CHARACTERS. 



277 



cher instantly embarked for the 

 Holy Land to expiate his involun- 

 tary crime. The body was con- 

 veyed to Winchester in a common 

 cart. A tomb erected over it was 

 broken to pieces in the last civil 

 wars, and a large gold ring and a 

 «ilver chalice were found mingled 

 with the royal dust. 



William Rufus fell, unmarried, in 

 his fortieth year. His person must 

 have been unpleasing. He was 

 short and fat, had a stern visage, red 

 hair, and eyes of ditl'erent colours. 

 He liad all his father's vi jes without 

 his few virtues, a stern magnani- 

 mity' perhaps excepted ; imperious, 

 cruel, and avaricious ; he regarded 

 his word or oath only as means to 

 delude the credulous ; religion he 

 scorned ; an Israelite who knew his 

 character, gave him a large sum of 

 money to persuade his converted 



son to return to Judaism. Rufus 

 did his honest endeavour, but in 

 vain. ' Well,' said he to the father, 

 « I have done what I could, but I 

 have not succeeded. It is not my 

 fault though, so we wdl divide the 

 money between us. Another time, 

 when ten Englishmen had been 

 cleared by the ordeal of fire from a 

 charge of killing deer, the impious 

 Rufus exclaimed, ' Pretty justice 

 above, indeed ! to let ten such 

 scoundrels escape !' 



To close the character of William 

 Rufus, let us quote the nervous 

 lines of Henry of Huntingdon : 

 ' He was a man more fierce than 

 seemed consistent with human na- 

 ture. By the advice of the worst of 

 men (which he always followed) 

 he perpetually harrassed his neigh- 

 bours with war, and his own sub- 

 jects with soldiers and taxes.' * 



Character 



There are Tarious opinions as to the death of Rufu."!, although what is written abgve 

 is generally credited. Eadmer gives it as a received opinion, that he feil with an ar- 

 row in his hand and mortally waunded his breast. Suger, in his ' Life of Lewis the 

 ' Fat,' affirms, that Tyrrel had with sfJemn oaths averred to him, that he was not 

 fven in that part of the forest where the king fell, nor saw him there on the day of 

 his death. And John of Salisbury, comparing the death of William to that of Juliam 

 the Apostate, says, that it was equally doubtful (at the time when lie wrote) by whom 

 cither of them was killed. [Lyitleton's Henry II.J 



Yet there is in the New Feorst, a ford called ' Tyrrel's f'ord ;' there is an estate too 

 called Avon Tyrrel, and if (as ihetradit on of the forest affirms; these lands have been 

 liable to pay a yearly fine to the Exchequer of seventeen shillings, on account of the 

 abore-mentioned ford having been shewn to thi regicide by the then owner of the 

 estate, there can be no doubt of Tyrrel's at least presuming himself guilty. 



A monument (which still exisisj was erected on the spot where Kufas died, by a 

 lord Delawar, who avers, that he had seen the oak on which the shaft had glanced. 

 In the incsription, it is recorded, that a peasant named Purkiss, drove the cart which 

 conveyed the royal body to Wmchestcr ; and it is remarkable, that two families of 

 the said name still occupy cottages near tlie spot, and ihut withm the present century 

 an axle tree was preserved by one of these cottagers, v/hich tradition asserted to have 

 belonged to the very cart above-mentioned. 



' Amongthcse, one of ths most irritatng was that species levied by the lawless pur- 

 veyors. ' They ravaged the whole country,' says Eadmer, ' through which the court 

 pmssed. Frequently they would burn or destroy the provisions which they could not 

 use ; and after having washed the feet of their cattle with the best liquors, they 

 would let the rest run to waste. In short, the cruelties which the Boasters of faoiilieff 

 tuffered, and the brutal treatment offered by these wretches to their wives and 

 daughter':, are loo shocking to be told or credited.' Much more defensible was a spe- 

 • eies of impost mentioned by an accurate and curious wtitei; t^ in use during thQ 



T 9 earlier 



