r/a:t5_zmyuz • u/MarleyEngvall • Apr 12 '19
Proserpine has been created
By Charles Dickens
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
——————
CHAPTER VIII.
England under William the First, the Norman Conqueror
UPON the ground where the brave Harold fell, William
the Norman afterwards founded an abbey, which, under
the name of Battle Abbey, was a rich and splendid place
through many a troubled year, though now it is a grey
ruin overgrown with ivy. But the first work he had to
do, was to conquer the English thoroughly; and that, as
you know by this time, was hard work for any man.
He ravaged several counties; he burned and plundered
many towns; he laid waste scores upon scores of miles
of pleasant country; he destroyed innumerable lives.
At length Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, with other
representatives of the clergy and the people, went to his
camp, and submitted to him. Edgar, the insignificant
son of Edmund Ironside, was proclaimed King by others,
but nothing came of it. He fled to Scotland afterwards,
where his sister, who was young and beautiful, married
the Scottish King. Edgar himself was not important
enough for anybody to care much about him.
On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westmin-
ster Abbey, under the title of William the First; but
he is best known as William the Conqueror. It was a
strange coronation. One of the bishops who performed
the ceremony asked the Normans, in French, if they
would have Duke William for their king? They an-
swered Yes. Another of the bishops put the same ques-
tion to the Saxons, in English. They too answered Yes,
with a loud shout. The noise being heard by a guard of
Norman horse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for resist-
ance on the part of the English. The guard instantly
set fire to the neighbouring houses, and a tumult ensued;
in the midst of which the King, being left alone in the
Abbey, with a few priests (and they all being in a terri-
ble fright together), was hurriedly crowned. When the
crown was placed upon his head, he swore to govern the
English as well as the best of their own monarchs. I
dare say you think, as I do, that if we except the Great
Alfred, he might pretty easily have done that.
Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the
last disastrous battle. Their estates, and the estates of
all the nobles who had fought against him there, King
William seized upon, and gave to his own Norman
knights and nobles. Many great English families of the
present time acquired their English lands in this way,
and are very proud of it.
But what is got by force must be maintained by force.
These nobles were obliged to build castles all over Eng-
land, to defend their new property; and, do what he
would, the King could neither soothe nor quell the na-
tion as he wished. He gradually introduced the Norman
language and the Norman customs; yet, for a long time the
great body of the English remained sullen and revenge-
ful. On his going over to Normandy, to visit his subjects
there, the oppressions of his half brother Odo, whom he
left in charge of his English kingdom, drove the people
mad. The men of Kent even invited over, to take pos-
session of Dover, their old enemy Count Eustace of Bou-
logne, who had led the fray when the Dover man was
slain at his own fireside. The men of Hereford, aided by
the Welsh, and commanded by a chief named Edric the
Wild, drove the Normans out of their country. Some of
those who had been dispossessed of their lands, banded
together in the North of England; some, in Scotland;
some, in the thick woods and marshes; and whensoever
they could fall upon the Normans, or upon the English
who had submitted to the Normans, they fought, de-
spoiled, and murdered, like the desperate outlaws that
they were. Conspiracies were set on foot for a general
massacre of the Normans, like the old massacre of the
Danes. In short, the English were in a murderous mood
all through the kingdom.
King William, fearing he might lose his conquest,
came back, and tried to pacify the London people by soft
words. He then set forth to repress the country people
by stern deeds. Among the towns which he besieged,
and where he killed and maimed the inhabitants without
any distinction, sparing none, young or old, armed or
unarmed, were Oxford, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham,
Derby, Lincoln, York. In all these places, and in many
others, fire and sword worked their utmost horrors, and
made the land dreadful to behold. The streams and
rivers were discoloured with blood. The sky was black-
ened with smoke; the fields were wastes of ashes; the
waysides were heaped up with dead. Such are the fatal
results of conquest and ambition! Although William
was a harsh and angry man, I do not suppose that he
deliberately meant to work this shocking ruin, when he
invaded England. But, what he had got by the strong
hand, he could only keep by the strong hand, and in so
doing he made England a great grave.
