The Death of William II. 



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 de Breteuil, fol- 

 lowing hard upon Henry to Winchester, honourably declared 

 the rights of the absent Robert, 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, uulamented, 



unknelled, and unaneled.J 



i _ 



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

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



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



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

 who go into details, mention 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 Scriptures 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 u 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 Regum Anglorum, in Tvvysden's Histories Anglicance Scriptores Decem, 

 p. 225), as, too, AValter de Ilemingburgh (Ed. Hamilton, vol. i. p. 33), 

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

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

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

 information. Peter Elois, however, in his continuation of Ingulph (Gales's 

 Rernm Anglicm-inn Scriptores, torn. i. pp. 110, 111 ; Oxford, 1684) is more 



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