Lord Rufford

“ As Lord Rufford was a sportsman rather than anything else Scrobby studied how he might best give annoyance in that direction, and some time before the Goarly affair had succeeded in creating considerable disturbance. When a man will do this pertinaciously, and when his selected enemy is wealthy and of high standing, he will generally succeed in getting a party round him. ”

“ If the country would get the kennels and the stables, and lay out a few pounds so that horses and hounds and men could go into them, I wouldn't mind having a shot for the house. It's killing work where I am now, the other side of Rufford, you may say." Then he stopped;—but no one would undertake to answer him. The meaning of it was that Captain Glomax wanted £500 a year more than he received, and every one there knew that there was not £500 a year more to be got out of the country,—unless Lord Rufford would put his hand into his pocket. ”

“ In fact, he was dressed for the character of ‘Jonas the Graveless, or the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn,’ one of his most remarkable impersonations, and one which the Cantervilles had every reason to remember, as it was the real origin of their quarrel with their neighbour, Lord Rufford. ”

“ I am not sure that, in the generation before Rufus, those words could have applied in all their fulness either to Harold of England or to William of Normandy, either to Gyrth of East-Anglia or to Roger of Beaumont. Chivalry a new thing. But to no man that ever lived was the whole train of thoughts and feelings suggested by those words more abidingly present than they were to the Red King. It might be going too far to say that William Rufus was the first gentleman, as his claim to that title might be disputed by his forefather Duke Richard the Good. ”

“ But William Rufus seems always to have been well pleased to set others in motion, even on enterprises in which he did not share himself. Designs of the Ætheling Eadgar. So he gladly hearkened to the proposals of the Ætheling Eadgar for an expedition into Scotland. Its object was to overthrow the usurper Donald, as the chosen of Dunfermline was deemed at Winchester, to restore the line of Malcolm and Margaret, and to bring the Scottish kingdom once more into its due obedience to the over-lord in England. ”

“ The men of that age, stained as many of them were with great crimes—​perhaps all the more because their crimes were of a kind which they could not help feeling to be crimes—​commonly kept enough of conscience and good feeling to admire in others the virtues which they failed to practise themselves. William Rufus himself had moments when goodness awed him. It was only a few exceptional monsters like the fiend of Bellême whom no such feelings ever touched. His love for England. Anselm became the idol of all the inhabitants of England, without distinction of age or sex, of rank or race. ”

“ Petrib. 1088. “On þisum geare wæs þis land swiðe astirad, and mid mycele swicdome afylled; swa þæt þa riceste Frencisce men þe weron innan þrisan lande wolden swican heore hlaforde þam cynge, and woldon habban his broðer to cynge, Rodbeard, þe wæs eorl on Normandige.” The duty of faithfulness to the lord, whoever he may be, is always strongly felt; still William Rufus is only “heora hlaford se cyng,” not “heora cynehlaford.” But the notion that Robert had any special right as the eldest son seems not to have come into any purely English mind of that age. ”

“ The marked personality of William Rufus, the way in which that personality stamped itself on the memory of his age, is shown by the elaborate pictures which we have of his character, and by the crowd of personal anecdotes by which those pictures are illustrated. Allowing for the sure tendency of such a character to get worse, we may take our survey of the Red King as he seemed in men’s eyes when the restraints of his earlier life were 148 taken away. As long as his father lived, he had little power to do evil ”

“ In the company of the Red King we are introduced to a new line of thought, a new way of looking at things, of which in an earlier generation we see hardly stronger signs in Normandy than we see in England. For good and for evil, if William Rufus bears the mark of his age, he also leaves his mark on his age. His own marked personality in some sort entitles him to be surrounded, to be withstood, by men whose personality is also clearly marked. ”

“ Other kings have been cruel; others have been lustful; others have broken their faith with their people, and have said in their hearts that there was no God. But the Red King stands well nigh alone in bringing back the foulest vices of heathendom into a Christian land, and at the same 158 time openly proclaiming himself the personal enemy of his Maker.
Contrast between Rufus and his father. It is with regard to his daily life and to the beliefs and objects which his age looked on as sacred that William Rufus stands out in the most glaring contrast to his father. ”

“ Character of William Rufus.—The Conquerer left three sons, Robert, the eldest, William, and Henry. To Robert he left Normandy and Maine, but he named William to succeed him in England, because he knew that Robert was too weak and good-natured to keep his unruly barons in check. William Rufus, or the Red King, was as able and fierce as his father, but not so just and wise as a ruler. His one good quality was that he would not allow his barons to rob and oppress the English, that power he kept for himself. ”

“ And when in our own land the same space carries us from Æthelred to William Rufus, the gap seems wider still. And it was at least not the fault of William Rufus that the changes wrought by the eleventh century were not greater still. Æthelred, the man without rede, was not likely to change the face of the world, unless by passively supplying the means for Swegen and Cnut to change it. But William Rufus had no lack of rede of one kind, though it was perhaps of a kind which better deserved to be called unrede. ”

“ These varying tales, whose very variety shows the impression which the event made upon men’s minds, may make us glad to come back to the safe statement of the Chronicler, that the Red King was shot from his own men. The place and circumstances of the death of Rufus were such as could not fail to stamp themselves upon men’s minds. We see the proud and godless King, in the height of his pride and godlessness, with his heart puffed up with wilder plans and more swelling boasts than any of his plans and boasts in former years. ”

“ A daughter of their race still sat on the Scottish throne; but for Malcolm, the savage devastator of Northern England, Englishmen could not be expected to feel any love. William was now their king, their king crowned and anointed, the lord to whom their duty was owing as his men. [190] Him they would make fast on the throne of England; for him they were ready to win the Empire of all Britain. The English followers of Rufus loudly proclaimed their 67 hatred of rebellion. ”