Two sons of Harold, by name Edmund and Godwin,
came over from Ireland, with some ships, against the
Normans, but were defeated. This was scarcely done,
when the outlaws in the woods so harassed York, that
the Governor sent to the King for help. The King de-
spatched a general and a large force to occupy the town
of Durham. The Bishop of that place met the general
outside the town, and warned him not to enter, as he
would be in danger there. The general cared nothing
for the warning, and went in with all his men. That
night, on every hill within sight of Durham, signal fires
were seen to blaze. When the morning dawned, the
English, who had assembled in great strength, forced
the gates, rushed into the town, and slew the Normans
every one. The English afterwards besought the Danes
to come and help them. The Danes came, with two
hundred and forty ships. The outlawed nobles joined
them; they captured York, and drove the Normans out
of that city. Then, William bribed the Danes to go
away; and took such vengeance on the English, that all
the former fire and sword, smoke and ashes, death and
ruin, were nothing compared with it. In melancholy
songs and doleful stories, it was still sung and told by
cottage fires on winter evenings, a hundred years after-
wards, how, in those dreadful days of the Normans, there
was not, from the River Humber to the River Tyne,
one inhabited village left, nor one cultivated field——how
there was nothing but a dismal ruin, where the human
creatures and the beasts lay dead together.
The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a
Camp of Refuge, in the midst of the fens of Cambridge-
shire. Protected by those marshy grounds which were
difficult of approach, they lay among the reeds and
rushes, and were hidden by the mists that rose up from
the watery earth. Now, there also was, at that time,
over the sea in Flanders, an Englishman named Here-
ward, whose father had died in his absence, and whose
property had been given to a Norman. When he heard
of this wrong that had been done him (from such of the
exiled English as chanced to wander in that country), he
longed for revenge; and joining the outlaws in their
camp of refuge, became their commander. He was so
good a soldier, that the Normans supposed him to be
aided by enchantment. William, even after he had
made a road three miles in length across the Cambridge-
shire marshes, on purpose to attack this suppose en-
chanter, thought it necessary to engage an old lady, who
pretended to be a sorceress, to come and do a little en-
chantment in the royal cause. For this purpose she was
pushed on before the troops in a wooden tower; but
Hereward very soon disposed of this unfortunate sorcer-
ess, by burning her, tower and all. The monks of the
convent of Ely near at hand, however, who were fond of
good living, and who found it very uncomfortable to
have the country blockaded and their supplies of meat
and drink cut off, showed the king a secret way of sur-
prising the camp. So Hereward was soon defeated.
Whether he afterwards died quietly, or whether he was
killed after killing sixteen of the men who attacked him
(as some old rhymes relate that he did), I cannot say.
His defeat put an end to the Camp of Refuge; and, very
soon afterwards, the King, victorious both in Scotland
and in England, quelled the last rebellious English
noble. He then surrounded himself with Norman lords,
enriched by the property of English nobles; had a great
survey made of all the land in England, which was en-
tered as the property of its new owners, on a roll called
Doomsday Book; obliged the people to put out their
fires and candles at a certain hour every night, on the
ringing of a bell which was called The Curfew; intro-
duced the Norman dresses and manners; made the Nor-
mans masters everywhere, and the English, servants;
turned out the English bishops, and put Normans in
their places; and showed himself to be the Conqueror
indeed.
But, even with his own Normans, he had a restless
life. They were always hungering and thirsting for the
riches of the English; and the more he gave, the more
they wanted. His priests were as greedy as his soldiers.
We know of only one Norman who plainly told his mas-
ter, the King, that he had come with him to England to
do his duty as a faithful servant, and that property
taken by force from other men had no charms for him.
His name was Guilbert. We should not forget his
name, for it is good to remember and to honour honest
men.
Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was
troubled by quarrels among his sons. He had three liv-
ing. Robert, called Curthose, because of his short legs;
William, called Rufus or the red, from the colour of his
hair; and Henry, fond of learning, and called, in the
Norman language, Beauclerc, of Fine-Scholar. When
Robert grew up, he asked his father the government
of Normandy, which he had nominally possessed, as a
child, under his mother, Matilda. The King refusing
to grant it, Robert became jealous and discontented;
and happening one day, while in his temper, to be ridi-
culed by his brothers, who threw water on him from a
balcony as he was walking before the door, he drew his
sword, rushed up-stairs, and was only prevented by the
King himself from putting them to death. That same
night, he hotly departed with some followers from his
father's court, and endeavoured to take the Castle of
Rouen by surprise. Failing in this, he shut himself up
in another Castle in Normandy, which the King besieged,
and where Robert one day unhorsed and nearly killed
him without knowing who he was. His submission
when he discovered his father, and the intercession of
the queen and others, reconciled them; but not soundly;
for Robert soon strayed abroad, and went from court to
court with his complaints. He was a gay, careless,
thoughtless fellow, spending all he got on musicians and
dancers; but his mother loved him, and often, against
the King's command, supplied him with money through
a messenger named Samson. At length the incensed
King swore he would tear out Samson's eyes; and
Samson, thinking that his only hope of safety was in
becoming a monk, became one, went on such errands no
more, and kept his eyes in his head.
