102 Tlte New Forest : its Histonj and its Scenery. 



too, are those words of Fulcliered, spoken so openly and so dar- 

 ingly, " The bow of God's vengeance is bent against the wicked; 

 and the arrow swift to wound is already drawn out of the 

 quiver."* 



Either all these j)ersons were prophets, or accessories to the 

 murder, or — for there is one more solution — the Chroniclers 

 invented this portion of the story. If we admit this last supposi- 

 tion, we cannot receive the other parts of the narrative without 

 the greatest suspicion. We have almost a sufficient warrant 

 to read them in an exactly opposite sense to what they were 

 intended to bear. 



Let us remember, also, that Flambard, Rufus's prime 

 minister, who was universally hated by the clergy, and ^yho had 

 latel}^ banished Godric, of Christchurch, into Normandy, was 

 instantly stripped of his possessions by Henry, and Godric 

 reinstated, and the banished Anselm recalled ; and,' lastly, 

 and most important of all, that Tiril, who had just arrived 

 from Normandy, was a friend of Anselm's,t and, further, that 

 Alanus de Insulis, better known as le Docteur Universel, who 

 lived not long after the event, actually says that in his opinion 

 it was caused by treachery. J Surely all these facts and coinci- 



]\Ialniesbury : Ed. Hardy, vol. ii., b. iv , sect. 332, p. 507. ; and Roger of 

 "Wcndover, Kd. Coxe, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160. 



* Vitalis • Histvrm Ecdesiaslicn, pars 3, lib. x. ; in ]\Iignc, PutrologicE 

 Cursna Complelus, torn, clxxxviii., pp. 750 D, 751 A. See previousl}^ 

 p. 94, foot-note. 



f Kadmtr: Vita Aiiselnii, Ed. Paris, 1721, p. 6. 



X Baxter, in his Preface to his Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, 

 Ed. 1719, p. 12, entirely misquotes Alanus de Insulis (see Prophetica 

 Anglicana Merlini Ambrosii cum septem libri.s explmiatiunum Alani de 

 Insulis. Frankfort, 1603. Lib. ii. pp. 68, 69), and completely misunder- 

 stands the passage. Alanus, ho^\•e^•er (p. 69), seems to have no doubt that 

 the King fell by treachery, — " spicnlo invidiam," as was foretold by Merlin, 



102 



