Probably a pointless question in that a definitive answer is now nigh on impossible to arrive at but nonetheless fascinating for all that. The earliest accounts of his death are bland, highly uninformative and almost dismissive of the event. It wasn't until some years later even that a name, Walter Tirel, was attached to the bowman whose "careless" shot glanced off an oak tree and hit William Rufus in the lung, killing him instantly. Yet even this version peters out into an unsatisfactory silence regarding what actually happened that Summer day in the New Forest on the ill-fated hunting trip. And what of Henry, his younger brother who was allegedly in so much of a hurry to be crowned that he and the rest of the hunting party left William's body where it lay and hastened to Winchester to secure the money and the throne before anyone else could jump on them. Strange behaviour, even given that Henry was probably well justified in such haste to secure his succession.

Even that great inquisitor's tool, Cassius's maxim "Cui Bono?", does not help. Henry might have been the most obvious beneficiary but in truth the list of potential assassins based on that premise would rival Agatha Christie at her most ridiculous for the sheer length of the queue of suspects. Few words may have been recorded in the historical annals about William Rufus, but none of them were good, and it would appear there was no social class or no organisation, lay or ecclesiastical, which was not sorry to see him go.

So do we meekly accept the post-dated attribution of the deed to Tirel (who went unpunished)? Or are there grounds to suspect a conspiracy? The New Forest, after all, has its fair share of grassy knolls ...

I'll remember to take extra are when in the New Forest. What is of particular note here is the importance of Winchester at that time and for quite a while afterwards.

The New Forest does seem to have been hazardous then... someone please correct me if I'm wrong but didn't William's older brother Richard also die there, and also while hunting... though I can't remember the details.

The other thing that always stands out to me is that William Rufus is said to have: died of instantaneously of an arrow through the lung. A punctured lung would have been anything but instantaneously fatal... and provided the hole was sealed (wet leaves would do) he could have lived for many hours... even made a reasonably full recovery if sepsis or other complications didn't set in. Yet he was left untended where he fell.

Well the history annals were usually written by clergymen and as William II had a long running battle with the church I'm not sure that I'd put too much trust into their interpretation of William's character and popularity.

From what little is written though, William didn't have a good (uneasy at best) relationship with his brothers. The Orderic Vitalis relates this amusing incident William and Henry, having grown bored with casting dice, decided to make mischief by emptying a chamber pot onto their brother Robert from an upper gallery, thus infuriating and shaming him. A brawl broke out, and their father was forced to intercede to restore order.

Whether sibling rivalry or merely boyish pranks, I would still put my money on Henry as being behind the deed. His behaviour after William so suddenly (and supposedly unexpectedly) died doesn't fit with that of a grieving and shocked brother, rather the opposite. And his abandonment of his brother's body in favour of a hasty flight to Winchester to sieze the treasury, then on to London where he was crowned scant days later, suggests planning and forethought.

This account does leave some questions, not least, would an arrow hitting a tree not lose too much momentum to do much damage on the rebound? Also, was he young enough and fit enough to be participating in an 'all charge about on horseback chasing the prey' kind of hunt as opposed to the deeply unsporting 'drive the deer into corner and shoot them like fish in a bucket' kind? if it was the latter then the marksmanship of the alleged killer must have been pretty awful.

Which makes the Tirel part of the story even stranger, since he was allegedly a hotshot. Of course, maybe that's why Henry hired him ....

In 1128 William of Malmesbury cobbled together the versions he heard into the story which has apparently stuck. Interestingly, in it he mentions that the king's body was dumped on a cart and brought in to Winchester, dripping blood along the entire route. Poor guy wasn't dead at all, it seems. Tirel was already hotfooting it back to Normandy at this point, so I wonder was there someone in Winchester who "made sure" the "accident" was fatal?

Nice family.

Good point Nordmann. You would think that Tirel, if as good a marksman as reported, would have got him through the heart and not a lung though. They would have certainly known that a shot to a lung is not always fatal, and there was a chance of William's survival.

Edit. So possibly it wasn't Tirel who fired the arrow? But, on the other hand, his rapid exit from the country afterwards is suggestive of guilt. It is an interesting case, more intriguing than Richard Hunchback's disasterous and short reign. Imo anyway.

