A.D. 1099. CHAP. being tauntingly dismissed, he fortified five castles, III. the poor residue of his patrimony, and nourished his resources. Buoyed up by popular sympathy, he rose next spring, surprised Le Mans, his capital, garrisoned by his enemy; and thereupon stood defiant O. Vit. x. 9. nobly. A messenger, bringing word of this from De Belésme, met the king-at that hour riding in New Forest. Without a thought, William turned his horse, and, at full speed, reached the coast. "Let us cross the sea, and support our friends!" he cried, stepping W. Malm. as a common person' into a crazy bark. "A king De Gestis R. iv. 1. Easter, A.D. 1099. 6 cannot be drowned," one said. A motley crew landed at Touques; and the king, mounting the priest's mare, escorted by clerks and folk amidst gaping wonder and loyalties, hurried to Bonneville, soon raised an army, and, by forced marches, entered Le Mayne. Le Mans again lay in ashes. Hélie, in retreat, was burning the country; ensconced at Château du Loir, he awaited his enemy. But the king sate down before Maiet, seven leagues south of Le Mans, and prepared to storm. The soldiers already arming for an assault, some, for the glory of God and through respect for our Lord's burial and resurrection,' procured a truce. The besieged, in the interval, had strengthened their defences, and piled wicker baskets against the enemy's bolts and stones. The assailants now filled up the ditch with faggots, bridging over the same with beams, to the very foot of the palisades. Then the garrison threw down vessels of combustibles and lighted brands; and the fire kindled. The king, enraged by failure, standing nigh, one from a turret hurled a stone which crushed the head of a soldier beside him. "There is fresh meat for your king!" shouted many from the walls; "take it to his kitchen." Disturbed in spirit, no doubt conscious also of the inefficiency of his arms against a people so resolute, William drew off towards Lucé and disbanded. CHAP. III. A.D. 1099 1100. But now the red king's ravings ceased. Cæsar re- O. Vit. x. 9. turned to dust. Mighty in projects-it is said that he reached at the realm of France-that he threatened to W. Malm. winter in Poictiers-his purposes snapped like a thread; and he fell as brutes fall. Only these acts are chronicled. At Pentecost, holding his court for the first time in the A.S.Chron. new building at Westminster, he gave the bishopric 6.. of Durham to his chaplain and pleas-man, Ranulph Ro. Wend. Flambard. He held Christmas at Gloucester, Easter A.D. 1100. at Winchester, Pentecost again at Westminster. P. & C. E. 13. In Ytene, where he who loved the high game as though he were their father,' had planted the oak and the fir, where rank grass throve on the hearth, and fern and briar battened on altar and grave, there, as if in divine retribution, had perished the desolator's second son, Richard, caught by the jaws among branches; Richard, son of Duke Robert, also, his grandson, shot o. Vit. x. with a bolt; and now, most notable, his favoured son May. and successor. The manner of the king's death un- Aug. vouched, conjecture and indifference have united to screen the surroundings from the clear view which history requires. This much alone is certain having 0. Vit. x. dined at the usual hour of terce-i.e. nine A.M., William, W. Malm. possibly affected by wine, attended by his brother R. Hoved. Henry, William de Bréteuil, and other nobles familiar, entered the New Forest. At sunset, his body, pierced in the region of the heart by an arrow-the shaft brokenlay on the ground. If any saw, no one confessed to have seen. And, whether death were accidental or Eadmer. contrived, none will ever know. For, in the effort to account for the act, the monks, our chroniclers, shun 14. H. Hunt. III. A.D. 1100. CHAP. ning the chase, speculate from the close atmosphere of the cloister. They advance their formula: such a persecutor of the clergy, a king so unroyal, a man so profligate and abominable, could not die but by special doom perceptible to the Church. They recount omens, such as oozings of blood from the earth, dreams of holy A.S.Chron. men, dreams of the wicked man himself. One, the Saxon annalist, speaks of the king's 'own men'-meaning his barons as the murderers: but Henry, the brother, and William, the Seneschal of Normandy and hereditary adherent, were of that hunting party. The rest, almost in accord, name Walter Tyrel, a French knight, as W. Malm. the actual homicide; and