William Rufus (Normandie) of England (abt. 1060 - 1100)

Born about 1060 in Normandy, France

Ancestors

Died 2 Aug 1100 at about age 40 in New Forest, Hampshire, England

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Biography

William "RUFUS" II (Fr: Guillaume II d'Angleterre) (c.1056 -– 2 Aug 1100)

3rd son of William the Conqueror

King of England (1087 - 1100) ^[1]

Birth

William Rufus was born before 1060 (between 1056 and 1060). The exact date and place is not recorded and is unknown. He was said to be over 40 ("major quadragenario") at his death in August 1100, and the birth of his older brother Robert Curthose has been placed as about 1055. He is assumed to have been born in Normandy as the principle county held by his father, but this is not known with certainty.^[2]

William Rufus never married and produced no issue. By the time of his sudden and unexpected death in 1100, he had no acknowledged heir to his kingdom.

Reign

On his deathbed at Rouen, in August 1087, William the Conqueror left his senior honour, the Duchy of Normandy, to his rebellious elder son Robert. ^[3] To his second, loyal, son William Rufus he gave the royal regalia (crown, sword and scepter) of the Kingdom of England, plus a letter to his Archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc, undoubtedly with this testament. On 26 September, William II, King of the English, was crowned by Lanfranc at Westminster Abbey. ^[4]

Until his death on 24 May 1089 ^[5] the archbishop served as a loyal advisor and supporter to the new king, most crucially in the spring of 1088, when certain of Rufus's Anglo-Norman magnates, led by his uncle Odo (Eudes), Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, rose up in arms to displace Rufus and put Robert Curthose on the English throne. Robert, however, failed to show up in support of his vassals, and the rebellion failed, leaving Rufus securely in power in England. ^[6]

In 1091, having seen the weakness of his brother Robert, Rufus invaded Normandy and ended up with a number of Norman domains, which left him wanting more, while also subduing the Scots and strengthening his borders against Wales. ^[7] Rufus was generally considered an able commander and a strong king. Geoffrey of Monmouth is said to have modeled his King Arthur after him. ^{[8] [9]} Like Arthur's legend, Rufus gave noble feasts, especially in 1099, where knights came to be made and nobles vied for the honor of bearing his regalia. ^[10]

In contrast to the success of Rufus in Britain, his brother Robert Curthose suffered such continual losses in Normandy that in 1096 he decided to join the First Crusade, mortgaging his duchy to his brother in order to fund his enterprise in the East. ^[11] To raise this amount, Rufus imposed heavy taxes on his English subjects and in particular extorted (as they claimed) vast sums from the wealthy English church. In consequence, he gained a lasting reputation as a tyrannical king, promulgated by the chroniclers who covered his reign, all of them churchmen.

Probably the most hostile of these was Eadmer, the biographer (Vita Anselmi) of St Anselm, Lanfranc's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury. For Anselm, Rufus's demands for money equated to the sin of simony. The dispute between king and prelate was part of a greater issue stemming from the Church's Gregorian Reform, in which the Papacy attempted to wrest power over national churches from secular rulers. When Rufus was intransigent, Anselm went into exile, from which he did not return until after the king's death. Rufus remained intransigent.^[12]

By the time Robert Curthose was returning successfully from the First Crusade, Rufus had been expanding the boundaries of his domains in Normandy, taking the County of Maine and pressing into the French Vexin lands. Robert was certainly going to be demanding the return of his duchy; Rufus was certainly not going to hand it all back for nothing. ^[13] But in the event, Rufus would be dead before his brother's return.

Death and burial of William Rufus

(Royal Tombs of Medieval England) William Rufus died on 2 August 1100, the apparent victim of a hunting accident in the New Forest, Hampshire.