PS Andrew Spencer or Catigern's take on it would be interesting to read.

Just another thought, as MM has said above the New Forrest was also the place of the death (in a hunting accident) of Henry's other brother Prince Richard. Possibly there is some significance in the New Forrest being chosen as the place that William would also meet his end?

I doubt it. The deaths were separated by thirty years for a start so, for both William and Henry, Richard's death was a tragedy in the distant past from when they both had been very young boys, Henry possibly being as young as one year old (we do not know his exact age in any year). For the generation of people out hunting the day William was killed therefore I imagine the significance of location was not one beyond historical coincidence.

In addition the New Forest was their own preserve and, we assume, a facility much used by them. Indeed it was only the royal family and its favourites who could use it at all and they seem to have restricted their passion for hunting to this locale. As a locale therefore it probably has no more significance than that it was a place where the royal family could be found often, and one in which individual members might be isolated physically from retainers, friends and courtiers. It was therefore an ideal location for an assassination opportunity, and in truth probably the only realistic one which existed if the deed was to be covert.

Part of the problem when analysing the events of the 2nd August 1100 is not just the number of anomalies in the account handed down to us (quite a few) but also in separating which of these are down to subsequent elaboration and which were evident and actual on the day. The strange indifference towards the body of the slain king appears to be an actual anomaly - the behaviour of Tirel not quite so dependable as fact. Tirel is reported as having repeatedly asserted his innocence in latter years while keeping himself in semi-exile in France. This might indicate that the assertion that it was his shot which killed William gained credence quite rapidly after the event. However his alleged behaviour on the day which included immediate flight does not square with the likely behaviour of a man who, by his own assertion, wasn't even in the vicinity when William died and in fact hadn't seen the king all day. It would have been more likely therefore that he would at least have remained in England long enough to have learnt of the suspicion being levelled against him and even probably to have been directly accused, however fast those suspicions had manifested themselves. There is something missing from the account, and we don't know what.

I suppose could make an effort but have only my imagination to call on.

Was Rufus shot from behind, therefore making the lung puncture more viable?

Could the wound have been made firat stab/sword an an arrow inserted later to make an accident claim?

His brother's unseemly rush to fill the power vacuum[ cf the speed with which Johnston was sworn in after the death of JFK, in those times seems a necessity.

It would take time to get a lumbering oxen cart to the scene brought to the forest.

If the king was dying, who would remove an arrow from the wound that might finish the job? I don't know too much about the removal of arrows and one assumes that it went pretty deep.

Once he was made king I doubtthat Henry was much bothered about who did what and why if he had not instigated it himdelf -however being another inheritance lackland he may have planned the whole thing.

And that's me out now.

The account covers most of these points.

• William was shot from the front.

• In the Malmesbury account William reacted by attempting to extract the arrow, only succeeding in breaking the shaft, and therefore exacerbating the injury. The account does not say why this should necessarily have accelerated his death but does stress this as the fatal act.

• The account infers that the entire hunting party hot-footed it to Winchester leaving the body unattended and this could indicate conspiratorial guilt. It could also indicate however a conviction on Henry's part that there was an assassin in the neighbourhood and that he was also a viable target. Haste in arriving at Winchester and securing both himself and his treasury might have been eminently logical in that scenario too.

• It is wrong to think of the New Forest as heavily wooded. It would have been open landscape with thickets. The cart allegedly belonged to a charcoal burner in the locality, and would have therefore been probably quite prompt in arriving once the alarm was raised. As charcoal burners in the New Forest, the Purkis family who owned the cart would have been technically employees of the royal family and probably even assigned jobs on the day in relation to the hunt (or at least be told to stay at home and be ready if called for - the cart could well have been on standby for the transport of deer carcasses). Either way they were at the service of the party and had a cart nearby.

• The account does not explicitly state that William was alive when loaded on the cart but it does imply as much. The implication is that Purkis took it upon himself to transport the body and that he was heading for Winchester. This could have been as much to reach someone who could help as to deliver a corpse. Had William been obviously dead the logical thing would have been simply to protect the body until an official arrived to take over. The haste to take another course suggests otherwise.

Ah well that's me sorted in this game of factual skittles. I understand about the forest being thin - the nearness of a cart was perhaps unlikely in other circumstances. A prebooked cart, perhaps smacks of conspiracy, mm?

