Ballad of William Rufus, The

DESCRIPTION: "Eight hundred years ago, sirs, As I have heard men say, A king rose through this forest, His royal stags to slay... But instead of a royal stag, that day, A King of England fell." The king was William Rufus, who was shot by Walter Tyrrel
AUTHOR: Words: Charles Hamilton Aide (1826-1906)
EARLIEST DATE: 1865 (The Romance of the Scarlet Leaf)
KEYWORDS: royalty death homicide
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1087 - Death of William I the Bastard, generally known as "William the Conqueror." In England, he is succeeded by his second son William II Rufus
1100 - William Rufus killed while hunting, shot by Walter Tyrrell. As Rufus is unmarried and has no children, there is a dispute over the succession, which is resolved in favor of his younger brother Henry I (reigned 1100-1135)
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Howson-SongsSunginSuffolk, #53, "William Rufus" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Charles Hamilton Aide, _The Romance of the Scarlet Leaf And Other Poems_, Edward Moxon & Company, 1865 (available on Google Books), pp. 269-272, "The Ballad of William Rufus" (1 text)
Roud #2038
NOTES [3863 words]: Although the two informants from whom this song was collected apparently did not know it was composed, it should have been obvious that it did not go back to the time of King William Rufus -- a song about Rufus would almost certainly have been in Anglo-Norman, and even if it had been in English, it would have been Old English, and presumably in alliterative verse rather than ballad meter. There would have been no way for such a piece to transform into this.
For that matter, a contemporary poem might not have called him "Rufus" -- there is no evidence that the nickname "Rufus" was used in the lifetime of the younger William; the first demonstrable use of it was by an Abbot named Guibert some time after 1114, and the name was popularized by its use by Orderic Vitalis, who wrote about two decades after that, and Godfrey Gaimar at about the same time (Mason, p. 10).
Although Charles Hamilton Aide's poem apparently was not published until 1865, it must have been a few years older, since a footnote to it says "This ballad has become popular in the New Forest. Several of the songs that follow have been set to music." The poem was in fact printed elsewhere, and used in a Mummer's play and other local works.
William I the Bastard and his wife Matilda had four sons and five daughters (Lack, p. 8). The second son, Richard, was probably in his teens when he died around 1070, but that left three sons alive at the time of William's death: Robert Curthose, William (who was born around 1060; Barlow, p. 3), and Henry.
William I in his will granted his ancestral dominion of Normandy to Robert Curthose; as an inherited property ("patrimony"), he probably did not have the right to alter the law of succession (Barlow, pp. 41-42), so it had to go to his eldest son.
But William I had conquered England; it was not his by right but be "acquisition." So apparently it was felt that he could bequeath it as he wished, and it ended up going to William II Rufus. The third son, Henry, received no inherited property, just money.
"The younger William, shorter than his father, but equally stout, red-faced (hence the name), with piercing eyes and stammering speech, carried with him a letter to {Archbishop of Canterbury] Lanfranc from his father saying that William was the Conqueror's choice for the English throne. Within three weeks he had been crowned in Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Lanfranc" (Brooke, p. 158. According to Barlow, p. 47, this story comes from Orderic Vitalis. Mason, p. 9, say that some sources claim he was red-faced, others say his beard was red although the hair on his head was yellow). Lack, pp. 38-39, quotes Eadmer (the secretary of Lanfranc's successor Anselm) as saying that Lanfranc wasn't entirely sure that William was a good choice. But Lanfranc functioned almost as William I's regent in England; according to Barlow, p. 30, he and a few others ran the country while William was in Normandy. The Archbishop's support surely enabled Rufus to take the throne -- though it certainly didn't mean that all the barons went along).
