spring, with the green Forest oaks. As we reach the top, suddenly there opens out one long view. On the north-east rise the hills beyond Winchester; but the "White City" is hidden in their valley. To the east lies Southampton, with its houses by the water-side; and to the north, across the woods of Prior's Acre, gleam the green Wiltshire downs lit up by the sunlight.

Close to us, among its beeches, lies Castle Malwood, with its single trench and Forest lodge, where tradition and poets say Rufus feasted before his death; and down in the valley stands the Stone which marks the spot where he is said to have fallen.

It will be as well to repeat the story, as told by the two Chroniclers who give the fullest account, with all its omens and apparitions. The King had gone to bed on the evening of the 1st of August, and was suddenly awoke by a fearful vision. He dreamt that he was bled, and the stream of blood, pouring up to heaven, clouded the very day. His attendants, hearing his cries to the Virgin, rushed in with lights, and stayed with him all that night. Morning dawned: and Robert Fitz Hamon, his special friend, came to him with another dream, dreamt also that very night by a foreign monk then staying at the court, who had seen the King enter a church, and there seize the rood, tearing apart its legs and arms. For a time the image bore the insult, but suddenly struck the King. He fell, and flames and smoke issued from his mouth, putting out the light of the stars. The Red King's courage, however, had by this time returned. With a laugh, he cried, "He is a monk, and dreams for money like a monk: give him this," handing Fitz Hamon a hundred shillings. Still the two dreams had their effect, and "William hesitated to test their truth.^[1] At dinner that day he drank more than usual. His spirits once more returned. He defied the dreams. In spite of their warnings, he determined to hunt. As he was preparing, his armourer approached with six brand-new arrows. Choosing out two, he cried, as he gave them to Walter Tiril, Lord of Poix and Pontoise, who had lately come from Normandy, "The best arrows to the best marksman." The small hunting-party, consisting of his brother Henry, William of Breteuil, Walter Tiril, and Fitz Hamon, and a few more, set out. As they are leaving the courtyard, a monk from St. Peter's Abbey at Gloucester arrives. He gives the King a letter from Serlo, the abbot. It told how a monk of that abbey had dreamt that he had seen the Saviour and all the host of heaven standing round the great white throne. Then, too, came the Virgin robed in light, and flung herself at the feet of her Son, and prayed Him, by his precious blood and agony on the cross, to take pity on the English; prayed too, as He was judge of all men, and avenger of all wickedness, to punish the King. The Saviour answered her, "You must be patient and wait: due retribution will in time befall the wicked." The King read it and laughed. "Does Serlo," he asked, "think that I believe the visions of every snoring monk? Does he take me for an Englishman, who puts faith in the dreams of every old woman?"^[2] With this the party once more sets out into the Forest, the woods still green with all their deep summer foliage.

So they hunted all that noon and afternoon. The sun was now setting. Tiril and the King were alone.^[3] A stag bounded by: the King shot and slightly wounded the quarry. On, though, it still bounded in the full light of the setting sun. The King stood watching it, shading his eyes with his hands. At that moment another deer broke cover. Tiril this time shot, and the shaft lodged itself in the King's breast.^[4] He fell without a word or groan, vainly trying to pull out the arrow, which broke short in his hand.

Thus perished William the Red. Tiril leapt on his horse. Henry galloped to Winchester, and the other nobles to their houses. One exception was there. William of Breteuil, following hard upon Henry to Winchester, honourably declared the rights of the absent Robert, to whom both Henry and himself had sworn fealty. William's body was brought on a cart to the cathedral, the blood from his wound reddening the road.^[5] There the next morning^[6] he was buried, unlamented, unknelled, and unaneled.^[7]

So runs the story as told by the Chroniclers. And to this day popular tradition not only repeats their tale, but points to the places associated with the event. Below our feet lies the lonely glen of Canterton, where the King is said to have fallen.