There was I thinking that they were slung over horses or carried by serfs on poles. Oxen carts were very slow on rough tracks and worse on pasture. I wonder what the weather was like that day? Also how many in the party and the nature of the hunt. His dad could pull a bow on the hoof and at the gallop. There may have been few about him at the time. "Just getting the facts, ma'am, geting the facts." (I wonder which old B&W TV show I dredged that from?)

A forest could not be "thin", by the way, since that implies a density of trees. "Forest" at that time denoted open land especially suited to hunting. The only trees would have been a few to provide cover for game. The open land was therefore committed to agricultural activity such as grazing and cultivation of crop, so it would have been as well serviced by cartways, cattletracks and bridle paths as anywhere else at the time. There was also a road, as now, heading north east through the estate which connected to Winchester (still there, now the M27).

Winchester might not have been where Purkis was originally headed with the king. His route there would have taken him along this decent road to Romsey Abbey, no more than six miles from where William fell. At that time this was a well established monastery which contained a hospital and school so it would have been inconceivable that he simply pass it by without stopping, whether William was dead at that juncture or not. While an ox and cart might not be the speediest transport it was probably the most comfortable in the circumstances and the best available option for delivery of a patient.

Ah, semantics. I know what the forest was like. I did not know of the tracks.

Next point: he broke the arrow himself it is written. Sounds quite difficult a job to do that to oneself. I can understand why he did him self more harm though. So what of the flight end? Flights were often indivudually marked at the butts and when hunting so that claim could be established. Is this how was nabbed?

And the last for the moment: Henry rushed off to Winchester, claimed the kin's holdig there and swept on for a quick coronation. So who handed it over and on what proof? I assume a Royal ring or some such was produced and a trusted witness - clerical, I assume. A blade point at the throat may have been the more effective.

Should I stop there? Am I being boring/tedious again?

I'm no expert but I imagine if the king's brother comes charging into Winchester with all his well-known mates insisting that the treasury be locked and placed under heavy protective guard there's not going to be too many jobsworths who'd be brave enough to insist he produces some sort of ID first. The coronation was a few days later in London, by which time the news of the king's death was abroad. He mightn't have waited until all the relevant bishops had time to turn up for it - which indicates indecent haste - but still the absence of another king arriving and indignantly asking what his brother was up to must surely have been interpreted by the bishes and others there as proof that William just wasn't in a position to do so any longer, I feel.

Regarding the arrow being broken by the king after it hit him, this is dodgy testimony. It popped up in a later version and we don't know if it was real or added. In fact it's one of a few elements in the story which seem nearly designed to deter Colombo-style questions such as "Well, whose flight was it then?". After being conveniently broken off by the victim himself it then promptly disappears from the narrative, Tirel had allegedly disappeared from the scene, and Henry & Co were conveniently half way to Winchester. No one, not even the charcoal burner, seems to have thought to hold on to it - even as a relic. But it does mean that wherever William's body ended up on the day, the crucial piece of evidence wasn't with him - at least according to Malmesbury. The implication is clear - "There's no point asking the question. The answer is 'dunno'". There's not even a clear explanation as to just who saw William do this, since every other principal suspect was hot-footing it somewhere else already.

If Henry acted genuinely, and Purkis also, then the focus should be on what transpired in the next few hours. This to me seems the route of enquiry where speculation can yield most reward. Personally I reckon Tirel's departure from the scene cannot have been as rapid as suggested, and Purkis's actions also merit inspection. If he found a grievously wounded but still living William and if he did indeed take it upon himself to attempt to bring him somewhere to get help, or even to die with dignity and holy sacrament, and if there was a monastery nearby with both a hospital and the chance of the last rights, then it is hard to imagine that this was not his first choice of destination. If he was persuaded otherwise, then by whom? And if he did indeed stop there, what actually happened to William when he came under the care of the abbot?

The one sure thing we know about William was that he had pissed the church off big-time. Are we maybe therefore looking at a slight reverse of another famous incident not so long afterwards, but this time an archbishop asking "Who will rid me of this turbulent king?"

Who killed cock robin - old nursery song, I was told as a child was about this death. I have just done a google and seen the extended lentgh of the song.

