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William II of England

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain); Monarchs of Great Britain

                William II Rufus
   King of the English (more...)
   William II, from the Stowe Manuscript
   William II, from the Stowe Manuscript
      Reign    9 September 1087 — 2 August 1100
   Coronation  26 September 1087
   Predecessor William I the Conqueror
    Successor  Henry I Beauclerc
   Royal house House of Normandy
     Father    William I the Conqueror
     Mother    Matilda of Flanders
      Born     1056
               Normandy, France
      Died     2 August 1100
               The New Forest, England
     Burial    Winchester Cathedral, Winchester

   William II (c. 1056 — 2 August 1100), the second surviving son of
   William I the Conqueror, was King of England from 1087 until 1100, with
   powers also over Normandy, and influence in Scotland. He was less
   successful in extending his control in Wales . William was commonly
   called "Rufus", perhaps because of his red-faced appearance.

   Although William was an effective soldier, he was a ruthless ruler and
   was little liked by those he governed; according to the Anglo-Saxon
   Chronicle, he was "hated by almost all his people." The chroniclers of
   his time took a dim view of Rufus because many literate men of the day
   were men of the Church, against which Rufus fought hard and long; and
   in Norman tradition, William Rufus scorned the Anglo-Saxons and their
   culture.

   William himself seems to have been a flamboyant character, and his
   reign was marked by his bellicose temperament. He never married or had
   illegitimate children; William's favourite was Ranulf Flambard, whom he
   appointed Bishop of Durham in 1099, an appointment based on political
   requirements, for a see that was at the same time a great feudal fief.
   William was roundly denounced in his time and after his death for his
   numerous homosexual liasons.

Early years

   William's exact date of birth is unknown, but it was sometime between
   the years 1056 and 1060. He was the third of four sons, born in his
   father's duchy of Normandy, which would be inherited in due course by
   his elder brother, Robert Curthose. During his youth, he was educated
   under the eye of Lanfranc and seemingly destined to be a great lord but
   not a king, until the death of the Conqueror's second son put him in
   the line of succession. His father's favourite son, William succeeded
   to the throne of England on his father's death, but there was always
   hostility between him and his eldest brother — though they became
   reconciled after an attempted coup in 1091 by their youngest brother,
   Henry.

   Relations between the three brothers had never been excellent; Orderic
   Vitalis relates an incident that took place at Laigle, in 1077 or 1078:
   William and Henry, having grown bored with casting dice, decided to
   make mischief by pouring stinking water on their brother Robert from an
   upper gallery, thus infuriating and shaming him. A brawl broke out, and
   their father King William was forced to intercede and restore order.

Appearance

                English Royalty
               House of Normandy
                   William I
       Robert III Curthose, Duke of Normandy
      William II Rufus
       Adela, Countess of Blois
      Henry I Beauclerc
                  William II

   According to William of Malmesbury, William Rufus was "thickset and
   muscular with a protruding belly; a dandy dressed in the height of
   fashion, however outrageous, he wore his blond hair long, parted in the
   centre and off the face so that his forehead was bare; and in his red,
   choleric face were eyes of changeable colour, speckled with flecks of
   light" (Barlow).

England and France

   The division of William the Conqueror's lands into two parts presented
   a dilemma for those nobles who held land on both sides of the Channel.
   Since the younger William and Robert were natural rivals, these nobles
   worried that they could not hope to please both of their lords, and
   thus ran the risk of losing the favour of one ruler or the other (or
   both of them). The only solution, as they saw it, was to unite England
   and Normandy once more under one ruler. The pursuit of this aim led
   them to revolt against William in favour of Robert in the Rebellion of
   1088, under the leadership of the powerful Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who
   was a half-brother of William the Conqueror. Robert failed to appear in
   England to rally his supporters, and William won the support of the
   English with silver and promises of better government, and defeated the
   rebellion, thus securing his authority. In 1090 he invaded Normandy,
   crushing Robert's forces and forcing him to cede a portion of his
   lands. The two made up their differences and William agreed to help
   Robert recover lands lost to France, notably Maine.

   Thus William Rufus was secure in the most powerful kingdom in Europe
   (with the contemporary eclipse of the Salian Emperors) and, within
   England, the least trammelled by feudal obligations. As in Normandy,
   his bishops and abbots were bound to him by feudal obligations; and his
   right of investiture in the Norman tradition was unquestioned within
   the kingdom, during the age of the Investiture Controversy that brought
   excommunication upon the Salian Emperor Henry IV. Anglo-Norman royal
   institutions reached an efficiency unknown in medieval Europe, and the
   king's personal power through an effective and loyal chancery
   penetrated to the local level to an extent unmatched in France. Without
   the Capetians' ideological trappings of an anointed monarchy forever
   entangled with the hierarchy of the Church, the King's administration
   and the King's law unified the kingdom, rendering the English King
   relatively impervious to papal condemnation, as the reign of William
   Rufus demonstrated.

Power struggles

   William Rufus inherited the Anglo-Norman settlement whose details are
   reflected in Domesday Book ( 1086), a survey that could not have been
   undertaken anywhere else in Europe at that time and a signal of the
   control of the monarchy; but he did not inherit William's charisma or
   political skills. Within a few years he lost William's advisor and
   confidante, the Italian-Norman Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, who
   died in 1089.