The oak from which, as the legend runs, the arrow glanced, is long since dead, but a stone marks its site, now capped over with a hideous cast-iron case.^[8] In the woods and in the village of Minestead still live some of the descendants of Purkess, who is reported to have carried the bleeding corpse in his charcoal-cart to Winchester along the road now known as the King's Road. Twelve miles away, on the extreme south-west boundary of the Forest, close to the Avon, stands a smithy, on the site of the one where, the legend says, Walter Tiril's horse was shod, and which, for that reason, to this day pays a yearly fine to the Crown: and the water close by, where the fugitive passed, is still called Tyrrel's Ford. And Rufus lies in Winchester Cathedral, his bones now mixed with those of Canute; and under a marble tomb, in the south aisle of the presbytery, sleeps his brother Richard, slain also like himself in the Forest.

So runs the story, unquestioned save here and there by some few faint doubts.^[9] As to the tradition, I think we may at once set aside its testimony. The value of mere tradition in history weighs, or ought to weigh, nothing. Here and there tradition may be true in a very general sense, as when it says the Isle of Wight was once joined to Hampshire; but it is never particular in its dates, and is ever in too much hurry to compare facts. Tradition, as often as not, kills the murderer instead of the murdered; and makes the man who built the place to have been born there. Tradition is, in fact, the history of the vulgar, and the stumbling-block of the half-learned.

We will look at the broader bearings of the case. The first thing which strikes us is the fact that two other very near relatives of the Red King, his brother and his nephew, also lost their lives by so-called accidents in the New Forest. If we are to believe the Chroniclers, his brother Richard met his death whilst hunting there, according to one narrative, by a pestilential blast—surely, at the least, a very unsatisfactory account;^[10] though, by another version, from the effects of a blow against a tree.^[11] His nephew Richard was either wounded by an arrow through the neck, or caught by the boughs of a tree and strangled—a still more improbable death;^[12] whilst, according to Florence of Worcester, he was killed by the arrow of one of his own knights.^[13] We will only here pause to notice not only the extreme improbability, but the contradictory statements in both cases, which will not, of course, increase the value of the same evidence concerning Rufus.^[14]

And now we will examine the version of his death. History is at all times subjective enough, but becomes far more so when written by unfriendly Chroniclers, who have good reasons for suppressing the truth. The story reads at the very first glance too much like a romance. In the first place, we have no less than three dreams, which are always effects rather than causes—after-thoughts rather than prophecies, well fitted to suit the superstition of the times, and to deceive the crowd. Then, too, we find the old device of the armourer craving the King to take six brand-new arrows, by one of which at the hand of his friend he is fated to fall on the very spot which his father had laid waste, and where he is said to have destroyed a church.

It may of course be urged that all this is in accordance with what we know of the eternal power of the moral laws, that the sins of the fathers are ever visited upon the sons to the third and fourth generations, and that time ever completes the full circle of retribution. But the flaw is, that this special judgment is too special. "Divine vengeance" and "judgment of God," the Chroniclers cry out one after another, and this is thought sufficient to account for three so-called accidental deaths. The moral laws, however, never fall so directly as they are here represented. Their influence is more oblique. The lightning of justice does not immediately follow each peal of suffering.

Leaving, however, the Chroniclers' views to themselves, let us look further at some of the facts which peep out in the narrative. Why, in the first place, we naturally ask, if the King was shot by accident, did his friends and attendants desert him? Why was he brought home in a cart, drawn by a wretched jade, the blood, not even staunched, flowing from the wound, clotting the dust on the road? Why, too, the indecent haste of his funeral? Why, afterwards, was no inquiry as to his death made? Why, too, was Tiril's conduct not investigated? These questions are difficult to answer, except upon one supposition.