So we are moving on the see who did what next..... motive and benefit. It would seem that everyone was jumping on the new bandwagon/oxen cart - the church - what did they get out of Henry then?

I am still interested in the powers vested in Winchester though - more of that ater in another topic pehaps?

Surely Winchester had, until William the Bastard, been the traditional venue for crowning and anointing* the Kings of England?



Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
Ambrose Bierce

nordmann wrote:

In the Malmesbury account William reacted by attempting to extract the arrow, only succeeding in breaking the shaft, and therefore exacerbating the injury. The account does not say why this should necessarily have accelerated his death but does stress this as the fatal act.

I think (if I remember correctly) the danger with lung wounds is the risk of haemorrhage and the flooding of the heart and other lung with blood. If William was exerting a lot of pressure on the arrow (which he would have been if attempting to pull it out, especially in a panicked state) he could easily have caused further tearing and damage to the lung, along with excessive bleeding.

P raised a point I was thinking on today, an archer could usually be identified by the arrow used, by the markings or fletches etc. If it was one of Tirel's arrows it could be the reason he fled so rapidly and his protestations of innocence may have been the truth. Maybe Tirel didn't fire the arrow, but someone else used one of his arrows to make it look like he did?

Mmm, over use of may, could, possibly and maybe. But there is not much left for us but supposition, I suppose......

nordmann wrote:

who'd be brave enough to insist he produces some sort of ID first.

Give it a rest, I'm not that old!

I see there have been a couple of extra posts (which I haven't read yet) whilst I was composing, hopefully mine will still be relevant.

Quote :

the church - what did they get out of Henry then?

For the church read "Canterbury", man and office. Anselm got everything back - his job, his revenues, and after a protracted row with Henry which was settled by the pope, the removal of the obligation to pay homage to the king. This last bit was really the crucial one. Both Williams had insisted, rather like Henry VIII would do later, that no one - not even the Archbishop - escaped fealty to the crown and the man wearing it. Under feudal laws this was heavy stuff - it meant that revenues from church activities and holdings belonged ultimately to the crown and were therefore a "gift" should the Archbishop receive them. William Rufus had commandeered the lot and when Anselm had tried to outmanouevre him by calling in the big guns (the pope) they had blown up in his face. The pope, Urban, had just excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor and wasn't about to risk driving William into the Emperor Henry's fold by having a go at him as well. He basically told Anselm to consider a career change and let William get on with it.

The change of king meant everything. Henry needed Anselm to secure his claim on the throne and Anselm knew it. Before heading back to England (at Henry's invitation) he made sure to apprise the new pope, Paschal, of the new political balance and the fact that if they played their cards right they might even get their hands on the backdated loot. Paschal, no longer faced with the prospect of the Holy Roman Empire splitting from the church, was only too happy to back him up. Anselm arrived with a letter from Paschal which diplomatically told Henry that he was next in the excommunication firing line if he didn't behave and though Henry did attempt some resistance at first he eventually toed the line.

Islanddawn wrote:

If William was exerting a lot of pressure on the arrow (which he would have been if attempting to pull it out, especially in a panicked state) he could easily have caused further tearing and damage to the lung, along with excessive bleeding.

If this was the case then death would have been almost instantaneous. Yet the account we have today has a man bleeding copiously nearly all the way to Winchester in a cart - ie the heart was still pumping. This would seem to rule out excessive flooding of the lungs or injury to the heart or any major arteries near the heart, which would also have stopped it. A lung punctured in that manner however would lead to profuse bleeding since the other working lung would effectively assist the reservoir of blood in the damaged lung to be evacuated through the wound. Even nowadays this would prove fatal without very quick surgery, but it would not be a quick death necessarily. If the heart doesn't stop then the patient quite literally bleeds to death, and it could take a while.

If this were an assassination and the hunting party were all in on it, why the unseemly haste? They could have waited until William was indubitably dead - or made sure he was - and then taken the corpse and made their grief stricken way to Winchester or where ever. I surmise that if it was a planned bumping off then it would be carried out in some quiet spot and not on the side of the local M1 to be chanced upon by a passing yokel. There's something in the panic responses that suggest that this was a grand snafu. Perhaps it really was a fortuitous accident that prompted some members of the party to get on their horses and ride like billy oh to alert those who might try to beat Henry to the crown and so he had no time to lose. If Tirel had fired a badly misdirected shot then he would have surely been getting off his mark asap in case he got nailed with a bit of regicide by the other interested parties.