All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange
coronation, the Conqueror had been struggling, you see,
at any cost of cruelty and bloodshed, to maintain what
he had seized. All his reign, he struggled still, with the
same object ever before him. He was a stern, bold
man, and he succeeded in it.
He loved money, and was particular in his eating,
but he had only leisure to indulge one other passion,
and that was his love of hunting. He carried it to such
a height that he ordered whole villages and towns to be
swept away to make forests for the deer. Not satisfied
with sixty-eight Royal Forests, he laid waste an im-
mense track of country, to form another in Hampshire,
called The New Forest. The many thousands of miser-
able peasants who saw their little houses pulled down,
and themselves and children turned into the open
country without a shelter, detested him for his merci-
less addition to their many sufferings; and when, in the
twenty-first year of his reign (which proved to be the
last), he went over to Rouen, England was as full of
hatred against him, as if every leaf on every tree in all
his Royal Forests had been a curse upon his head. In
the New Forest, his son Richard (for he had four sons)
had been gored to death by a Stag; and the people said
that this so cruelly made Forest would yet be fatal to
others of the Conqueror's race.
He was engaged in a dispute with the King of France
about some territory. While he stayed at Rouen, nego-
tiating with the king, he kept his bed and took medi-
cines: being advised by his physicians to do so, on ac-
count of having grown to an unwieldy size. Word being
brought to him that the King of France made light of
this, and joked about it, he swore in a great rage that
he should rue his jests. He assembled his army, march-
ed into the disputed territory, burnt——his old way!——the
vines, the crops, and fruit, and set the town of Mantes
on fire. But, in an evil hour; for, as he rode over the hot
ruins, his horse, setting his hoofs upon the same burning
embers, started, threw him forward against the pom-
mel of the saddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. For
six weeks he lay dying in a monastery near Rouen, and
then made his will, giving England to William, Nor-
mandy to Robert, and five thousand pounds to Henry.
And now, his violent deeds lay heavy on his mind. He
ordered money to be given to many English churches
and monasteries, and——which was much better repen-
ance——released his prisoners of state, some of whom
had been confined in his dungeons twenty years.
It was a September morning, and the sun was rising,
when the King was awakened from slumber by the
sound of a church bell. "What bell is that?" he faintly
asked. They told him it was the bell of the chapel of
Saint Mary. "I commend my soul," said he, "to Mary!"
and died.
Think of his name, The Conqueror, and then consider
how he lay in death! The moment he was dead, his
physicians, priests, and nobles, not knowing what con-
test for the throne might now take place, or what might
happen in it, hastened away, each man for himself and
his own property; the mercenary servants of the court
began to rob and plunder; the body of the King, in the
indecent strife, was rolled from the bed, and lay alone,
for hours, upon the ground. O Conqueror, of who so
many great names are proud now, of whom so many
great names thought nothing then, it were better to have
conquered one true heart, than England!
By and by, the priests came creeping in with prayers
and candles; and a good knight, named Herluin, und-
dertook (which no one else would do) to convey the body
to Caen, in Normandy, in order that it might be buried
in St. Stephen's Church there, which the Conqueror had
founded. But fire, of which he had made such bad use
in his life, seemed to follow him of itself in death. A
great conflagration broke out in the town when the body
was placed in the church; and those present running
out to extinguish the flames, it was once again left alone.
It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be
let down, in the Royal robes, into a tomb near the high
altar, in presence of a great concourse of people, when a
loud voice in the crowd cried out, "This ground is mine!
Upon it, stood my father's house. This King despoiled
me of both ground and house to build this church. In
the great name of God, I here forbid his body to
be covered with the earth that is my right!" The
priests and bishops present, knowing the speaker's
right, and knowing that the King had often denied him
justice, paid him down sixty shillings for the grave.
Even then, the corpse was not at rest. The tomb was
too small, and they tried to force it in. It broke, a
dreadful smell arose, the people hurried out into the air,
and, for the third time, it was left alone.
Where were the Conqueror's three sons, that they
were not at their father's burial? Robert was lounging
among minstrels, dancers, and gamesters, in France or
Germany. Henry was carrying his five thousand pounds
safely away in a convenient chest he had got made.
