The Evidence of Alaniis. 103 



deuces point l)iit one way. All tend to show, as plainly as 

 possible, that Rufus fell by no chance, but by a conspiracy of 

 his prelates, who held the crozier in one, and the battle-axe 



though he gives no otiier reason; and which by itself, resting on notliing 

 I'urther, would carry no weight. His account, tiiough, of the general 

 detestation of the Red King immediately before his deatli, as also the 

 conversation of Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, with Anseim (p. G8), is very sug- 

 gestive, especially by the way in which it is introduced Alaniis must 

 have possessed far too shrewd an intellect to have believed in Merlin; 

 though it might have suited his purpose to have appeared to have so done, 

 as a veil and a blind, so that he might better say what his high position 

 and authority would not in any other form have well permitted, but which 

 still give to many points, as here, enormous significance and weight. 



Besides Gaimar and Alanus, Nicander Nucius also hints at treachery 

 (Second Book of Travels, published by the Camden Society, pp. 34, 3.>), 

 but his account is too vague to be of any service. We should, however, 

 constantly bear in mind, with Lappenberg, that the best authority. The 

 Chronicle, simply relates that the King was shot at the chase by one 

 of his friends, without any allusion to an accident Not one word or 

 fact else is given, except the appearance of a pool of blood in i'erkshire 

 (at Finchhamstead, according to William of MalniesGury), which we 

 know, from other sources, Avas supposed to foretell some calamity, and 

 which phenomenon science now resolves into merely some species of 

 alga, probably either Falmella cruentn or Jlcemafocorcus sanguineus. 

 Eadmcr, with some others, in his Hlstoria Noiiorum, lib. ii. (Migne : 

 PatrolugicE Cursus Completus, torn. clix. p. 42''2 B) mentions a report, 

 prevalent at the time, that the King accidentally stumbled on an arrow. 

 Then follows, in the very next book (Migne, as before, p. 4-23 B), a 

 singular passage, to be found also in his Life of Anseim, book ii. ch. vi. 

 (Migne, as before, tom clviii p. 108 D), where, on the news of the Red 

 King's death, Anseim bursts into tears, and, with sobs, cries, "(^uod si 

 hoc efficere posset, multo magis eligeret sc ipsum corpore, quam illud, sicut 

 erat, mortuum esse." Whether this wish sprang from the effects of some 

 pangs of conscience as to William's death, or from an honourable feeling of 

 natural emotion under the circumstances, as suggested by Sharon Turner, 

 ft is hard to determine. From John of Salisbury {Vitu Anschni, pars ii., 

 cap. xi,, in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. Hi!)), it would seem that 

 Anseim thought that he was the direct cause, through God, of his death. 