A puncture of the thorax, partucularly with puncture(s?) of the lung, would surely tend to lead to pneumothorax, so it would be a race between blood loss and asphyxiation to see which killed him, surely? Neither particularly quick, to be sure.

Tirel's misfortune may simply have been that he wasn't with the group. By his own admission in later life he was apart from everybody, even the king. By being the "odd man out" who didn't turn up in Winchester, and it could well have been because he just wasn't aware anything was up and didn't know he should be heading there anyway, he might therefore simply have acquired the label of culprit by default. (Last man to Winchester's the patsy!)

Abbot Suger of St Denis, a hugely respected man in his day who had the trust of everyone (including royalty - he even acted as regent in the French King's absence on one occasion), was also a friend of Tirel in later years. He wrote once "It was laid to the charge of a certain noble, Walter Thurold, that he had shot the king with an arrow; but I have often heard him, when he had nothing to fear nor to hope, solemnly swear that on the day in question he was not in the part of the forest where the king was hunting, nor ever saw him in the forest at all."

It is interesting also that Tirel, a man who allegedly fled the scene on grounds of his guilt at having committed regicide, fled only as far as Normandy which, thanks to Robert's failure to hold on to it, was technically still part of Henry's kingdom, administered by his brother Robert in name only thanks to a lease agreement which William had devised earlier. Some exile. Not only that but he offered his services to Henry when the new king, in 1105, decided to invade Normandy after Robert had rather foolishly tried to renege on that deal and had even attempted an English invasion himself. Henry seems to have had no problem accepting Tirel's offer, though it ended up not being needed when Robert and Henry found themselves joined in battle by accident almost on the first day of the "war" and Robert lost anyway. Still, it is strange behaviour for a man who has killed Henry's brother, a serving monarch, to embark on so soon afterwards. Complicit or innocent, there would have been good grounds not to do so, and even better grounds for Henry to decline the gesture. It makes one wonder did he know in 1105 that he was in "exile" at all? For that matter, did Henry?

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

A puncture of the thorax, partucularly with puncture(s?) of the lung, would surely tend to lead to pneumothorax, so it would be a race between blood loss and asphyxiation to see which killed him, surely? Neither particularly quick, to be sure.

Yes, it all depends on where the lung has been pierced and how much damage the arrowhead has done en route. If the good lung is relatively free of flooding from the damaged lung then the death could be very long indeed as an air route and function remains. The bellows action will assist the isolation of the undamaged lung from the effects of hemorrhaging as exhalation and constriction of the muscle around the damaged lung will send the blood through the point of least resistance - the hole.

And it has not been established if he was standing or if he fell/ was pulled off his horse. Falling off a hrse with an arrow inthe chest must be a nasty business. Howver, I thught w were moving on to suggesting those who would benefit from his removal. Which knocks me out of the game because I have never quite understood the early power play in church matters - other than it was tacky.

The horse is important - it's a loose end, whether he fell off it or not. A horse was an expensive bit of gear, and one imagines a king's horse even more so. Yet none of the people named at the scene seem to have given the animal much thought. Which to me is an obvious indication of another very salient fact in this case; there were many more people than those named who were present.

We know about Purkis, and it is a reasonable assumption that Purkis didn't act completely alone in the course of action he took. Simply lifting an unconscious or dead man into a cart suggests he had physical help, but for a lowly charcoal burner to take so much initiative also suggests that he either followed an instruction or discussed what was to be done. At least one other person probbaly featured in that process but he remains unknown to us. It is a safe assumption too that many of the "dignitaries" out for the day's hunting expedition will have had personal staff with them. I imagine a hunting party of that stature would also have had a retinue of people in tow to cook, raise game, transport kills etc. Quite a lot of people, when one comes to think of it, and none of whom have a presence in the tale except for the charcoal burner.

While I'm not necessarily suggesting the suspect might be one of these people, it raises the question of why such a lack of detail emerged from the day's activities. From the murder itself to the treatment of the presumed corpse, to the subsequent discussions and alarm which must have happened in Winchester, to the conspicious absence of any mention of which religious house would take in the dead king (these things would have had huge importance on the day), it seems none of these invisible people, just like the main players, voiced an opinion on the day or subsequently, even when a hunger for the details must have been rife.

