In the not too distant future I think we will find that the perpetrator rode off into the distance with such a fancy pair of shoes. “Just when I have much real business to see to he informs me about the dreams of snoring monks…Does he think I act like the English, postponing their travels and business because of the snores and dreams of little old women?”Īli’s Verdict: Fairly sure that this was jealousy, but not the kind that historians think. It spooked him enough to avoid hunting in the morning, but he had clearly calmed down after a few drinks in the afternoon as not only did he go on the hunt, but he rejected another premonition of his death, this time given to him by an abbot: Tirel went into hiding while the other nobles ran off to secure their lands, leaving poor Rufus unattended until some peasants carted him off for burial.īut was it as simple as that? Did Tirel miss or was he paid to assassinate the king? He was renowned as a good shot, in fact Rufus actually gave him the fatal arrow, noting that “It is only right that the sharpest arrows should be given to the man who knows how to shoot the deadliest shot.” Rufus’s younger brother, Henry, was also on that hunting trip and he went straight to secure the Treasury at Winchester and took the throne. However, a lack of health & safety legislation in Norman England meant that hunting accidents were common – even within the family, one of Rufus’s brothers and nephews also met a similar end (and also in the New Forest!)Įerily, Rufus may ever have foreseen his own death, having woken that morning after a nightmare in which the sky became overcast with darkness. Without uttering a word, Rufus broke off the arrow shaft, fell to the ground and died. However, it all came to an end when he went hunting in the New Forest in early August and his hunting companion, Walter Tirel, missed a stag and instead shot Rufus in the chest. The successor (in England) of William the Conqueror, Rufus was both a powerful and surprisingly flamboyant monarch (not least for his pointy shoes!). In 1100, he was at the height of his powers, taking control of Normandy while his older brother, Robert, was off Crusading and making his own plans for expansion. William Rufus, struck by an arrow in the New Forest
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