William Rufus

“ The death of William Rufus is one of those events in English history which are familiar to every memory and come readily to every mouth. His death lives in the thoughts of not a few who have no clear knowledge of his life. The arrow in the New Forest is well known to many who know nothing of the real position of the Red King’s reign in English history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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] ”

“ The character of William Rufus himself, repulsive as from many points it is, is yet a strange and instructive study of human nature. The mere fact that no prince ever made a deeper personal impression on the minds of the men of his own age, the crowd of personal anecdotes and personal sayings which, whether true or false, bear witness to the depth of that impression, all invite us to a nearer study of the man of whom those who lived in his own day found so much to tell, and so much which at first sight seems strange 6 and contradictory. ”

“ Possibly the importance of Orderic, long growing, grows yet greater at the very end of our tale. And we still make a certain use of Wace. The story of the death of William Rufus is one of those in which it is desirable to look in all manner of quarters to which we should not commonly think of turning, not so much in search of facts, as to see how such a story impressed men’s minds, and what forms it took in various hands. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus were the promises with which William Rufus had bought the help of the English people in his day of danger utterly trampled under foot. He had promised them good laws and freedom from unrighteous taxes; he had promised them that they should have again, as in the days of Cnut, [427] the right of every man to slay the beasts of the field for his lawful needs. Instead of all this, the reign of the younger William became, above all other reigns, a reign of unlaw and of ungeld. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every man who had been held liable before the King’s sickness was held liable again. His gifts to monasteries were also recalled. [1140] But one thing which William had promised to do he remained as fully minded to do as before. He keeps his purpose as to Anselm. At no stage did he show the slightest purpose of recalling his grant of the archbishopric to Anselm. This distinction is quite in harmony with the general character of William Rufus. ”

“ William wished for a war with France, and a war with France could at any moment be had. The eternal question of the Vexin stood always awaiting its solution.
Wars with France and Maine. But a war with France was not the only war which William Rufus had now to wage on the Gaulish mainland. He had to strive against a noble city, a valiant people, ruled by a prince worthy of his city and his people. Besides striving with France and Philip, he had to strive against Maine, he had to strive against Helias. The war with France was doubtless the object with which he crossed the sea ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He is sometimes called the Red King, but more commonly William Rufus. Things went worse than ever with the poor English in his time; for at lest William the Conqueror had made everybody mind the law, but now William Rufus let his cruel soldiers do just as they pleased, and spoil what they did not want. It was of no use to complain, for the king would only laugh and make jokes. He did not care for God or man; only for being powerful, for feasting, and for hunting. ”

“ Each is best told by itself, with as little reference to either of the others as may be. And each begins in the year of which we have now reached the threshold. The sixth year of William Rufus saw the beginning of the primacy of Anselm, the beginning of the main dealings of the reign with Wales and Scotland, the beginning of renewed interference in the Norman duchy. Aspects of Rufus with regard to each. It will be well to keep these three lines of narrative as distinct as may be. They show the Red King in three different characters. ”

“ What happened further we are not told; it can hardly be meant that the men in whose favour the judgement of God was held to have been given were sent to the gallows all the same.
Special vices of Rufus. In this last story the most distinctive feature of the character of William Rufus comes out. In many of his recorded deeds we see the picture of an evil man and an evil king, but still of a man and a king whose deeds might find many parallels in other times and places. ”

“ This speech has a genuine sound; it should be noticed as being the only speech put into the mouth of William Rufus which can be construed as expressing any dislike or scorn for his English subjects as such. Yet the words are rather words of good-humoured raillery than expressive of any deeper feeling. The Red King oppressed and despised all men, except his own immediate following. Practically his oppression and scorn must have fallen most heavily on men of native English birth ”

“ And without fully taking it in, we shall fail to give him his place in the general history of England, Normandy, and mankind in general. He marks the beginning of a new æra. In William Rufus we have not only to study a very varied and remarkable phase of human nature; we have also to look on a man who marks the beginning of a new age and a new state of feeling.
The Red King has indeed this advantage, that the other parts of his character are so bad that the chivalrous side of him stands out as a relief, as at least comparative light amid surrounding darkness. ”

“ Whatever might have been the abstract preference of the Normans for Robert or of the English for Henry, neither party felt at the moment that degree of zeal which would lead them to brave the dangers of opposition. At any rate, William Rufus was a new king, and a new king is commonly welcome. Men of both races might reasonably expect that the rule of one who had come peacefully to his crown would be less harsh than that of one who had made his entry by the sword. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not at first easy to understand why so very little came of such great preparations as those which William Rufus made for the French war. The strength of two great states, during the later stages of the war the strength of three great states, was broken by efforts which, even allowing as much as we can for the energy of young Lewis, were mainly those of the nobles and people of a single district. England, Normandy, and Aquitaine, were baffled by the men of the French Vexin. ”

“ Public feeling since the nomination at Gloucester. But a private man Anselm was not to remain. After the scene in the sick room at Gloucester, neither William nor Anselm could act exactly as if that scene had never taken place. The momentary repentance of the King, and the acts done during the time of that repentance, had given a strength to public opinion which even William Rufus could not despise. The old abuses, the old oppressions, began again; but men were now less disposed to put up with them than they had been before. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The holy Anselm at home, the valiant Helias beyond the sea, are the men with whom Rufus has to strive. And the saint of Aosta, the hero of La Flèche, are men who of themselves are enough to draw our thoughts to the times and the lands in which they lived. Each, in his own widely different way, stands forth as the representative of right in the face of a power of evil which we still feel to be not wholly evil. All light is not put out, all better feelings are not trampled out of being, when evil stands in any way abashed before the presence of good. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From putting together all these descriptions we get the portrait of William Rufus as one of those tyrants who keep a monopoly of tyranny for themselves and their immediate servants. He puts down other offenders, and strictly keeps the general peace of the land. His justice, in the technical sense, is strong, with of course the special exceptions hinted at by William of Malmesbury (see p. 143) . There is no charge of cruelty in his own person; but he allows his immediate followers, his courtiers and mercenaries, to do any kind of wrong without punishment. ”

“ 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. ”