In an age when "news" was a litany of hearsay and rumour which could hopefully be traced back to the horse's mouth, this particular horse has been very mute indeed, and seemingly from the off.

Then there's Tirel's escape. He took boat to Normany - that took organisation, I suspect and then there's leaving his tired horse. He did did not flee alone, perhaps. if there was a conspiracy with all this planning for this Midsummmer Forest event, I wonder that no one poisoned him.

Did he "escape"? For all we know from his own account he may have just travelled home wondering where everyone had gone.

The avenue opened by "Cui Bono?" leads in too many directions. One way to whittle it down a bit might be to look at the modus operandum if it was indeed a murder. Henry drops way down in the probability ranks on that basis. He would, we assume, have had ample opportunity to murder his brother by several means - all of which would be hard to pin on him and all of which would have been easier executed with less chance of failure. Besides, it wasn't a family which stood on ceremony in that regard anyway. If Robert is anything to go by then sibling or father were all fair game if one had ambitions to take over the whole show, and it was all up front.

If we're still thinking high fliers however then this leaves us with two groups of people who might have had less access than Henry and a grudge, and therefore might have arranged such an "accident". The barons had already extracted concessions from William (who anticipated John by drawing up a rather accurate facsimile of the Magna Carta in his time). However they still lacked the main thing they craved, the right to raise revenues off their own bat without paying a levy to the crown. Furthermore William had tightened the screws even further - his version of Magna Carta was that the barons could increase autonomy only if they increased their accountability. The Doomsday reckoning was already due a major review and this would have exposed countless rackets which deprived the crown of income. Henry in fact did just that later and this was exactly what he found. In that scenario then Henry might have been quite right in thinking on the day that they were gunning for him too, and it might well have been his success at escaping that fate which led the perpetrators to hang Tirel out to dry later.

The other group was the church, especially as represented by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but not necessarily only his bit. With Anselm's defection William had tightened his control over their revenues and showed no sign of relinquishing it. The opposite in fact. His success in realising vast income from that source had already prompted him to review the orders and other branches of the church which also could be an earner. And it was a policy he showed no sign of abandoning even when he lost the pope as his ally. The change of pope had happened less than a year before his death and in the meantime the alarm bells must have been ringing more often and louder than those for prayers in monasteries and churches all over the kingdom.

But in truth these were just the usual suspects, groups who represented the top echelons of a society founded on favour and debts of duty and honour, a system which was designed to produce umpteen candidates for such an assassination if it elevated or enhanced the perpetrator's value and standing in the eyes of those he sought to impress. And this system was designed to encompass everybody from the very top to the very bottom, so in truth no class of individual can be excluded from its effect and therefore from suspicion that they might have had a motive.

Interesting discussion, guys....

I also have always had my suspicions about Henry, and feel that whoever did it might've been hired by Henry. Maybe it was a conspiracy between Henry and the church, such as the Archbishop, because it was no secret that the monks who wrote the history were not happy with Rufus's attempts to extract money out of them.

Can't see myself why Henry and Anselm would be in cahoots. While they both stood to gain, and it was true that Henry would need Anselm should he get the crown, there was no advantage in either of them approaching the other to arrange something like that. The loggerheads they found each other at afterwards also suggests that no deal had been struck.

Also Anselm was apparently in a quandary when he heard the news about William. He couldn't anticipate Henry's view on continuing or abandoning William's policies, especially after Henry had gone ahead with a coronation without him, and spent an uncomfortable few months waiting around in France writing letters back home asking his mates if they'd heard what way the wind was blowing. It was only when Henry sent him a direct invitation with a "pretty please" in it that he knew it was safe, and even then he ran off to get an insurance policy from the pope before he made the trip. If they had been in cahoots then Anselm was either one extremely pathological liar or else both of them had suffered some extreme bout of amnesia.

Just reading through Wiki on William II and there is an interesting physical description from William of Malmesbury

William Rufus was "well set; his complexion florid, his hair yellow; of open countenance; different coloured eyes, varying with certain glittering specks; of astonishing strength, though not very tall, and his belly rather projecting

Mmm, he had Heterochromia of the eyes. Wonder if it was a genetic condition or caused by injury?