His traditional death place, near Minstead, bears a memorial to the event. William may however have died nearer to the place that is now called Beaulieu. A local historian, Arthur Lloyd, ^[14] quoting from the 16th century writers, Leland and Stowe points out that both suggest William was killed at a place where a chapel now stands, Leland calls the place Thoroughham, Stowe uses Chorengham (the latter perhaps miscopied from Leland.) Thorougham was 'in Beaulieu'.It no longer exists but is accepted to be Truham/Trucham mentioned in Domesday. ^[15] The monks writing the Waverley Annals, mention that Beaulieu Abbey, built c.1204 was built near to the place where King William Rufus was slain.^[16][17][18]

The chronicler Orderic Vitalis recorded that the king's body was taken to Winchester in a cart like a quarried boar, and buried the following day in the abbey church with only clerics and monks in attendance. Stow records that William's remains were among those placed in mortuary chests above the new Winchester choir screen in the 1520s, together with those of Saxon kings, queens and prelates buried in the abbey church. It was recorded that the tomb had been opened in 1642 and found to contain male bones, a gold ring, silver chalice and fragments of gold cloth. The contents of the mortuary chests were scattered by (Cromwell) Parliamentarians the same year. In 1660 the bones were restored to the chests. In 1677 the tomb ascribed to William Rufus was recorded as standing in the Winchester presbytery. Two chests on the east side of the Winchester choir screen claim to hold William's remains, but neither contains a skull. The tomb was opened again in 1868 and installed in its present position in the Winchester choir in 1886.

Sources

1. ↑ Richardson, Douglas. Royal Ancestry (2013) Vol. I pp. 5-7
2. ↑ Barlow, Frank. William Rufus, (Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1983) Google Books Preview View p. 8.
3. ↑ Bartlett, R. (2000). "The struggle for succession 1075 - 1225." England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075 - 1225. p. 8. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
4. ↑ Barlow , p. 57.
5. ↑ Lanfranc
6. ↑ Barlow, p. 95.
7. ↑ Barlow, pp. 288-9.
8. ↑ Barlow, pp. 396-7.
9. ↑ Le Saux, Francoise. "Geoffrey of Monmouth's De Gestis Britonum and Twelfth-Century Romance, A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, (2020), Chapter 8. Brill
10. ↑ Barlow, pp. 399-401.
11. ↑ Barlow, p. 363-5.
12. ↑ Barlow, p. 341.
13. ↑ Barlow, pp. 415-419.
14. ↑ Arthur Lloyd inBeaulieu History Society Newsletter, Sept 2007,pdf
15. ↑ Place name,Througham, In Beaulieu, New Forest, Hampshire, Folio: 51r Great Domesday Book Domesday place name:Trucham/Truham National Archives, catalogue online
16. ↑ Leland John ,Itinerary in or about the years 1535-1543 parts 1-IX p 142 Archive books
17. ↑ Stowe John, Annals of England to 1603,p 188 archive books
18. ↑ Luard Henry Richards, ed, Annales Monastici, Annalles de Waverleia p 256 archive books

Source list:

• Royal Ancestry D. Richardson 2013 Vol. I pp. 5-7
• Royal Tombs of Medieval England M. Duffy 2003 pages 46,47
• Barlow, Frank, William Rufus, Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1983. ISBN 0-300-08291-6
• Bartlett, R. (2000). "The struggle for succession 1075 - 1225." England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075 - 1225. Oxford: Clarendon Press. eBook. ISBN 0-19-822741-8.
• Cantor, Norman F., The Civilization of the Middle Ages, Harper Collins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-092553-1
• Carpenter, David, The Struggle for Mastery: Britain 1066-1284, Allen Lane, London, 2003.
• Douglas, David C., William the Conqueror: the Norman impact upon England, Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1964. ISBN 0-520-00350-0
• Warren Hollister, C., 'The Strange Death of William Rufus', Speculum, 48.4, 1973: pp. 637-653.
• Mason, Emma, William II: Rufus, the Red King, Tempus, 2005.
• Mason, Emma, 'William Rufus: myth and reality', Journal of Medieval History, 3.1, 1977: pp. 1-20.
• Warren, W. L., 'The Death of William Rufus', History Today, 9, 1959.
• William II of England at Genealogics
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: William II [known as William Rufus (c. 1060–1100)]

See also:

• Wikipedia: William Rufus
• Forester, Thomas. The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, with the two continuation (H.G. Bohn, London, 1854) "The Genealogy of The Kings of Wessex"

• Page 456: "William, who died without issue in the thirteenth year of his reign in the province of Jutes, being struck by an arrow in the New Forest"