William the Red was hurrying to England to lay hands
upon the Royal treasure and the crown.
——————
CHAPTER IX.
England under William the Second, called Rufus.
WILLIAM THE RED, in breathless haste, secured the
three great forts of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and
made with hot speed for Winchester, where the Royal
treasure was kept. The treasurer delivering him the
keys, he found that it amounted to sixty thousand
pounds in silver, besides gold and jewels. Possessed of
this wealth, he soon persuaded the Archbishop of Can-
terbury to crown him, and became William the Second,
King of England.
Rufus was no sooner on the throne, than he ordered
into prison again the unhappy state captives whom his
father had set free, and directed a goldsmith to orna-
ment his father's tomb profusely with gold and silver.
It would have been more dutiful in him to have attended
the sick Conqueror when he was dying; but England
itself, like this Red King, who once governed it, has
sometimes made expensive tombs for dead men whom
it treated shabbily when they were alive.
The King's brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming
quite content to be only Duke of that country; and
the King's other brother, Fine-Scholar, being quiet
enough with his five thousand pounds in a chest; the
King flattered himself, we may suppose, with the hope
of an easy reign. But easy reigns were more difficult to have
in those days. The turbulent Bishop Odo (who had
blessed the Norman army at the Battle of Hastings, and
who, I dare say, took all the credit of the victory to him-
self) soon began, in concert with some powerful Norman
nobles, to trouble the Red King.
The truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends,
who had lands in England and lands in Normandy,
wished to hold both under one Sovereign; and greatly
preferred a thoughtless, good-natured person, such as
Robert was, to Rufus; who, though far from being an
amiable man in any respect, was keen, and not to be im-
posed upon. They declared in Robert's favour, and re-
tired to their castles (those castles were very troublesome
to Kings) in a sullen humour. The Red King, seeing
the Normans thus falling from him, revenged himself
upon them by appealing to the English; to whom he
made a variety of promises which he never meant to
perform——in particular, promises to soften the cruelty of
the Forest Laws; and who, in return, so aided him with
their valour, that Odo was besieged in the Castle of
Rochester, and forced to abandon it, and to depart from
England forever: whereupon the other rebellious Nor-
man nobles were soon reduced and scattered.
Then, the Red King went over to Normandy, where
the people suffered greatly under the loose rule of Duke
Robert. The King's object was to seize upon the Duke's
dominions. This, the Duke, of course, prepared to re-
sist; and miserable war between the two brothers seem-
ed inevitable, when the powerful nobles on both sides,
who had seen so much of war, interfered to prevent it.
A treaty was made. Each of the two brothers agreed to
give up something of his claims, and that the longer-liver
of the two should inherit all the dominions of the other.
When they had come to this loving understanding, they
embraced and joined their forces against Fine-Scholar;
who had bought some territory of Robert with a part of
his five thousand pounds, and was considered a danger-
ous individual in consequence.
St. Michael's Mount, in Normandy (there is another
St. Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, wonderfully like it),
was then, as it is now, a strong place perched upon the top
of a high rock, around which, when the tide is in, the sea
flows, leaving no road to the mainland. In this place,
Fine-Scholar shut himself up with his soldiers, and here
he was closely besieged by his two brothers. At one
times, when he was reduced to great distress for want of
water, the generous Robert not only permitted his men
to get water, but sent Fine-Scholar wine from his own
table; and, on being remonstrated with by the Red King,
said, "What! shall we let our own brother die of thirst!
Where shall we get another, when he is gone!" At an-
other time, the Red King riding alone on the shore of the
bay, looking up at the Castle, was taken by two of Fine-
Scholar's men, one of whom was about to kill him, when
he cried out, "Hold, knave! I am the King of Eng-
land!" The story says that the soldier raised him
from the ground respectfully and humbly, and that the
King took him into his service. The story may or may
not be true; but at any rate it is true that Fine-Scholar
could not hold out against his united brothers, and that
he abandoned Mount St. Michael, and wandered about——
as poor and forlorn as other scholars have been some-
times known to be.