a later chronicler narrates de Gestis R. iv. 1. O. Vit. x. 14. minutely the secret incidents: the setting sun: Wil- : Suger. xii. that he had not been present. A charge is laid against 12. Eadmer, p. 54. G. Camb. Ralf d'Aix also. The Armourer had presented a sheaf of arrows to the king, which the king had handed to that knight to bear with him into the forest. An c.30.p.176. arrow from this sheaf lay broken in Rufus' breast. Now the Prior of Dunstaple had dreamed that some one like unto the armourer had presented five arrows to the king; but he had not prevailed to stay William from the chase that day. No quest happened. None had lost a friend. God had vindicated Himself. The evidence is altogether traditionary and fails as against III. A.D. 1100. the barons present, against Tyrel, against D'Aix. I CHAP. find no clue to any conspiracy whatever: no suggestion of particular malice. And it results, in my mind, that the red king died by pure accident or by the hand of some among the many unrecorded who had been personally outraged by him. In either case, the slayer, unperceived or unknown, escaped. The nobles intent on their new prospects, the clergy rejoicing at the event, cared not to examine; and the people-it sufficed them that a more propitious reign had begun. in a 15. Chron. But the vanity of monks unweetingly assumes to the religious class the part of accessories. Some short O. Vit. x. time previously, Serlo, Abbot of Gloucester, friendly spirit' admonished the king that one of good repute in his convent had, 'in the visions of the night,' seen the Lord in majesty, throned and circled by the glorious host of heaven and of the saints: that in his ecstasy' he had beheld a resplendent virgin kneeling and praying to this effect: "O Lord Jesus Christ, Saviour of mankind, for whom thou didst shed thy precious blood upon the cross, compassionate now thy people groaning under the tyranny of William; Thou, Cf. A. S. most just judge, vindicate my cause against him, and deliver me from him who, to his utmost, pollutes and afflicts me:" that he had heard the patient; in a little while ye shall be avenged and redeemed." On the day preceding the king's death, O. Vit. x. Fulchered, first Abbot of Shrewsbury, 'as it were, filled with a prophetic spirit,' preached pointedly at the 'leprosy' pervading England from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet. "Lust pollutes not only vessels of clay but vessels of gold. Lo! sudden change impends. Libertines shall not bear rule for ever. The Lord is coming to right himself on the enemies of His He will smite Moab and Edom with the sword, spouse: response, "Be ye 14. CHAP. III. A.D. 1100. Aug. 1. Vita Ans. cap. 11. Cf. Geoff. and overthrow the mountains of Gilboa with a dread convulsion. . . The bow of divine wrath is bent on the reprobate the arrow is drawn from the quiver— even now!" That night, at Lyons, a youth of angelic mien appeared to brother Adam, saying, "Know for certain that the controversy between Anselm and William is decided." Next night, to another brother 'standing with closed eyes singing morning vigils,' was shown in a scroll, "King William is dead." On W. Malm. the day following the king's death, Eadmer, biographer of Anselm, being at Marcigny and in conversation touching William, Hugh Abbot of Clugny said to him, "Last night that king was brought before the final tribunal, and, by deliberate judgment, incurred the sorrowful sentence of damnation." iv. 1. Allowing for inflation in pulpit oratory and for some straining at picturesque effect, prediction and oracle pointed at least in the direction of clerical hopes. But it is to be noted that the sermon and the vision, if not the various dreams, are as well authenticated, and stand or fall on the same critical test, as the surroundings of Rufus' death. We take them on the faith. of the chronicler who believed in them, or we leave them in deference to the canons which insist on eye-witnesses, documents, and the like. Historians are apt to reject the transcendental upon all occasions: nevertheless, the student, searching the foundations of history, will perceive the hand of God leading or restraining; and will discover in some humble cloisterer that wise forecast, that brave outspeaking, which is the true characteristic respectively of the seer and of the prophet. From such insight as we have in spiritual affairs, we cannot deny that the end in question might have been known to certain whom it concerned. |