   Much of William's reign was spent feuding with the church; after the
   death of Archbishop Lanfranc, he delayed appointing a new archbishop
   while he appropriated ecclesiastical revenues in the interim, which was
   protracted, and for this he was much criticised. Finally, in a time of
   panic during William's serious illness in 1093, another Norman-Italian,
   Anselm of Bec - considered the greatest theologian of his generation -
   was named as archbishop, and this led to a long period of animosity
   between church and state. Anselm was a stronger supporter of the
   Gregorian reforms in the Church than Lanfranc had been. William and
   Anselm disagreed on a range of ecclesiastical issues, and the English
   clergy, beholden to the king for their preferments and livings, were
   unable to support Anselm publicly. William called a council at
   Rockingham in 1095 to bring Anselm to heel, but the churchman appealed
   to Rome. In October 1097, Anselm went into exile, taking his case to
   the Pope. The new pope was the diplomatic and flexible Urban II who was
   not in a position to make further royal enemies. The Emperor of Germany
   supported an antipope, and Urban came to a concordat with William
   Rufus: William recognized Urban as pope, and Urban gave sanction to the
   Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical status quo. William was able to claim the
   revenues of the archbishopric of Canterbury as long as Anselm remained
   in exile, and Anselm remained in exile until the reign of William's
   successor, Henry I.

   William Rufus was less capable than his father at channelling the
   Norman lords' propensity for indiscipline and violence. In 1095, Robert
   de Mowbray, the earl of Northumbria, would not come to William's Curia
   Regis the thrice-annual court where decisions were made and delivered
   to the great lords, and William subsequently led an army against him
   and defeated him; the earl was dispossessed and imprisoned. Another
   noble, William of Eu, was also accused of treachery and blinded and
   castrated. That same year, William II also made an unsuccessful foray
   into Wales. He tried again in 1097 with an equal lack of success. He
   returned to Normandy in 1097 and from then until 1099 campaigned in
   France, securing and holding northern Maine, but failing to seize the
   French-controlled part of the Vexin region. At the time of his death,
   he was planning to occupy Aquitaine in south-western France.

   William also quarrelled with the Scottish king, Malcolm III, forcing
   him to pay homage in 1091, and seizing the border city of Carlisle and
   Cumbria in 1092. At the Battle of Alnwick, 13 November 1093 Malcolm and
   his son Edward were slain and Malcolm III's brother Donald seized the
   throne. William supported Malcolm's son Duncan, who held power for a
   short time, and then Edgar, who conquered Lothian in 1094 and finally
   removed Donald in 1097 with William's aid in a campaign led by Edgar
   Ætheling. Edgar recognised William's authority over Lothian and
   attended William's court.

   In 1096, William's brother Robert Curthose joined the First Crusade. He
   needed money to fund this venture, and pledged his duchy to William in
   return for a payment of 10,000 marks — a sum equalling about one-fourth
   of William's annual revenue. In a display of the effectiveness of
   Norman taxation inaugurated by the Conqueror, William raised the money
   by levying a special, heavy, and much-resented tax upon the whole of
   England. William then ruled Normandy as regent in Robert's
   absence—Robert did not return until September 1100, one month after
   William's death.

The court of William II

   William Rufus had a notorious disregard for the church, which he
   despoiled by leaving benefices unfilled, while he garnered their income
   for the royal coffers; his most passionate detractors are found among
   clergymen. Eadmer relates two incidents in which William Rufus either
   convinced converted Jews to return to Judaism, or attempted to do so.
   During his quarrels with Anselm of Canterbury, the king declared that
   "he hated him much yesterday, that he hated him much today, and that he
   would hate him more and more tomorrow and every other day."

   William of Malmesbury decries William Rufus' court, which he describes
   as being filled by "effeminate" young men in extravagant clothes
   mincing about in "shoes with curved points". Orderic Vitalis makes
   mention of the "fornicators and sodomites" who held favour during
   William Rufus' reign, and remarks approvingly that when Henry became
   king, one of his first acts was to have his courtiers shorn of their
   long hair.

The unusual death of William II

   Death of William Rufus. Lithograph, 1895
   Death of William Rufus. Lithograph, 1895

   Perhaps the most memorable event in the life of William Rufus was his
   death, which occurred while William was hunting in the New Forest. He
   was killed by an arrow through the lung, but the circumstances remain
   unclear.

   On a bright August day in 1100, William organised a hunting trip in the
   New Forest. An account by Orderic Vitalis described the preparations
   for the hunt:

          ...an armourer came in and presented to him (Rufus) six arrows.
          The King immediately took them with great satisfaction, praising
          the work, and unconscious of what was to happen, kept four of
          them himself and held out the other two to Walter Tyrrel...
          saying It is only right that the sharpest be given to the man
          who knows how to shoot the deadliest shots.

   On the subsequent hunt, the party spread out as they chased their prey,
   and William, in the company of Walter Tirel (or Tyrell), Lord of Poix,
   became separated from the others. It was the last time that William was
   seen alive.