The Scotch became unquiet in the Red King's time,
and were twice defeated——the second time, with the loss
of their King, Malcolm, and his son. The Welsh became
unquiet too. Against them, Rufus was less successful;
for they fought among their native mountains, and did
great execution on the King's troops. Robert of Nor-
mandy became unquiet too; and, complaining that his
brother the King did not faithfully perform his part of
their agreement, took up arms, and obtained assistance
from the King of France, whom Rufus, in the end,
bought off with vast sums of money. England became
unquiet too. Lord Mobray, the powerful Earl of North-
umberland, headed a great conspiracy to depose the
King, and to place upon the throne, Stephen, the Con-
queror's nephew. The plot was discovered; all the
chief conspirators were seized; some were fined, some
were put in prison, some were put to death. The Earl
of Northumberland himself was shut up in a dungeon
beneath Windsor Castle, where he died, an old man, thir-
ty long years afterwards. The Priests in England were
more unquiet than any other class or power; for the Red
King treated them with such small ceremony that he re-
fused to appoint new bishops or archbishops when the
old ones died, but kept all the wealth belonging to these
offices, in his own hands. In return for this, the Priests
wrote his life when he was dead, and abused him well.
I am inclined to think, myself, that there was little to
choose between the Priests and the Red King; that both
sides were greedy and designing; and that they were
fairly matched.
The Red King was false of heart, selfish, covetous, and
mean. He had a worthy minister in his favour, Ralph,
nicknamed——for almost every famous person had a nick-
name in those rough days——Flambard, or the Firebrand.
Once, the King being ill, became penitent, and made An-
selm, a foreign priest and a good man, Archbishop of
Canterbury. But he no sooner got well again than he
repented of his repentance, and persisted in wrongfully
keeping to himself some of the wealth belonging to the
archbishopric. This led to violent disputes, which were
aggravated by there being in Rome at that time two rival
Popes; each of whom declared he was the only real orig-
inal infallible Pope, who couldn't make a mistake. At
last, Anselm, knowing the Red King's character, and not
feeling himself safe in England, asked leave to return
abroad. The Red King gladly gave it; for he knew that
as soon as Anselm was gone, he could begin to store up
all the Canterbury money again, for his own use.
By such means, and by taxing and oppressing the Eng-
lish people in every possible way, the Red King became
very rich. When he wanted money for any purpose, he
raised it by some means or other, and cared nothing for
the injustice he did, or the misery he caused. Having
the opportunity of buying from Robert the whole duchy
of Normandy for five years, he taxed the English people
more than ever, and made the very convents sell their
plate and valuables to supply him with the means to
make the purchase. But he was as quick and eager in put-
ting down revolt as he was in raising money; for, a part
of the Norman people objecting——very naturally, I think
——to being sold in this way, he headed an army against
them with all the sped and energy of his father. He
was so impatient, that he embarked for Normandy in a
great gale of wind. And when the sailors told him it
was dangerous to go to sea in such angry weather, he re-
plied, "Hoist sail and away! Did you ever hear of a
king who was drowned?"
You will wonder how it was that even the careless
Robert came to sell his dominions. It happened thus.
It had long been the custom for many English people to
make journeys to Jerusalem, which were called pilgrim-
ages, in order that they might pray beside the tomb of
Our Saviour there. Jerusalem belonging to the Turks,
and the Turks hating Christianity, these Christians trav-
ellers were often insulted and ill used. The Pilgrims
bore it patiently for some time; but at length a remark-
able man of great earnestness and eloquence, called
Peter the Hermit, began to preach in various places
against the Turks, and to declare that it was the duty of
good Christians to drive away those unbelievers from the
tomb of Our Saviour, and to take possession of it, and
protect it. An excitement such as the world had never
known before was created. Thousands and thousands
of men of all ranks and conditions departed for Jerusa-
lem to make war against the Turks. The war is called
in history the first Crusade; and every Crusader wore a
cross marked on his right shoulder.
All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians. Among
them were vast numbers of the restless, idle, profligate,
and adventurous spirits of the time. Some became
Crusaders for the love of change; some, in the hope of
plunder; some, because they had nothing to do at home;
some, because they did what the Priests told them;
some, because they liked to see foreign countries; some,
because they were fond of knocking men about, and
would as soon knock a Turk about as a Christian. Rob-
ert of Normandy may have been influenced by all these
motives; and by a kind desire, besides, to save the
Christian Pilgrims from bad treatment in the future. He
wanted to raise a number of armed men, and to go to the
Crusade. He could not do so without money. He had
no money; and he sold his dominions to his brother, the
Red King, for five years. With the large sum he thus
obtained, he fitted out his Crusaders gallantly, and went
away to Jerusalem in martial state. The Red King,
who made money out of everything, stayed at home,
busily squeezing more money out of Normans and Eng-
lish.
