The Death of William II. 95 



fell without a word or groan, vainly trying to pull out the 

 arrow, which broke short in his hand. 



Thus perished William the Red. Tiril leapt on his horse. 

 Henry galloped to Winchester, and the other nobles to their 

 houses. One exception was there. William of Breteuil, fol- 

 lowing hard upon Henry to Winchester, honourably declared 

 the rights of the absent Eobert, to whom both Henry and 

 himself had sworn fealty. William's body was brought on a 

 cart to the cathedral, the blood from his wound reddening the 

 road.* There the next morning f he was buried, unlamented, 

 unknelled, and unaneled4 



* Malmesbury, as before, p. 509. The additions that it was a charcoal- 

 cart, as also the owner's name, are merely traditional. 



t The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364. 



| Vitalis, as before, p. 752. Neither William of Malmesbury nor Vitalis, 

 who go into details, mentions the spot where the King was killed. The 

 Chronicle and Florence of Worcester most briefly relate the accident, though 

 Florence adds that William fell where his father had destroyed a chapel. 

 (Ed. Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 45). Henry of Huntingdon (Historiarum, lib. vii., 

 in Saville's Scriptores Rerum Anglicarum, p. 378) says but little more, 

 dwelling only on the King's wickedness and the supernatural appearance of 

 blood. Matthew Paris brings a bishop on the scene, as explaining another 

 dream of the King's, and gives the King's speech of " trahe arcum, diabole " 

 to Tiril, which has a certain mad humour about it, as also the incident 

 of the tree, and the apparition of a goat (Hist. Major. Angl. Ed. Wats., 

 pp. 53, 54), which are not to be found in Roger of Wendover (Flores Hist. 

 Ed. Coxe, torn, ii., pp. 157-59), and therefore open to the strongest sus- 

 picion. Matthew of Westminster (Flores Hist. Ed. 1601, p. 235) follows, 

 in most of his details, William of Malmesbury. Simon of Durham (De 

 Gestis Regurn Anglorum, in Twysden's Histories Anglicans Scriptores Decem, 

 p. 225), as, too, Walter de Hemingburgh (Ed. Hamilton, vol. i. p. 33), 

 and Roger Hoveden (Annalmm Pars Prior, in Saville's Rerum Anglicarum 

 Scriptores, pp. 467, 468), copy Florence of Worcester So, too, in various 

 ways, with all the later writers, who had access to no new sources of 

 information. Peter Blois, however, in his continuation of the pseudo 

 Ingulph (Gales's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, torn. i. pp. 110, 111) is more 



