102 Titc New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



too, are those words of Fulchered, 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 persons 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 who had 

 lately 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. | Surely all these facts and coinci- 



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

 Wendover, Ed. Coxe, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160. 



* Vitalis ■ Historia JEcdesiastica, pars 3, lib. x. ; in ]\Iigne, Patrologice 

 Cursiis Cornpletus, torn, clxxxviii., pp. 750 D, 751 A. See previously, 

 p. 94, foot-note. 



t Eadmer: Vita Anselmi, Ed. Paris, 1721, p. 6. 



\ Baxter, in his Preface to his Glossurium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, 

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

 Ariglicana Merliui Ambrosii cum septem lihris explanationum Alani de 

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

 stands the passage. Alanus, however (p. 69), seems to have no doubt that 

 the King fell by treachery, — " spiculo invidiae," as was foretold by Merlin, 



