The Circumstances attending his Death. 101 



is too special. "Divine vengeance" and "judgment of God," 

 the Chroniclers cry out one after another, and this is thought 

 sufficient to account for three so-called accidental deaths. The 

 moral laws, however, never fall so directly as they are here 

 represented. Their influence is more oblique. The lightning of 

 justice does not immediately follow each peal of suffering. 



Leaving, however, the Chroniclers' views to themselves, let 

 us look further at some of the facts which peep out in the 

 narrative. Why, in the first place, we naturally ask, if the 

 King was shot by accident, did his friends and attendants 

 desert him ? AVhy was he brought home in a cart, drawn by 

 a wretched jade, the blood, not even staunched, ^ovdng from 

 the wound, clotting the dust on the road ? Why, too, the 

 indecent haste of his funeral ? Why, afterwards, was no inquiry 

 as to his death made ? Why, too, was Tiril's conduct not 

 investigated ? These questions are difficult to answer, except 

 upon one sujoposition. 



Let us note, also, that they are all ecclesiastics, to whom 

 the revelations of the King's speedy end had been made known, 

 and that their special favourite, Henry, succeeded to the throne in 

 spite of his elder brother's right. It is, certainly, too, something 

 more than singular that when the banished Anselm should visit 

 Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, that the Abbot should tell him that dur- 

 ing the past night he had seen William summoned before God 

 and sentenced to damnation, and that the King's death im- 

 mediately followed : that further, on the next day, when he went 

 to Lyons, his chaplain should be twice told by a youth of 

 the death of William before it took place.* More than singular. 



* Eadraer: Vita Anschm, Ed. Paris, 1721, p. 23. John of Salisbury: 

 Vita Anselmi, cap. xi. ; in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, toni. ii. p. ) 69. "William of 



101 



