England in the Middle Ages

With the king back in England, on the 2nd of August it was Lammas Day and thus a general festival celebrating the growth of the year’s crop. William II took a well-earned day off and went hunting in the New Forest in Hampshire. According to William of Malmsbury there were, of course, portents. Robert fitz Hamon, an intimate of William’s, supposedly had a dream involving William’s death. Orderic Vitalis has it that a monk at Gloucester had an adverse dream and that Serlo, the abbot, wrote a letter to William with a warning. William was said to be sufficiently taken aback to not go out hunting, but during the course of the day his friends worked on him, gave him a good dinner where he soothed his cares with a more than usual quantity of wine (dinner in those days took place at about 300p) and off they went to get their horses and go hunting. The party included Gilbert fitz Richard and his younger brother Roger de Clare. It turns out that Gilbert had been a part of the 1088 rebellion and had been one of the defenders of Tonbridge Castle in Kent, which being a timber motte and bailey affair fell in two days with Gilbert being wounded. From contemporary sources it may be that they rode out of Winchester, the ancient Wessex capital, or Twynham Castle (now Christchurch Castle in Dorset) which had an important strategic position and was held at the time by Ranulf Flambard, Chief Justiciar of England. From subsequent events Winchester is the most likely. At some point William was alone with another friend Sir Walter Tyrel, whose arrow glanced off a tree or the mane of a stag and pierced the king through the lung, whereof he fell from his horse and promptly died. An extraordinary scene now played out. Tyrel, who was from Tonbridge, and was related by marriage to the Gilberts, headed for the coast and France. Henry, the bereaved brother, headed post haste to Winchester to take control of the Treasury. Those barons and clerics who were present at Winchester formed a rump council and an argument ensued. The prior agreement clearly stated that Robert would inherit as William had no issue but Robert was on crusade and Henry was on the spot. Henry now played an obscure, almost desperate legal card; Porphyrogeniture, or Born of the Purple, which was practiced in Byzantium. Henry’s point was that he was born of a reigning king and queen in 1068 and thus had precedence over his brother who had been born to a mere duke and duchess in 1051, Norman custom and existing agreement notwithstanding. At this point all the gall and wormwood of William I’s family relationships came to the fore; this was Henry’s moment and he was not going to let it slip. Many of those present may have had trouble keeping a straight face at the specious legal argument, but the kingdom needed a king and Henry, a known quantity, was present and Robert was goodness knows where at that point. It was, by all accounts, a bad tempered affair but Henry, who was supported by Henry de Beaumont and Robert of Meulan, had by this time control of the castle and eventually the council acquiesced. To make it official Henry hurried to London and, not being able to assemble the two archbishops (Anselm of Canterbury being exiled and Thomas of York being at that moment in Ripon in Yorkshire), he was crowned in indecent haste in Westminster Abbey on August 5th officiated by Maurice, bishop of London. And what of William Rufus, left lying where he fell and literally abandoned by everyone? Some local forest workers found his body and put it on a cart and took it to Winchester. There is a legend that a local charcoal burner named Purkis was the one who found his body and carted it to Winchester, but this is to be doubted. The general view of charcoal burners was that they were the lowest of the low in social circles and associating this act with them was probably a later invention to emphasize the low standing of William II in the minds of many at the time and later. In any case, they would have no business being in the Royal Forest. Henry by this time had already left. William was not seen as a friend of the Church and of dubious sexual orientation by the standards of the time, so it was with some misgivings that they laid him to rest in the cathedral of Wessex, right underneath the tower. It may or may not have been a coincidence that, seven years later, the cathedral tower collapsed, but it was attributed to God’s displeasure at the placement. His remains were placed in a mortuary casket on the wall which bounds the altar area. In 1642 protestant Parliamentary troops entered the cathedral doing much damage. They scattered the remains from the six royal caskets there, and when they left the bones were swept up and put back in the caskets willy nilly. They are thought to contain the Anglo-Saxon kings Cynegils, Cynewulf, Ecbert, Æthelwulf, Eadred, and Edmund Ironside, along with Cnut and William Rufus as well as Cnut’s wife Emma, Bishops Wini and Alfwyn and Archbishop Stigand. A project is now in hand to identify and reunite the remains. Murder or accident? Much debated and arguments have been placed on both sides. On the one hand hunting was dangerous and accidents were common; on the other hand, Henry grasped his opportunity with alacrity. Was this a “Dick Cheney moment” or a well-planned coup? That the death took place close to Winchester, the seat of Government and location of the treasury, that Henry had to hand an obscure legal argument, that everyone abandoned the king’s body hastily and that Robert of Normandy was well out of the way all suggests planning. His recent imprisonment and dispossession of the lands he purchased in Brittany would have bred resentment and a desire for revenge. Also, while Robert, the eldest, was willing to go on Crusade the younger and single Henry passed on the “opportunity” so that with Robert incommunicado and on a crusade from which he might well not return, the field was clear. We have seen that William Rufus was assembling a fleet and army to go to France to renew the war with King Philip and Henry I, when king, ended that effort, which has given rise to the suspicion that Henry colluded with France to assassinate his brother. If Henry had masterminded or colluded in this death it demonstrates a great deal of patience and willingness to charm and dissemble worthy of Shakespeare’s King Richard III. If we believe this to be the case it will certainly color our appreciation of his performance as a monarch.