   William was found the next day by a group of local peasants, lying dead
   in the woods with an arrow piercing his lungs. William's body was
   abandoned by the nobles at the place where he fell, because the law and
   order of the kingdom died with the king, and they had to flee to their
   English or Norman estates to secure their interests; the new king
   hastened to Winchester to secure the royal treasury, then to London,
   where he was crowned within days, before either archbishop could
   arrive. Legend has it that it was left to a local charcoal-burner named
   Purkis to take the king's body to Winchester Cathedral on his cart.

   According to the chroniclers, William's death was not murder. Walter
   and William had been hunting together when Walter let loose a wild shot
   that, instead of hitting the stag he aimed for, struck William in the
   chest. Walter tried to help him, but there was nothing he could do.
   Fearing that he would be charged with murder, Walter panicked, leapt
   onto his horse, and fled. A version of this tale is given by William of
   Malmesbury in his Chronicle of the Kings of the English (c. 1128):

          The day before the king died he dreamt that he went to heaven.
          He suddenly awoke. He commanded a light to be brought, and
          forbade his attendants to leave him. The next day he went into
          the forest... He was attended by a few persons... Walter Tirel
          remained with him, while the others, were on the chase. The sun
          was now declining, when the king, drawing his bow and letting
          fly an arrow, slightly wounded a stag which passed before him...
          The stag was still running... The king, followed it a long time
          with his eyes, holding up his hand to keep off the power of the
          sun's rays. At this instant Walter decided to kill another stag.
          Oh, gracious God! the arrow pierced the king's breast.

          On receiving the wound the king uttered not a word; but breaking
          off the shaft of the arrow where it projected from his body...
          This accelerated his death. Walter immediately ran up, but as he
          found him senseless, he leapt upon his horse, and escaped with
          the utmost speed. Indeed there were none to pursue him: some
          helped his flight; others felt sorry for him.

          The king's body was placed on a cart and conveyed to the
          cathedral at Winchester... blood dripped from the body all the
          way. Here he was buried within the tower. The next year, the
          tower fell down. William Rufus died in 1100... aged forty years.
          He was a man much pitied by the clergy... he had a soul which
          they could not save... He was loved by his soldiers but hated by
          the people because he caused them to be plundered.

   To clerical chroniclers, such an ' Act of God' was a just end for a
   wicked king. However, over the centuries, the obvious suggestion that
   one of William's many enemies may have had a hand in this extraordinary
   event has been repeatedly made. Even chroniclers of the time point out
   that Walter was renowned as a keen bowman, and unlikely to fire such an
   impetuous shot. And William's brother Henry, who was among the hunting
   party that day, benefited directly from William's death, as he was
   shortly thereafter crowned king.

   Abbot Suger, another chronicler, was Tirel's friend and sheltered him
   in his French exile. He said later:

          It was laid to the charge of a certain noble, Walter Tirel, that
          he had shot the king with an arrow; but I have often heard him,
          when he had nothing to fear nor to hope, solemnly swear that on
          the day in question he was not in the part of the forest where
          the king was hunting, nor ever saw him in the forest at all.

The Rufus Stone

   A stone known as the Rufus Stone marks the spot where some believe he
   fell. grid reference SU270124

   The inscription on the Rufus Stone reads:

     Here stood the oak tree, on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrell
     at a stag, glanced and struck King William the Second, surnamed
     Rufus, on the breast, of which he instantly died, on the second day
     of August, anno 1100. King William the Second, surnamed Rufus, being
     slain, as before related, was laid in a cart, belonging to one
     Purkis, and drawn from hence, to Winchester, and buried in the
     Cathedral Church, of that city.

   The current monument is made of cast iron and was erected in 1865.

   The Rufus Stone

   The Rufus Stone (side 1)

   The Rufus Stone (side 2)

   The Rufus Stone (side 3)

   Others believe that the true spot is within the grounds of the National
   Motor Museum at Beaulieu.

Fictional treatments

   William Rufus is a major character in Valerie Anand's historical novel,
   King of the Wood (1989).

   He is also a major character in Parke Godwin's Robin and the King
   (1993), the second volume in Godwin's reinterpretation of the Robin
   Hood legend.

   William II is indirectly the subject of two historical novels by George
   Shipway, called The Paladin and The Wolf Time. The main character of
   the novels is Walter Tirel (or Tyrell) the supposed assassin of King
   William, and the main thrust of the plot of the novels is that the
   assassination was engineered by Henry.

   The death of William Rufus is portrayed in Edward Rutherfurd's
   fictionalised history of the New Forest, called The Forest (2001). In
   Rutherfurd's version of events, the King's death takes place nowhere
   near the Rufus Stone, and Walter Tyrrell is framed for it by the
   powerful Clare family. Also, Purkiss is a clever story teller who
   manages (much later) to convince Charles II that one of his ancestors
   had been involved.

   Flambard's Confession (1984) by Marilyn Durham purports to tell the
   story of William Rufus' reign through the eyes of his right-hand man,
   Ranulf Flambard.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_II_of_England"
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