Let us note, also, that they are all ecclesiastics, to whom the revelations of the King's speedy end had been made known, and that their special favourite, Henry, succeeded to the throne in spite of his elder brother's right. It is, certainly, too, something more than singular that when the banished Anselm should visit Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, that the Abbot should tell him that during the past night he had seen William summoned before God and sentenced to damnation, and that the King's death immediately followed: that further, on the next day, when he went to Lyons, his chaplain should be twice told by a youth of the death of William before it took place.^[15] More than singular, too, are those words of Fulchered, spoken so openly and so daringly, "The bow of God's vengeance is bent against the wicked; and the arrow swift to wound is already drawn out of the quiver."^[16]

Either all these persons were prophets, or accessories to the murder, or—for there is one more solution—the Chroniclers invented this portion of the story. If we admit this last supposition, we cannot receive the other parts of the narrative without the greatest suspicion. We have almost a sufficient warrant to read them in an exactly opposite sense to what they were intended to bear.

Let us remember, also, that Flambard, Rufus's prime minister, who was universally hated by the clergy, and who had lately banished Godric, of Christchurch, into Normandy, was instantly stripped of his possessions by Henry, and Godric reinstated, and the banished Anselm recalled; and, lastly, and most important of all, that Tiril, who had just arrived from Normandy, was a friend of Anselm's,^[17] and, further, that Alanus de Insulis, better known as le Docteur Universel, who lived not long after the event, actually says that in his opinion it was caused by treachery.^[18] Surely all these facts and coincidences point but one way. All tend to show, as plainly as possible, that Rufus fell by no chance, but by a conspiracy of his prelates, who held the crozier in one, and the battle-axe in the other hand.^[19] The cause of their hatred is at once supplied by his refusing to pay St. Peter's pence—denying the Pope's supremacy—banishing Anselm—promoting Flambard—holding all the bishoprics and other offices which fell vacant^[20]—by his cruelties to their different orders at Canterbury and Crowland, and throughout England, whose enmity died not with his death, but made them believe that the tower of Winchester Cathedral fell because they allowed him to be buried in its nave.

Reading, in the Chroniclers, the life of the Red King seems like rather reading a series of plots against it, not by the English, who were too thoroughly cowed to make the slightest resistance, but by his own prelates and barons.^[21] His uncle Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, headed the first rebellion against him, as soon as he usurped the throne. William, Bishop of Durham, his own Minister, conspired against him. Bishop Gosfrith, with his nephew Robert, Earl of Northumberland, rebelled in the west. Roger Montgomery rose on the Welsh Marches. Roger Bigod in the eastern, and Hugo of Grentemesnil in the Midland Counties hoisted the flag of revolt.^[22] Such was England at the beginning of his reign. In 1096, his own godfather, William de Aldrey, justly or unjustly, was accused of treason, and died on the gallows.^[23] William, Count of Eu, kinsman to the King, suffered a worse fate for the same crime. His steward, William, also a kinsman of the King's, was hung on a rood. Eudes, Count of Champagne, forfeited his lands. Others not only shared the same fate, but were deprived of their eyesight.^[24] His northern barons, headed by Robert of Mowbray, goaded to desperation by the Forest Laws, rose in revolt. Roger of Yvery, son of the Conqueror's favourite, led the Midland barons, and was obliged to fly, and all his vast estates, close to the New Forest, forfeited. Normandy, from whence Tiril had just come, swarmed with outlawed enemies, both churchmen and laymen. It was the nest where all the plots could be safely hatched.

Knowing all this, knowing, too, that the conspiracies became more frequent as his tyranny increased, we can scarcely avoid coming to but one conclusion as to his death.

It might suit the policy of the times to throw the guilt on Tiril, but Tiril certainly did not shoot the arrow. We have his own most solemn declaration to various people, and especially, not once but often, to Suger, the well-known Abbot of St. Denis, when he had nothing to gain or lose, that he had on the day of the King's death not only not entered that part of the Forest, but had not so much as even seen him.^[25]

Tiril, however, was certainly implicated in the plot. His haste to leave the country arose, probably, not so much from a wish to escape as to convey the news of the success to Normandy: and popular tradition mistaking the cause, with its usual inaccuracy, fixed on the wrong person as the assassin. In after years, however, from some scruple of conscience, he expiated his share in the murder by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Who shot the fatal arrow we know not, and, perhaps, shall never know. We must not expect to get truth in history,—only, at the best, some faint glimmering. All is here confusion and darkness. John of Salisbury, who lived about the middle of the twelfth century, says it was as little known who killed the King as who slew Julian the Apostate.^[26] The very spot where he fell is doubtful. One thing, however, seems certain, that he was slain, not, as the Chroniclers say, because his father made the New Forest, but through his own cruelties and excesses, by which he outraged both friend and foe.

