Now one might be forgiven for thinking that the ground was being laid by his friend, so that his death would be seen as something supernatural… It is said that the night before William was killed that he had a vision of his own death and that when his friend,FitzHamon came to breakfast with him, he too recounted a terrifying vision delivered by a monk, which saw the King trying to destroy a crucifix, which in turn set upon him. Now each of these accounts are extremely colourful but somewhere in them lies a vestige of the truth. The circumstances of his death were captured in an account by the ecclesiastical historian, Vitalis in “Patrologiae Cursus Completus” and by Malmesbury in “Gesta Regum Anglorum”. His immoral conduct offended everyone, but especially the Church, who were particularly angry when he defied the Pope and banished Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to Normandy. That William Rufus should be killed in the New Forest, whilst out hunting therefore, is a bitter irony.
Those that shot at a deer had their hands cut off and blinding was the penalty for disturbing the deer. He handed out death and mutilation as the penalties for interference with the King’s deer. The penalties for breaking the various laws were severe but under Rufus they became even more so. This operated outside the common law, and served to protect game animals and their forest habitat from destruction. The Forest Laws were a set of laws instigated by William the Conqueror, a great lover of hunting. Like his father before him, Winchester became his base and from here he extended his father’s feudal system including a significant strengthening of the Forest Laws. Winchester held the treasury and William Rufus was determined that he would control the fortune amassed there. On hearing the news that his father, King William I, was dying, he hurried from St Gervaise in France to Southampton, from where he rode quickly to Winchester.
Quite possibly, because of its unusual circumstances, it is the one royal death that we all remember. It has been suggested that his alleged slayer, Walter Tirel, was acting under orders from William's younger brother, Henry, who promptly seized the throne as Henry I.The life of King William Rufus is inextricably bound to the county of Hampshire but it is his death in Hampshire’s New Forest that seems to have captured the imagination of every schoolchild in England. It was accepted as an accident, but could have been an assassination. On 2 August 1100, William died when he was shot by an arrow while out hunting. When Anselm left for Rome in 1097 to seek the advice of the pope, William seized his estates. He kept bishoprics vacant to make use of their revenues, and had numerous arguments with Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093. William also had difficult relations with the church. Thereafter, William maintained the Scottish kings as vassals. Malcolm revolted in November 1093, but William's forces crushed his army near Alnwick and Malcolm was killed. William faced opposition from Scotland and in 1091 he compelled Malcolm III, King of the Scots to acknowledge his overlordship. In 1096, Robert went on Crusade, mortgaging Normandy to William (for 10,000 marks), who raised the money by levying a heavy and much-resented tax in England. In 1089, he laid claim to Normandy and waged war against Robert, who he defeated and reduced to a subordinate role. But Robert failed to appear and the revolt soon collapsed. In 1088, William faced a baronial rebellion inspired by his uncle, Odo of Bayeux, in favour of Robert. He gave England to William, his third and favourite son, who was crowned in September 1087.
At his death in 1087, William I bequeathed his original inheritance, the Duchy of Normandy, to his eldest son, Robert Curthose. William was born in around 1056 and almost nothing is known about his childhood. © Known as William Rufus because of his ruddy complexion, he was the third son of William the Conqueror (William I) and inherited the English throne from him.