“ It is therefore the less wonderful if another class of men, whose interests and whose duties were more doubtful, deemed, when they had to choose between two lords, that Rufus was the lord to be chosen. French traitors. Others again were found of baser mould, who simply took the money of the Red King, and for its sake turned against their own people on behalf of strangers. Among 180 these one is specially marked, one who by his geographical position was called on to be among the foremost champions of France against Norman invasion. ”

“ Armed at all points, master alike of gold and steel, able to work himself and to command the services of others alike with the head and with the hand, William Rufus could, at least in contending with Robert, conquer when he chose and how he chose. Bribes. He conquers without leaving England. And for a while he chose, like the Persian king of old, to win towns and castles without stirring from his hearth. [620] ”

“ In such a man we must measure the balance of good and evil as we can, and the chivalrous side of him is the evil side. In William Rufus the chivalrous side is the better side; it is the comparatively bright spot in a picture otherwise of utter blackness.
Grouping of events in the reign of Rufus. The chief events of the reign of William Rufus fall into two classes. There is the military side; there is the ecclesiastical and constitutional side. There is the side which shows us the noblest and the basest type of the warrior in Helias of La Flèche and in Robert of Bellême. ”

“ Abbot Ralph, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He underwent excommunication from the zeal of Bishop Serlo, and by the wrongs done by him to Abbot Ralph of Seez, which drove that prelate to seek shelter in England, he unwittingly gave England a worthy primate and Anselm a worthy successor. [498] One is inclined to wonder how such a man gained the special favour of the Conqueror, whose politic sternness had nothing in common with the fiendish brutality of Robert. [499] Perhaps, as in William Rufus, the worst features of his character may for a while have been hidden. ”

“ But now he was no longer under tutors and governors; there was no longer any man to whom he could in any sense look up. He was left to his own devices, or to the counsels of men whose counsels were not likely to improve him. It was not a wholesome exchange when the authority of Lanfranc and William the Great was exchanged for the cunning service of Randolf Flambard and the military companionship of Robert of Bellême.
Picture of William Rufus. As soon then as Lanfranc was dead, William Rufus burst all bounds, and the man stood forth as he was, or as his unhappy circumstances had made him. ”

“ He was moreover the King’s gossip, bound to him by the same tie which bound Morel to Malcolm. We thus incidentally learn that there were those whom William Rufus had held at the font, and for whose Christian faith and Christian life he had pledged himself. But the spiritual kindred went for nothing with the Red King. The King refuses to spare him. Many of the great men are said to have earnestly begged for the life of William of Alderi, and to have striven to move the King’s greed by a mighty bribe. The Conqueror had refused Harold’s weight in gold as the price of his Christian burial ”

“ It is needless to say that King William of England had no thought of going on the crusade himself. Position of William. He was not indeed hindered, as the Emperor and the King of the French were hindered, by actually lying under the censures of the Church. But he was as little likely as either of them to gird on his sword in the great quarrel. The voice which stirred the heart of Robert to the quick found no kindred chord to strike on in the mocking soul of Rufus. The enemy of God felt no call to march in the cause of God. ”

“ Rufus? What you talkin' about!"
"Rufus. And the girl he is engaged to marry."
Rufus's father wheeled about, to the imminent danger of his eyes and the points of the open scissors. "What in the name of common sense— Why, Elviry, what you mean?"
"I mean w'at I say, father."
"Rufus? Why, you can't! It's—it's redic'lous. He ain't growed up. He's—he's—"
"Now, father, 'tain't no use to sputter this way. You set still! How can I cut 'ith you dancin' round like a teetotum? Rufus is a man—"
"A man! He ain't never hed a freedom suit." ”

“ We might have looked to see the Red King, the mirror of chivalry, cross the sea, as his father had done on the opposite errand, at the head of the whole force of his realm. We might have looked to see a series of gallant feats of arms take place between the two hostile brothers. The real story is widely different. The King stays in England. William Rufus did not cross the sea till a year after war had been declared, and remarkably little fighting happened, both while he stayed in England and after he set forth for Normandy. ”

“ Besides, it was a satisfaction to him to feel that he had Rufus in his power, and he had no desire to lose that advantage by setting him free. Tyrant and bully as he was by nature, he meant to gratify his malice at our hero's expense.
"I couldn't do it, Rufus," he said. "There's another man in it, and he's got the box."
Rufus looked sharply at Martin to ascertain if he was speaking the truth. He decided that it was as his step-father stated, and, if this was the case, he would have more than one enemy to deal with.
"Does the other man live here?" he asked. ”

“ Rufus is made to answer that he is thankful both to God and to his faithful followers. But he fears that he should be lacking in that justice which is a king’s first duty, if he were to spare the men who had risen up against him without cause, and who had sought the life of a king who, as he truly said, had done them no harm. [223] The Red King is made to employ the argument which we have so often come across on behalf of that severe discharge of princely duty which made the names of his father and his younger brother live in men’s grateful remembrance. ”

“ Rufus’ breach of his promises. No reign ever began with brighter promises than the real reign of William the Red; for we can hardly count his reign as really beginning till the rebellion was put down. No reign ever became blacker. No king was ever more distinctly placed on his throne by the good will of his people. No other king was ever hated as William Rufus lived to be hated. ”

“ Contrast between William and Robert. The Duke, heedless of the consequences of his acts but not cruel in his own person, was, above all men, open to those passing bursts of generosity which are quite consistent with utter weakness and want of principle. William Rufus was always open to an appeal to his knightly generosity, to that higher form of self-assertion which forbade him to harm one who was beneath him, and which taught him to admire a bold deed or word even when directed against himself. ”