It is not single passages which alone leave this impression, but still more the cumulative force of the evidence. The fact that all were gainers by his death, and the general abhorrence of the tyrant, are in themselves strong reasons. Not one, but all parties were bound together against him by the strongest of covenants—hatred. The marked and bitter prophecies, which would not have been uttered were not their fulfilment ensured,—the suspicious silence on all important points,—the pretended dreams and omens,—the abandonment of the body,—the want of any inquiry into the cause of death,—the connection between the Church party and Anselm with Henry I., and Anselm's connection again with Tiril, all serve to show the depth and darkness of the plot.

His life throws the best light on his death. Read by it, by the extortions and atrocities which he committed, by the universal hatred in which he was held, the conclusion is inevitable. Years of violence were the prelude to a violent end. The many failures in open revolt seem only to have taught the lesson of greater caution. And treachery at last succeeded, where plain courage had so often failed.

Direct proof of the murder cannot be had, and must not be expected. Every one was interested in keeping that a secret by which all alike profited. To have declared it, would have covered the Crown with disgrace, and stained the hands of the Church.

Their own absurdities and contradictions form the best refutation of the common accounts. In details they are irreconcilable with each other. According to one, the King was alone with Tiril; to another, with all his attendants. One narrative declares that the arrow glanced from a boar, a second from a stag, a third from a tree. Even if we accept them, then either the power of prophecy lasted much longer than is commonly supposed, or, as we have said, the clergy were accessories to the murder;—we have no other choice. The last of these solutions is fatal to the common belief; and very few persons would, I suppose, venture upon the first. Nevertheless, the monk of Gloucester's dream was not yet to be fulfilled. The hour was not yet at hand for England's deliverance. As the Parliamentary party said in Charles the First's time—"Things must become worse before they can mend." England had, therefore, to undergo a tyranny for more than a century longer—till the evil became its own cure. Good was at length accomplished. Out of all the woe and wretchedness came the Bill of Rights and the Charta de Forestâ.