We can only speculate why William I chose Rufus as his heir -- if he did; Barlow, pp. 46-47, notes that there are no contemporary accounts of William's death, and the two written later are both dubious. Still, there may have been reasons. Barlow, p. 14, offers the curious opinion that "William may not have been quite as sharp as Robert and Henry, but he was no fool and had other qualities." Rufus does seem to have been tough and efficient -- much more so than Robert Curthose. (According to Barlow, p. 6, the Duchy of Normandy "disintegrated" while under Robert's rule in 1087-1096, and Lack, p. 54, quotes the unreliable Orderic Vitalis as saying Curthose was "weak and ineffective" and left the province in "disorder." Henry was even more tough and efficient than William, but he was many years younger; William I may not have been sure about him.) With England still smarting under Norman domination, an efficient king was important if the Normans were to keep control. Alternately, it may have been that Robert had on occasion rebelled against his father, and may have been rebelling again at the time of William's death (Lack, p. 26ffff.), and William resented his son's acts,
The curious thing is that it seems highly likely that Rufus was homosexual; he was close to forty when he died, yet he never married, and had no illegitimate children that we have heard of, even though contemporary accounts call him very licentious (Brooke, p. 162) (To be sure, Mason, p. 44, claims he had an illegitimate son. But her source turns out to be a chronicle written in the 1640s. In other words, not a source.) Furthermore, Eadmer said he collected a number of somewhat effeminate young men as courtiers (Tyerman, p. 52; Barlow, p. 103). Barlow, p. 103, says Eadmer, William of Malmsbury, and Orderic Vitalis all say Rufus hung around with gay men, and hint that Rufus was gay also. (Barlow points out that the church chroniclers had a bias against Rufus because of his plundering of the church, which is true. All the early chroniclers disliked him, but all were clerks. Mason, pp. 18-19, says that a few non-English chroniclers half a century after his death were kinder to him. True -- but how much would they know?). Brooke does not think the evidence necessarily implies that Rufus was not heterosexual. Tyerman, p. 53, considers homosexuality merely "possible." Barlow, after discussing the matter on pp. 102-110, concludes on p. 109, "On the whole the evidence points to the king's bisexuality. (It should be noted, however, that although Barlow's is one of the few full biographies of Rufus, it was written in 1983 by a man who was born in the 1920s; his perspective is dated.) Mason, whose worship of Rufus is so extreme as to seem frankly irrational, refuses even to address the question, since Rufus's failure to produce an heir was clearly a problem. I personally think it likely that Rufus was homosexual, and almost certain that people at the time *thought* he was homosexual -- and disapproved. Strange that William I, who was extremely pious and seems to have been extremely sexually strict and who was also very concerned about making sure he had heirs to perpetuate the dynasty, would have chosen such a man as his heir (cf. Lack, p. 37).
And there are doubts about whether William I really chose Rufus as his heir. Mason, p. 45, is sure the Conqueror commanded that Rufus succeed, but Mason loves Rufus irrationally. Could the whole thing have been a fix? William I's letter to Lanfranc would have been dictated (none of the Norman kings was literate; Barlow, p. 20), so it could have been faked. (Presumably it had William's seal, but that doesn't mean William actually wrote the thing....) Lack, p. 45, doubts even the existence of this letter, given that it has not been preserved and there is no mention of it by Lanfranc's secretary Eadmer. And William of Malmsbury instead reported that Rufus sailed to England, latched onto the money in the English treasury, and used that as the basis of his claim to the throne (Barlow, p. 55). Of contemporary evidence we have almost none; we don't have a list of those at the coronation (which took place less than a month after Rufus reached England), and if he issued a coronation charter, it has not survived (Barlow, p. 57). We do know that Rufus immediately imprisoned two members of Old English noble families (Morkere/Morcar the former Earl of Northumberland and Wulfnoth the brother of the old King Harold II) whom the Conqueror had just freed (Mason, p. 48). It didn't matter that they had done nothing; they might just possibly stand in his way.
So we can't really be sure that William I wanted Rufus to succeed to the English throne. But there is no question but that William the younger managed to take it. To be sure, Curthose didn't just take that sitting down; he and a bunch of English barons tried to set Rufus aside. But Rufus quelled the English revolt and then came after Curthose in Normandy; the peace that followed in 1088 made William stronger and Robert weaker (Lack, pp. 58-63; Tyerman, p. 48).
