Interim Report II

Appendix

Additional Information

The following additional extracts were obtained from an additional sweep of the Other Publications:

Article 1

Tirel held the manor (Langham, Essex) from Richard son of Count Gilbert, also known in Domesday Book as Richard fitzGilbert or Richard of Tonbridge, and is later more familiarly known as Richard de Clare. It is likely that Tirel acquired the manor through his wife Adeliza, Richard's daughter and this explains why he had such a valuable holding.

Article 3

Nobody knows who fired the fatal arrow that day. But it smacked into the king's chest, killing him outright, denying Rufus any hope of absolution.

Article 4

There was no investigation into William Rufus' death because it was thought that his death was an accident and not a deliberate act. Tirel was not subjected to any punishment or loss of land.

Article 5

Many had suffered from William I's creation of the New Forest in 1074. Nobles lost income from loss of land (manors) and inhabitants lost subsistence. As a result of the royal reserve of the Forest, nature was left to herself; trees were not felled and people were dispossessed.

William II's body was left behind and was allegedly taken up by one Purkiss, a charcoal burner, who carried it on his cart to Romsey Abbey. Then it was taken rapidly on for internment at Winchester.

The death of William Rufus could thus have been an accident. However, not an accidental discharge; reports of the event refer to William moving into the line of fire and being hit as a result. It was apparently in the afternoon and a stag was being shot at uphill through woodland against the sun. The shot was said to have been fired by Walter Tyrell, Lord of Poix at Ponthieu, France, but there is some dispute about the identity of the man who fired. Since he was one of the party of noblemen, he was mounted, and since mounted would have been using a hunting crossbow, although hunters may have been dismounted to stalk and ambush animals and fire when on foot.

The likelihood is that Rufus was murdered rather than accidentally killed. His body was left with rustics where it fell and the remainder of the noble hunting party, less Tyrell, made for Winchester to gain control of the treasury and to crown Henry king soon after at Westminster. This happened so rapidly that it looked planned.

Article 6

The Red king and his Norman friends were fond of hunting deer. Quite close to the city of Winchester where the king lived, was a large forest, known as the New Forest. There had always been a forest in that part of the country, but William the Conquerer had made it much larger. He did this by pulling down a number of churches and houses, and driving away poor people. The deer could thus roam through the leafy glades without being disturbed.

All through the day, Sir Walter Tyrell kept close to the king's side, quite away from the rest of the party. Late in the afternoon, a large stag suddenly darted from the bushes, and passed between the king and his friend. Rufus at once drew his bow, but the string broke and the arrow fell to the ground. The startled deer stopped its flight for a moment, and the king at once called out to the knight, "Shoot, Walter, shoot!"  Tyrell did so; but the arrow, instead of going straight to its mark, glanced against the trunk of a tree, and then struck the king, piercing him to the heart. He fell from his horse, quite dead.

Article 7

This entry (in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle) would probably have been written at the end of the year, about five months after the event it describes. No other account was forthcoming until those of the monks in 1115-1135.

Article 9

The cicumstances of his (William Rufus) death were captured in an account by the ecclesiastical historian ,Vitalis in "Patrologiae Cursus Completus" and by Malmaesbury in "Gesta Regum Anglorum". Now each of these accounts are extremely colourful but somewhere in them lies a vestige of the truth.

Article 10

Orderic Vitalis...wrote that King William dined with the hunting party, which was made up of William's youngest brother Henry, Walter Tirel, and Gilbert de Clare and his younger brother, Roger de Clare. Walter Tirel was married to Richard de Clare's daughter.

William of Malmesbury in his Chronicle of the Kings of the English (1128) described the hunt :

"The next day he went into the forest...He was attended by a few persons...Walter Tirel remained with him, while the others were on the chase. The sun was now declining, when the king, drawing his bow and letting fly with an arrow, slightly wounded a stag which passed before him... The stag was still running...The king followed it for a long time with his eyes, holding up his hand to keep off the sun's rays. At this instant, Walter decided to kill another stag. Oh, gracious God! The arrow pierced the king's breast. On receiving the wound the king uttered not a word; but breaking off the shaft of the arrow where it projected from his body... This accelerated his death. Walter immediately ran up, but as he found him senseless, he leapt upon his horse, and escaped withe utmost spreed. Indeed, there were none to pursue him: some helped his flight; others felt sorry for him. The king's body was placesd on a cart and conveyed to the cathedral at Winchester...blood dripped from the body all the way." What were the sources of Malmesbury's account of King William's death and Walter Tirel's flight from the forest? He doesn't say. He implied Walter Tirel killed William but didn't state it.

Article 11

There are a few accounts of the King's death and they probably originate from the huntsmen who would have had a good vantage point of the whole hunt and how it came to end.

One account says that Rufus was already dead as he hit the ground, the others say he cried out. Either was Tirel did not hang around to find out, he mounted his horse and rode straight to Calais (?) and a life of exile in France

Article 12

Later chroniclers added the name of the killer, a nobleman named Walter Tirel, although the description of events was later embroidered with other details that may or may not be true.

William of Malmesbury in his account of William's death, stated that the body was taken to Winchester Cathedral by a few countrymen, including Eli who discovered the body.

Article 16

On 2 August 1100, the king and a party of nobles were hunting boar and deer in the forest. What happened next has been the subject of debate and speculation among historians for centuries. In the course of the hunting the king became separated from most of his retinue and found himself alone with Sir Walter Tyrrel, or Tyrrel.

They spied a stag, and Tyrell, by all accounts the best archer in the king's party, drew his bow and fired an arrow. The arrow deflected off a tree trunk and struck the king, who was rushing forward. It entered his chest and lodged in his lung, killing him instantly.

Article 20

William died from an arrow to the chest. The details of his demise are recorded by the contemporary chronicler William of Malmesbury. He wrote his account The History of the English Kings around twenty years after the death of the king.

Article 26

Vitalis went on to state that there were several companions with the king and Tirel when the fatal shot was fired. The hunting party had all taken up posts around the forest to wait in ambush for the deer, bows at the ready.

A stag ran between the King and Tirel who fired a shot that "grazed the animal's hairy back but glanced off and strucck the King who was standing in range." (Orderic Vitalis)

Vitalis also records that the body of William Rufus was buried in Winchester Cathedral, without the tolling of the bells or a religious service.

Article 29

It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner, passing through the forest with his cart, came upon the solitary body of a dead man, shot with an arrow in the breast, and still bleeding. He got it into his cart. It was the body of the King. Shaken and tumbled , with its red beard all whitened with lime and clotted with blood, it was driven in the cart by the charcoal-burner next day to Winchester Cathedral, where it was received and buried.

Article 30

...William, being an popular king, was not missed by many. As William of Malmesbury puts it:"Here it was committesd to the ground within the tower, attended by many of the nobility, though lamented by few."

Article 31

The chronicler Orderic Vitalis recorded that the king's body was taken to Winchester in a cart like a quarried boar, and buried the following day in the abbey church with only clerics and monks in attendance.

Colin Bower
September 2024

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