Footnotes

1. William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum. Ed. Hardy, tom, ii., lib. iv., sect. 333, p. 508.
2. Vitalis: Historia Eccl., pars, iii., lib x., cap. xii., in Migne: Patrologicæ Cursus, tom, clxxxviii. pp. 751, 752; where occurs (pp. 750, 751) a most remarkable sermon, on the wrongs and woes of England, preached at St. Peter's Abbey, Shrewsbury, on St. Peter's Day, by Fulchered, first abbot of Shrewsbury, a man evidently of high purpose, ending with these ominous words:—" The bow of God's vengeance is bent against the wicked. The arrow, swift to wound, is already drawn out of the quiver. Soon will the blow be struck but the man who is wise to amend will avoid it." Surely this is more than a general denunciation. On the very next day William the Red falls.
3. Malmesbury, as before quoted, p. 509. Vitalis, however, in Migne, as before, p. 751, says there were some others.
4. William of Malmesbury says nothing about the tree, from which nearly all modern historians represent the arrow as glancing. Vitalis, as before, p. 751, expressly states that it rebounded from the back of a beast of chase (fera), apparently, by the mention of bristles (setæ), a wild-boar. Matthew Paris (Ed. Wats., tom. i. p. 54) first mentions the tree, but his narrative is doubtful.
5. Malmesbury, as before, p. 509. The additions that it was a charcoal-cart, as also the owner's name, are merely traditional.
6. The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364.
7. Vitalis, as before, p. 752. Neither William of Malmesbury nor Vitalis, who go into details, mentions the spot where the King was killed. The Chronicle and Florence of Worcester most briefly relate the accident, though Florence adds that William fell where his father had destroyed a chapel. (Ed. Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 45). Henry of Huntingdon (Historiarum, lib. vii., in Saville's Scriptores Rerum Anglicarum, p. 378) says but little more, dwelling only on the King's wickedness and the supernatural appearance of blood. Matthew Paris brings a bishop on the scene, as explaining another dream of the King's, and gives the King's speech of "trahe arcum, diabole" to Tiril, which has a certain mad humour about it, as also the incident of the tree, and the apparition of a goat (Hist. Major. Angl. Ed. Wats., pp. 53, 54), which are not to be found in Roger of Wendover (Flores Hist. Ed. Coxe, tom. ii., pp. 157-59), and therefore open to the strongest suspicion. Matthew of Westminster (Flores Hist. Ed. 1601, p. 235) follows, in most of his details, William of Malmesbury. Simon of Durham (De Gestis Regum Anglorum, in Twysden's Historia Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, p. 225), as, too, Walter de Hemingburgh (Ed. Hamilton, vol. i. p. 33), and Roger Hoveden (Annalium Pars Prior, in Saville's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, pp. 467, 468), copy Florence of Worcester. So, too, in various ways, with all the later writers, who had access to no new sources of information. Peter Blois, however, in his continuation of Ingulph (Gales's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, tom. i. pp. 110, 111; Oxford 1684) is more vivid, and adds that the dogs were chasing the stags up a hill; but his whole book is very doubtful, and his account in this particular instance is irreconcilable with the others. They all, however, with the exception of the Chronicle and William of Newburgh (Ed. Hamilton, vol. i. book i., ch. ii., p. 17), who are silent, agree in saying that Tiril committed the deed by accident. Of later writers, Leland, in his Itinerary (vol. vi. f. 100, p. 88) states that the King fell at Thorougham, where in his time there was still a chapel standing, evidently meaning Fritham, called Truham in Domesday. Gilpin (Forest Scenery, vol. i. p, 166) mentions a similar tradition; so that there is a very reasonable doubt as to the spot itself being where the Stone stands, especially since, with the exception of the vague remark of Florence, none of the best Chroniclers say one word about the place. Thierry, in many minor particulars, follows Knyghton, whose authority is of little value, and I have therefore omitted all reference to him.
8. Very much against my inclination, I give a sketch of the iron case of the Stone, which the artist has certainly succeeded in making as beautiful as it is possible to do. The public would not, I know, think the book complete without it. It stands, however, rather as a monument of the habit of that English public, who imagine that their eyes are at their fingers' ends, and of a taste which is on a par with that of the designer of the post-office pillar-boxes, than of the Red King's death; for the spot where he fell is, as we have seen from the previous note, by no means certain. We must, too, remember that there is no mention made by the Chroniclers of Castle Malwood, but the context in Vitalis, as also the late hour mentioned by Malmesbury when William went out to hunt, show that he was at the time staying somewhere in the Forest.
9. See, as before, Lappenberg's History of England under the Norman Kings, pp. 266-8; and Sharon Turner's History of England during the Middle Ages, vol. iv. pp. 166-8.