It is ironic, although that Rufus owed his crown to Lanfranc, when Lanfranc died in 1089, William left the Archbishopric unfilled for years so that he could appropriate its revenues, only appointing a new bishop when a bout of illness caused him to feel enough fear to appoint the saintly Anselm (Brooke, p. 166; Tyerman, p. 55, points out that Anselm really didn't want the job), but he then treated Anselm so badly that he fled the country (Brooke, p. 166; Tyerman, p. 51, though he puts much of the blame on Anselm). Brooke, p. 168, quips that Rufus "treated God as he treated his older brother, with disrespect, as often as he dared." Little wonder, then, that there were all sorts of alleged prognostications that he would die.
William, as Brooke said, was not above taking advantage of his brothers. When Robert Curthose decided to take part in the First Crusade in 1096, William conveniently provided a loan with the Duchy of Normandy as security (Brooke, p. 158; Lack, p. 77). We don't know why Robert took the cross (neither Lack, pp. 75-77, nor Runciman, p. 165, has any specific reason), but he certainly seems to have taken the crusade seriously. He, along with Stephen, Count of Blois, and Robert II, Count of Flanders, led the forces of the Northern Franks (Runciman, pp. 164-165. The Northern Franks were one of four major forces of knights and nobles who went on the Crusade, the armies being the Southern Franks led primarily by Raymond, Count of Toulouse; the Sicilian Normans led by Bohemond of Taranto; and the Germans led by Godfrey of Boullion).
Robert was present at all the important moments of the Crusade, including the captures of Antioch and Jerusalem, but somehow he was never the Big Name; it was Bohemond who managed the capture of Antioch and became its Prince, Raymond who started the move from Antioch to Jerusalem and formed the County of Tripoli, Godfrey who was named "Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre," i.e. Lord of what became the Kingdom of Jerusalem. (There was a claim by a few late English chroniclers that someone offered Robert the crown of Jerusalem before it was offered to Godfrey, and that Robert turned it down. But none of the writers who were in Jerusalem mention any such thing; Tyerman, p. 67.)
The one thing Robert gained from the crusade was a second wife (his first having died some years before); he won the hand of Sibyl, the young daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano. He married her on his way home (Lack, p. 131); she would bear him his son William Clito.
The reason all this matters is because Robert's return to Normandy would again raise the specter of the conflict between the sons of William the Conqueror. Could Robert reclaim his duchy? If William died childless, as seemed increasingly likely, would Robert, or his heirs, succeed him? And what about the third brother, Henry? There are no hints in the chronicles of anyone asking these questions, but moderns certainly have. The easiest way for Henry, for instance, to assert a claim would be to do so *before* Robert arrived home to put in any claims. (On these questions, see, e.g., Tyerman, p. 50.)
And William was losing popularity. Apart from whatever people felt about his oppression of both batons and church and about his sexual orientation, he had levied a heavy tax to pay the money he had used to pay the price of Robert's voyage to Jerusalem (Tyerman, p. 48).
William was hunting in the New Forest when he was killed on August 2, 1100 (Brooke, p. 158).
What may be the earliest report of Rufus's death was fairly unadorned, though it is clear it does not approve of the impious king: "on the morning after Lammas Day, the king William was shot with an arrow in hunting by a man of his, and afterward brought to Winchester and buried in the bishopric the thirteenth year after he succeeded to the kingdom. He was very strong and violent over his land and his men and with all his neighbours, and very terrible. And through the advice of evil men, who were always agreeable to him, and through his own avarice, he was always harassing this nation with raiding and with excessive taxes, because in his days every justice fell and there rose up every injustice before God and before the world. He humiliated God's church.... And therefore he was hated by well-nigh all his nation, and abhorrent to God, just as his end showed, because he departed in the midst of his injustices without repentance and any reparation" (Swanton, pp 235-236).
Eadmer says there was some doubt about whether Rufus was shot or fell on an arrow (Lack, p. 134); according the Barlow, p. 421, says that chroniclers were split on the point but the larger share said William fell on the arrow (to which I can only ask, what are the odds of *that*?). Eadmer did not give Tirel's name; Barlow, p. 421, thinks this might be because Tirel had good relations with Anselm and the church, whereas William had terrible relations with both.
Fuller accounts came later. William of Malmesbury, writing perhaps around 1125, says that the hunting party split up, and William and Walter Tirel were together. William shot at a first stag, without killing it on the spot; when a second stag ran past, Tirel fired at it and instead hit William (Brooke, p. 162).
