lOG Tlic New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



on Tiril, but Tiril certainly did not shoot the arrow. We 

 have his own most solemn declaration to various people, and 

 especially, not once but often, to Suger, the well-known Abbot 

 of St. Denis, when he had nothing to gain or lose, that he 

 had on the day of the King's death not only not entered 

 that part of the Forest, but had not so much as even seen 

 him.* 



Tiril, however, Avas certainly implicated in the plot. His 

 haste to leave the country arose, probably, not so much from 

 a wish to escape as to convey the news of the success to 

 Normandy : and popular tradition mistaking the cause, with its 

 usual inaccuracy, fixed on the wrong person as the assassin. 

 In after years, however, from some scruple of conscience, he 

 expiated his share in the murder by a pilgrimage to the Holy 

 Land. 



Who shot the fatal arrow we know not, and, perhaps, shall 

 never know. We must not expect to get truth in history, — 

 only, at the best, some faint glimmering. All is here confusion 

 and darkness. John of Salisbury, who lived about the middle 

 of the twelfth century, says it was as little known who killed 

 the King as who slew Julian the Apostate. f The very spot 

 where he fell is doubtful. One thing, however, seems certain, 

 that he was slain, not, as the Chroniclers say, because his 

 father made the New Forest, but through his own cruelties and 

 excesses, by which he outraged both friend and foe. 



* Suger. Vita Liid. Grossi Begis, ca.^. i (to be found, as before, in 

 Bouquet, torn. xii. p. 12 E.) See, also, Jobn of Salisbury: Vita Anselmi; 

 jNIigne : Patrologice Cursiis Completus, torn, cxcix., cap. xii., p. 1031 B.; 

 or, as before, in Wharton's Angliu Sacra^ torn. ii. p. 170. 



t Quoted by Sharon Turner ; History of Englana, vol. iv. p. 167. See, 

 as before, Migne : torn, cxcix., cap. xii., ^. 1031 B. 