10. "Tabidi aëris nebulâ" are the words of William of Malmesbury. (Gesta Regum Anglorum. Ed. Hardy, tom, ii., lib. iii., sect. 275, pp. 454, 455.)
11. Gul. Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannorum, lib. vii., cap. ix. To be found in Camden's Anglica Scripta, p. 674.
12. This seems to be the meaning of a not very clear passage in William of Malmesbury. Same edition as before, p. 455. Vitalis, however, Historia Ecclesiastica, pars 3, lib. x., cap. xi. (in Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, tom. clxxxviii. pp. 748, 749), says he was shot by a knight, who expiated the deed by retiring to a monastery, and speaks in high terms both of him and his brother William, who fell in one of the Crusades.
13. Ed. Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 45. Lewis, in his Topographical Remarks on the New Forest, pp. 57-62, is hopelessly wrong with regard to Richard, the son of Robert, a grandson of the Conqueror, whom he calls Henry, and confounds at p. 62 with his uncle; and makes both William of Malmesbury and Baker (see his Chronicle, p. 37, Ed. 1730) say quite the reverse of what they write.
14. As I am not writing a History of England during this period, my space will not permit me to enter into those details which, when viewed collectively, carry so much weight in an argument, but at all events, it will be well for some of my readers to bear in mind the character of William II., who in a recent work has lately been elevated into a hero. Without any of his father's ability or power of statesmanship, he inherited all his vices, which he so improved that they became rather his own. From having no occupation for his mind, he sank more and more into licentiousness and lust. ("Omni se immunditia deturpabat," is the strong expression of John of Salisbury. Life of Anselm, part ii. ch. vii., in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 163. See, also, Suger, Vita Lud. Grossi Regis, cap. i., in Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, tom. xii. p. 12. D. E.) Being lustful, he naturally became cruel; not as his father was, on, at least, the plea of necessity, but that he might enjoy a cultivated pleasure in gloating over the sufferings of others. From being cruel, too, he became, in its worst sense, an infidel; not from any pious scruple or deep conviction, but simply that he might indulge his passions. (See that fearful story of the trial of forty Englishmen told in Eadmer: Hist. Nov., lib. ii., p. 48, Ed. 1633, which illustrates in a twofold manner both his cruelty and his atheism.)
    To a total want of eloquence he joined the most inveterate habit of stammering, so that, when angry, he could barely speak. His physical appearance, too, well harmonized with his moral and mental deformities. His description reads rather like that of a fiend than of a man. Possessing enormous strength, he was small, thick-set, and ill-shaped, having a large stomach. His face was redder than his hair, and his eyes of two different colours. His vices were, in fact, branded on his face. (Malmesbury, Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iv., sect. 321, p. 504, whom I have literally translated.)
    Let us look, too, at the events of his reign. Crime after crime crowds upon us. His first act was to imprison those whom his father had set free. He loaded the Forest haws with fresh horrors. Impartial in his cruelty, he plundered both castle and monastery (The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364). He burnt out the eyes of the inhabitants of Canterbury, who had taken the part of the monks of St Augustin's. At the very mention of his approach the people fled (Eadmer: Hist. Nov., lib. iv. p. 94). Unable himself to be everywhere, his favourites, Robert d'Ouilly harried the middle, and Odineau d'Omfreville the north of England; whilst his Minister, Ralph Flambard, committed such excesses that the people prayed for death as their only deliverance (Annal. Eccles. Winton., in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, tom. i. p. 295).
    As The Chronicle impressively says, "In his days all right fell, and all wrong in the sight of God and of the world rose." Norman and English, friend and foe, priest and layman, were united by one common bond of hatred against the tyrant. It could only be expected that as his life was, so his death would be; that he would be betrayed by his companions, and in his utmost need deserted by his friends.
15. Eadmer: Vita Anselmi, Ed. Paris, 1721, p. 23. John of Salisbury: Vita Anselmi, cap. xi.; in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 169. William of Malmesbury: Ed. Hardy, vol. ii., b. iv , sect. 332, p. 507.; and Roger of Wendover, Ed. Coxe, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160.
16. Vitalis: Historia Ecclesiastica, pars 3, lib. x.; in Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, tom, clxxxviii., pp. 750 D, 751 A. See previously, p. 94, foot-note.
17. Eadmer: Vita Anselmi, Ed. Paris, 1721, p. 6.