John of Worcester claimed that three different members of William the Conqueror's family (William II, his older brother Richard, and another Richard, an illegitimate son of Robert Curthose) all were shot to death in the New Forest at one time or another; this was divine punishment for creation of the New Forest! (Lack, p. 134).
Orderic Vitalis, highly colorful and much-quoted but not highly reliable, wrote around 1135, and said that a stag ran between William and Walter de Poix (=Tirel), that William jumped back, that Tirel fired at the beast, just missing it but fatally hitting William (Brooke, p. 163).
Henry of Huntingdon, whose chronicle covered the years up to 1154, gave an account with more details that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle but that sounded rather similar: "In the year 1100, in the thirteenth year of his reign, King William ended his cruel life with a wretched death... he went to hunt in the New Forest on 2 August. There Walter Tirel, aiming at a stag, accidentally hit the king with an arrow. The king was struck in the heart, and fell without uttering a word. A little earlier blood had been seen to bubble up from the ground in Berkshire. William was rightly cut off in the midst of his injustice.... {W]hatever evil had been planted earlier was brought to fruition, and whatever evil had not appeared previously put up its shoots in those times. For the hated king, most evil to God and to the people, either sold bishoprics and abbeys or held on to them and took rent for short leases. He intended to be the inheritor of everything. On the day of his death he had in his own hands the archbishopric of Canterbury, the bishoprics of Winchester and Salisbury, and eleven abbeys let out for rent. Finally, whatever was displeasing to God and to those who loved God was pleasing to this king and those who loved him. Nor did they exercise their unspeakable debauchery in secret, but unashamedly in the light of day. He was buried at Winchester on the day after his perdition" (Huntingdon, pp. 48-49).
Tirel would eventually deny involvement in William's death -- which raises the question of how any account of it arose, if William and Walter were indeed the only ones present (Brooke, p. 164). To be fair, John of Salisbury, writing more than half a century later, says that although Tirel was blamed, no one knew who actually fired the shot (Lack, p. 135). Mason, p. 230, mentions the possibility that Walter might have induced someone else to fire the shot, which would allow him to swear that he hadn't done it himself while still explaining why Tirel was blamed. The whole thing is very mysterious.
Tyerman, pp. 68-69, has a short biography of Tirel. He was the Lord of Poix, and the third Walter Tirel in his family. His lands were in the Vexin, the boundary between Normandy and the lands of the Kings of France. He "received lands from William I and was a close friend of William II. All contemporary accounts attribute William [II]'s death to a stray arrow, a hunting accident. Most, including William of Malmsbury, the Worcester chronicler, and Orderic Vitalis, name Walter Tirel as the unwitting culprit. It seems likely that he shot the arrow that missed a deer and killed the king. He certainly fled the scene immediately afterward" (Tyerman, p. 69). Tyerman is certain that Tirel "was not a scapegoat or a fall-guy. Subsequently, he suffered neither retribution nor enjoyed preferment" (ibid). But little seems to be known of his life after that (or before that, for that matter), except for his repeated disclaimers of responsibility.
I find myself wondering, if William and Walter were truly alone, if William might have made a pass and Walter shot him to hold him off. What is certain is that no one was ever punished for the murder (Lack, p. 135).
Malmesbury, writing of Rufus's funeral, wrote that he was "interred, in the presence of many great men, mourned by few" (Brooke, p. 158).
Moderns have come up with many hypotheses about William's death, ranging from someone at the French court wanting him dead to a truly wacky idea about Rufus being involved in witchcraft (Hollister, pp. 103-104), but the contemporary accounts all treat his death as an accident. None of the hypotheses make much sense -- except one. It is flatly amazing how quickly William's younger brother Henry moved to take the throne -- and the timing was interesting, because it was just as Robert Curthose was returning from the Crusade. If Curthose were back, and William died, it would be much easier for Curthose to make a claim for the throne -- and it would be hard to argue that a man who had just gone on what was seen as a holy duty was unworthy of it.
