A king shot dead by an arrow while hunting in a royal forest, his companion fleeing at once to France (1100)
2 August 1100; Walter Tirel was blamed, and the death has been suspected ever since of being murder.
Monarchs · Norman & Angevin
William II
c. 1056–1100
House of Normandy — William Rufus
In office: 1087–1100
Second surviving son of the Conqueror, William Rufus took England while his elder brother Robert Curthose took Normandy, and spent his reign fighting or buying off that brother, quarrelling with Archbishop Anselm and squeezing the Church for money through his minister Ranulf Flambard. He built the great hall at Westminster and pushed the northern frontier to Carlisle. In August 1100 he was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest, and his brother Henry seized the throne within days.
How to spot them
- ▸Rufus — the red-faced or red-haired king; unmarried and childless, and hated by monastic chroniclers
- ▸Ranulf Flambard, the hated minister; the long vacancy at Canterbury and the exile of Anselm
- ▸Westminster Hall, built 1097–99, the largest hall in Europe when new
- ▸Killed by an arrow in the New Forest in 1100; Walter Tirel blamed; the Rufus Stone marks the traditional spot
In the reign
A vast new hall built beside the Thames, its 240-foot span then the largest in Europe, and still standing (1097–1099)
Westminster Hall; its hammerbeam roof was added by Richard II.
A rebellion raised by his uncle, the bishop of Bayeux, in favour of his elder brother (1088)
Odo of Bayeux's revolt failed; Odo was exiled.
A long quarrel with a philosopher-archbishop over papal recognition and church councils, ending in that archbishop's exile (1097)
Anselm of Canterbury, appointed reluctantly in 1093 after a four-year vacancy, left England in 1097.
Normandy taken in pawn for 10,000 marks so that a brother could go on crusade (1096)
Robert Curthose mortgaged the duchy and joined the First Crusade.
Cumberland taken from the Scots and a castle planted at Carlisle (1092)
He also secured the submission of Malcolm III, who was killed at Alnwick in 1093.
A body carried to Winchester on a charcoal-burner's cart and buried under the tower without rites (1100)
The cart is traditionally that of Purkis; the cathedral tower collapsed in 1107, which chroniclers blamed on the burial.
Quick-fire facts
- •Nicknamed Rufus, usually explained by a red complexion or red hair
- •He never married and left no legitimate children; chroniclers such as William of Malmesbury attacked the morals of his court
- •Ranulf Flambard, his chief financial agent, kept bishoprics and abbeys vacant so the crown could take their revenues
- •Canterbury stood vacant from Lanfranc's death in 1089 until Anselm's appointment in 1093, when Rufus thought he was dying
- •The dispute with Anselm turned on recognising Pope Urban II and on the archbishop's right to go to Rome
- •He died on 2 August 1100 and was buried in Winchester Cathedral
- •His younger brother Henry rode to Winchester to seize the treasury and was crowned on 5 August, three days later
- •The Rufus Stone in the New Forest, erected in 1745, marks the traditional site of the fatal shot
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- The Royal Household — William II (known as William Rufus) (r. 1087–1100)
- Frank Barlow — William Rufus