18. Baxter, in his Preface to his Glossurium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, Ed. 1719, p. 12, entirely misquotes Alanus de Insulis (see Prophetica Anglicana Merlini Ambrosii cum septem libris explanationum Alani de Insulis. Frankfort, 1603. Lib. ii. pp. 68, 69), and completely misunderstands the passage. Alanus, however (p. 69), seems to have no doubt that the King fell by treachery,—"spiculo invidiæ," as was foretold by Merlin, though he gives no other reason; and which by itself, resting on nothing further, would carry no weight. His account, though, of the general detestation of the Red King immediately before his death, as also the conversation of Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, with Anselm (p. 68), is very suggestive, especially by the way in which it is introduced Alanus must have possessed far too shrewd an intellect to have believed in Merlin; though it might have suited his purpose to have appeared to have so done, as a veil and a blind, so that he might better say what his high position and authority would not in any other form have well permitted, but which still give to many points, as here, enormous significance and weight.
    The first person besides Alanus who seems to hint at treachery is Nicander Nucius (Second Book of Travels, published by the Camden Society, pp. 34, 35), but his account is too vague to be of any service. We should, however, constantly bear in mind, with Lappenberg, that the best authority. The Chronicle, simply relates that the King was shot at the chase by one of his friends, without any allusion to an accident. Not one word or fact else is given, except the appearance of a pool of blood in Berkshire (at Finchhamstead, according to William of Malmesbury), which we know, from other sources, was supposed to foretell some calamity, and which phenomenon science now resolves into merely some species of alga, probably either Palmella cruenta or Hæmatococcus sanguineus. Eadmer, with some others, in his Historia Novorum, lib. ii. (Migne: Patrolugiæ Cursus Completus, tom. clix. p. 422 B) mentions a report, prevalent at the time, that the King accidentally stumbled on an arrow. Then follows, in the very next book (Migne, as before, p. 423 B), a singular passage, to be found also in his Life of Anselm, book ii. ch. vi. (Migne, as before, tom. clviii. p. 108 D), where, on the news of the Red King's death, Anselm bursts into tears, and, with sobs, cries, "Quod si hoc efficere posset, multo magis eligeret se ipsum corpore, quam illud, sicut erat, mortuum esse." Whether this wish sprang from the effects of some pangs of conscience as to William's death, or from an honourable feeling of natural emotion under the circumstances, as suggested by Sharon Turner, it is hard to determine. From John of Salisbury (Vita Anselmi, pars ii., cap. xi,, in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 169), it would seem that Anselm thought that he was the direct cause, through God, of his death. Wace, quoted by Sharon Turner (vol. iv. p. 169), says that a woman prophesied to Henry his speedy accession to the throne; but I am not inclined to put any faith in this story, especially as Wace's account is in poetry, where a prophetical speech might after the event be given dramatically true, without being so historically. Gaimar (MS. Bib. Reg. 13, A 21, also quoted by Turner), a rhymer, nearly contemporary, sings, "that the other archers said that the shaft came from Walter Tiril's bow." No one, however, was likely to declare, for so many reasons, that the King was murdered. We must not expect such a statement, or even look for it in the Chroniclers; we must seek for it in the contradictions, and absurdities, and prophecies which have gathered round the event.
19. Let no one be startled at the fact of ecclesiastics being assassins. We have on record during this very reign the deliberate confessions by monks of plots to murder their abbots, deeming they were doing God a service. We must further keep steadily in mind that prelates then united in their own persons both sacred and military offices. How much Henry was under the influence of the monasteries his marriage and his various appointments show. Their power was enormous. In fact, I believe that the Conqueror owed his success as much to them as Rufus his death, and Henry his crown.
20. At the time of his death he held in his hand the archbishopric of Canterbury, the bishoprics of Winchester and Salisbury, besides eleven abbacies, all let out to rent. The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364.
21. The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 356.
22. William of Malmesbury, Ed. Hardy, tom, ii., lib. iv., sect. 306, p. 488.
23. The same, tom., ii., lib. iv., sect. 319, p. 502.
24. The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 362.
25. Suger: Vita Lud. Grossi Regis, cap. i (to be found, as before, in Bouquet, tom. xii. p. 12 E.) See, also, John of Salisbury: Vita Anselmi; Migne: Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, tom, cxcix., cap. xii., p. 1031 B.; or, as before, in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 170.
26. Quoted by Sharon Turner: History of England, vol. iv. p. 167. See, as before, Migne: tom, cxcix., cap. xii., p. 1031 B.