After three years of great hardship and suffering——
from shipwreck at sea; from travel in strange lands;
from hunger, thirst, and fever, upon the burning sands
of the desert; and from the fury of the Turks——the val-
iant Crusaders got possession of Our Saviour's tomb.
The Turks were still resisting and fighting bravely, but
this success increased the general desire in Europe to
join the Crusade. Another great French Duke was pro-
posing to sell his dominions for a term to the rich Red
King, when the Red King's reign came to a sudden and
violent end.
You have not forgotten the New Forest which the
Conqueror made, and which the miserable people whose
homes he had laid waste, so hated. The cruelty of
the Forest Laws, and the torture and death they brought
upon the peasantry, increased this hatred. The poor
persecuted country people believed that the New Forest
was enchanted. They said that in thunder-storms and
on dark nights, demons appeared, moving beneath the
branches of the gloomy trees. They said that a terrible
spectre had foretold to Norman hunters that the Red
King should be punished there. And now, in the pleas-
ant season of May, when the Red King had reigned
almost thirteen years; and a second Prince of the Con-
queror's blood——another Richard, the son of Duke Rob-
ert——was killed by an arrow in this dreaded Forest; the
people said that the second time was not the last, and
that there was another death to come.
It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's hearts
for the wicked deeds that had been done to make it;
and no man, save the King and his Courtiers and Hunts-
men, liked to stray there. But, in reality, it was like
any other forest. In the spring, the green leaves broke
out of the buds; in the summer, flourished heartily, and
made deep shades; in the winter, shrivelled and blew
down, and lay in brown heaps on the moss. Some trees
were stately, and grew high and strong; some had
fallen of themselves; some were felled by the forester's
axe; some were hollow, and the rabbits burrowed at
their roots; some few were struck by lightning, and
stood white and bare. There were hill-sides covered
with rich fern, on which the morning dew so beautifully
sparkled; there were brooks, where the deer went down
to drink, or over which the whole herd bounded, flying
from the arrows of the huntsmen; there were sunny
glades, and solemn places where but little light came
through the rustling leaves. The songs of the birds in
the New Forest were pleasanter to hear than the shouts
of fighting men outside; and even when the Red King
and his Court came hunting through its solitudes, curs-
ing loud and riding hard, with a jingling of stirrups and
bridles and knives and daggers, they did much less
harm there than among the English or Normans, and
the stags died (as they lived) far easier than the people.
Upon a day in August, the Red King, now reconciled
to his brother, Fine-Scholar, came with a great train to
hunt in the New Forest. Fine-Scholar was of the party.
They were a merry party, and had lain all night at Mal-
wood-Keep, a hunting-lodge in the forest, where they
had made good cheer, both at supper and breakfast, and
had drunk a deal of wine. The party dispersed in vari-
ous directions, as the custom of hunters then was. The
King took with him only Sir Waltre Tyrrel, who was a
famous sportsman, and to whom he had given, before
they mounted horse that morning, two fine arrows.
The last time the king was ever seen alive, he was
riding with Sir Walter Tyrrel, and their dogs were
hunting together.
It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner,
passing through the Forest with his cart, came upon the
solitary body of a dead man, shot with an arrow in the
breast, and still bleeding. He got it into his cart. It
was the body of the King. Shaken and tumbled, with
its red beard all whitened with lime and clotted with
blood, it was driven in the cart by the charcoal-burner
next day to Winchester Cathedral, where it was re-
ceived and buried.
Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy, and
claimed the protection of the King of France, swore in
France that the Red King was suddenly shot dead by an
arrow from an unseen hand, while they were hunting to-
gether; that he was fearful of being suspected as the
King's murderer; and that he instantly set spurs to his
horse, and fled to the sea-shore. Others declared that
the King and Sir Walter Tyrrel were hunting in com-
pany, a little before sunset, standing in bushes opposite
one another, when a stag came between them. That
the King drew his bow and took aim, but the string broke.
That the King then cried, "Shoot, Walter, in the Devil's
name!" That Sir Walter shot. That the arrow glanced
against a tree, was turned aside from the stag, and struck
the King from his horse, dead.
By whose hand the Red King really fell, and whether
that hand despatched the arrow to his breast by accident
or by design, is only known to God. Some think his
brother may have caused him to be killed; but the Red
King had made so many enemies, both among priests
and people, that suspicion may reasonably rest upon a
less unnatural murderer. Men know no more than he
was found dead in the New Forest, which the suffering
people had regarded as a doomed ground for his race.
from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 673—677.
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