Progress 2024

July

At the outset, I obtained a small but representative selection of books, then other publications obtained from a series of searches on the internet.

I put entries in the website's:

Main Index
What's New

and set up pages for the Project:

Project Index
Objectives/Template
Introduction

I subsequently completed entries for:

A list of the books and the 24 Other Publications obtained, and

The Rufus Stone

before reading & analysing the Other Publications
with
the analysis of the books obtained to come.

I summarised progress in this Progress page.

Depending on the quality of the analysis, will depend on whether I will undertake more research including visits to libraries etc.

I later added a 25th publication which clarified who John Leland was. (He was the antiquary to Henry VIII in 1530.)

August

Our local historian Nick Saunders sent me a digital copy of his excellent article, King William Rufus, that was published in September 2019, as part of his Reflections series for the New Milton Advertiser & Lymington Times (the A & T).

I added it as Other Publication No. 26.

The article had additional information including information from the book, The New Forest, Its History and its Scenery by John R. Wise, in which he mentions, that according to Henry VIII's topographer William Rufus was killed at a place called Thorougham (Believed to be Truham near Beaulieu).

This would disprove the placing of the Rufus Stone nearer to Minstead than Beaulieu.

I decided to buy and add John Wise's book to the books that I would study in more detail later.

I found that the 4 Headings in the Template were a bit restrictive and extended my objectives to 7 categories:

1. The Chronicles
2. The Build up to the Hunt
3. Where the Hunting Lodge was (Brockenhurst or Malwood Castle/Keep)
4. Who was in the Royal Hunting Party
5. Where the Hunting Accident took place
6. Who fired the arrow that killed William Rufus
7. The Aftermath of the Killing

I read through all the Other Publications again and extracted more information that did the articles more justice.

I knew very little about Malwwod Castle or Malwood Keep but found 3 suitable articles on the internet.

Interestingly 2 of the articles included that they hunted with dogs, which to the best of my knowledge was the first time this had been mentioned.

One of the articles has William Rufus killed when on horseback and crossbows being used, again the first I think I had heard this.

I finished the month by collating an Interim Report with Interim Conclusions:

Interim Report

September/October

I started September by trying to tie up the loose ends from Interim Report I

I was not getting the information that I needed on John Leland and decided to do a search adding the word "Beaulieu" to "John Leland" in the search engine.

The result was spectacular. In the 3 additional articles, that I obtained, one was an extract from a Newsletter that was almost entirely a quote from Arthur Lloyd's book, The Death of Rufus.

So I studied Arthur's booklet a stage earlier than planned:

At about the same time, I arranged what proved to be a very successful vist to Lymington where I obtained:

- a copy of a newspaper article from our local paper in 2001 when a Memorial Cairn to William Rufus was unveiled in the Palace Gardens in Beaulieu.

This article drew my attention to a book that I had read in the past, The Forest, by Edward Rutherford.

- copies of two articles that Arthur Lloyd wrote for the Hampshire Magazine in 1962 and 1965

I realised that I would have to write a second Interim Report including the loose ends tied up.

There was a lot of typing to be done (not my strong point!) including:

- the second Interim Report
- the information on John Leland
- the visit to Lymington
- the text of the 3 publications obtained in Lymington
- some extracts from The Forest by Edward Rutherford
- information obtained from Arthur Lloyd's publications and articles

Some of the articles as well as the conclusions from Interim Report needed to be revisited.

Interim Report II

Colin Bower
31 October 2024

Project Index