The moment William was dead, Henry lit out for Winchester, where he forcibly seized the treasury (Lack, p. 138). Then he arranged a hasty coronation -- so hasty that most of the barons were absent, and only three bishops. He was crowned by the Bishop of London, not one of the two Archbishops -- Anselm of Canterbury was in exile, but Thomas of York was in England, yet they wouldn't wait for him (Lack, pp. 139-140; Hollister, p. 106, thinks York was old and would have needed time to get there, which is likely true -- but most kings don't insist on being crowned in three days!). Henry was crowned just three days after the death of his older brother (Lack, p. 140). It was one of the most hole-and-corner coronations in English history. If William's slaying was accidental -- and no one at the time seems to have had any doubt that it was -- the convenience of the timing is astounding: Henry was able to get himself crowned before poor Curthose was able to learn about it and put in a claim. Most people would have been hard-pressed to pull off such a feat even had the killing of Rufus been expected and planned for. I emphasize that this is not proof of Henry's guilt. But the coincidence is amazing.
Hollister, p. 105, points out that the English crown at this time did not always pass by primogeniture, which is true, and therefore argues that Henry did not usurp it. I don't think this is really true. Broadly speaking, the crown was elective, but it generally went to the senior adult member of the royal family, assuming he was competent and unless the old king said otherwise; also, the election required a broad cross-section of the nobility. William II had not proposed a successor, and Robert Curthose was the senior adult royal. Only a few nobles stood up for Henry. The argument that William I had passed over Curthose to choose Rufus as his heir is irrelevant; the Conqueror might have said that Rufus was better than Curthose, but that does not mean that he would have preferred Henry to Curthose. It is conceivable that a proper Witan would have chosen Henry over Curthose, but that is not what happened.
Henry would later imply that he deserved the throne because he was "born in the purple," i.e. born after his father had become King of England (Mason, pp. 228-229). But he also seized Normandy from Robert Curthose, and Normandy was certainly in William the Conqueror's hand when Curthose was born, so that really won't wash. Henry's act had more color of law than the ascension of Henry VII, and probably also Henry IV, but certainly less than that of Richard III, and Richard is usually called a usurper. So I'd call Henry a usurper also.
Lack, p. 187, sums up the old king as follows: "William Rufus was undoubtedly a better king than he is usually given credit for, but the true picture is irrevocably clouded, not least because it was in Henry's interests to let his reputation be tarnished."
We might add that, after Henry seized the throne, Robert Curthose prepared to invade to try to gain the throne for himself. Lack, p. 148, claims most of the barons supported Curthose. Whichever side the barons were on, the armies met at Alton and started negotiating. And, somehow, Henry kept his throne. Lack, p. 151, thinks Henry offered Robert a substantial pension and restoration of his lands in Normandy -- which raises the obvious question of why Robert took such a lousy deal. And even that deal would not last; Henry at once started going after Robert's friends and nibbling away at Normandy; at last Henry and Curthose raised armies, which met on Sept. 28, 1106 at Tinchebray/Tinchebrai in Normandy. Robert was the experienced soldier, but Henry won the battle (Lack, pp. 366-367), and proceeded to imprison Curthose for the rest of his long life. Robert was still alive on 1130, at age 80 or so, and Henry was allotting about £35 for his upkeep (Lack, p. 172) -- not a pittance, but it wasn't going to allow a lot of fancy luxuries, either. Curthose didn't die until 1134, just a year before Henry; he was about 84 at the time and still in captivity (Lack, p. 186). There isn't much hint of brotherly love in the record.
His success didn't bring Henry much long-term luck. Normandy was always restive under his rule. It might well have fallen to Curthose's son William Clito, except that Clito suffered an infected would and died in 1128 at the age of about 26 (Lack, p. 185). And Henry's only legitimate son, William of the White Ship, was already dead by then. Henry tried to arrange for his daughter Matilda/Maud to succeed him, but the barons would have none of it (though Henry's grandson Henry II eventually succeeded); rather than accept Matilda, the larger share of them chose Henry's nephew Stephen, the daughter of his sister Adela, to be king. If Stephen hadn't been utterly incompetent, it is likely that Henry's line would have permanently lost the English throne.
I do not say that Henry arranged for the murder of William Rufus. But the man had no affection for his family and no morals whatsoever; he was certainly capable of such despicable acts. - RBW
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