Edit. And portraits of William II and Henry I. Can't half tell they were brothers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry1.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_II_of_England.jpg

He was hugely unpopular with almost everyone. The church for his alleged open homosexuality and blatant cynicism of religion as well as plundering vacant bishoprics, the common people for his strict upholding of the forest laws, and the barons for his high handedness.

One thing though, I live quite near to the Rufus Stone and there is a very nice pub there called the Sir Walter Tyrell!

Wouldn't be the first time a hunting trip has been used as an assissination. Two Merevingian kings,Childeric II and Dagobert II,were bumped off while hunting.

Not to mention Dick Cheney's attempted assassination of the Texan attorney Harry Whittington in 2006 ....

MadNan wrote:

One thing though, I live quite near to the Rufus Stone and there is a very nice pub there called the Sir Walter Tyrell!

MadNan, is it true that the Purkis family still lives in the area? A remarkable continuity if it is.

Nordmann, dictator of dictators, forgive my late reply.

Yes indeed it is true that the Purkis family still live in the area there are a few families all within a few miles range of the original carters cottage.

Islanddawn wrote:

on William II and there is an interesting physical description from William of Malmesbury

William Rufus was "well set; his complexion florid, his hair yellow; of open countenance; different coloured eyes, varying with certain glittering specks; of astonishing strength, though not very tall, and his belly rather projecting

Mmm, he had Heterochromia of the eyes. Wonder if it was a genetic condition or caused by injury?

One wonders if any research has been done into William's overall physical health. Being short, stocky and with a ruddy complexion might suggest that he suffered from a chronic respiratory complaint or obstructive pulmonary disease. This could possibly have been brought on by sleeping in damp or smoky parts of varying castles during his itinerant youth. One of the characteristics of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) is hormonal change which can result in reduced testosterone levels and low libido. This could explain Rufus' ambiguous sexuality - i.e. not so much homosexual as maybe just asexual. Needless to say also that a pair of lungs already comprised by copd would not bear up well to being punctured by an arrow. Death would indeed be pretty quick.

Slightly off-topic - I remember learning about William Rufus (well the Norman Kings generally in a very abbreviated fashion) when I was about 11 - 12.  I remember something about winkle picker shoes being popular in his lifetime even if they weren't called that then [url=toeslayer-historyofshoes.blogspot.com/.../brief-history-of-poulaines-or-long-toed.html]toeslayer-historyofshoes.blogspot.com/.../brief-history-of-poulaines-or-long-toed.html[/url] - winkle pickers were quite popular in the late 1950s/early 1960s I think (the Teddy Boy era).  The person writing the blog from which I have quoted asks to be mentioned as the author if anyone cites his blog" Kippen C. 2017 History of Shoes blog, Retrieved from http://toeslayer-historyofshoes.blogspot.com/ Disclaimer: Reliance on information, material, advice, or other linked or recommended resources, received from Cameron Kippen, shall be at your sole risk, and Cameron Kippen assumes no responsibility for any errors, omissions, or damages arising."

I don't think I could hazard a guess as to who killed William.  His death was certainly convenient for a certain party, though Vizzer's  suggestion concerning William's health is (to me) worth thinking about.

Priscilla wrote:

There was I thinking that they were slung over horses or carried by serfs on poles. Oxen carts were very slow on rough tracks and worse on pasture. I wonder what the weather was like that day? Also how many in the party and the nature of the hunt. His dad could pull a bow on the hoof and at the gallop. There may have been few about him at the time. "Just getting the facts, ma'am, geting the facts." (I wonder which old B&W TV show I dredged that from?)

 
I'm sure you remembered the B&W TV show was Dragnet.  It was a bit before my time but I like Stan Freburg's version in 'St George and the Dragonet'.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUdFLyNCeI4&ab_channel=VinylOldiesJukebox

After reading this and other threads I wonder if there was ever a period when the monarch or their heirs felt safe.  Could keeping your enemies close mean they would deter the family?

I think the time from Victoria onward has been relatively safe from extended family wanting to kill them, though random outsiders find their way into Buckingham Palace at times. And the Georgian period only had George III's sons to worry about, not that they intended to kill him, but were troublesome in other ways.