William II, the third son of William I of England, was King of England from 1087 until
1100, with powers over Normandy, and influence in Scotland.
He was less successful in extending control into Wales.
William is commonly known as William Rufus or William the Red, perhaps because of his
red-faced appearance.
He was a figure of complex temperament: capable of both bellicosity and flamboyance.
He did not marry, nor did he produce any offspring, legitimate or otherwise.
He died after being struck by an arrow while hunting, under circumstances that remain murky.
Circumstantial evidence in the behaviour of those around him raise strong but unproven
suspicions of murder.
His younger brother Henry hurriedly succeeded him as king.
Barlow says he was "A rumbustious, devil-may-care soldier, without natural dignity or social
graces, with no cultivated tastes and little show of conventional religious piety or morality—indeed,
according to his critics, addicted to every kind of vice, particularly lust and especially
sodomy."
On the other hand he was a wise ruler and victorious general.
Barlow finds that, "His chivalrous virtues and achievements were all too obvious.
He had maintained good order and satisfactory justice in England and restored good peace
to Normandy.
He had extended Anglo-Norman rule in Wales, brought Scotland firmly under his lordship,
recovered Maine, and kept up the pressure on the Vexin."
Early years William's exact date of birth is unknown,
but it was some time between the years 1056 and 1060.
He was the third of four sons born to William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, the
eldest being Robert Curthose, the second Richard, and the youngest Henry.
William succeeded to the throne of England on his father's death, but Robert inherited
Normandy.
Richard died around 1075 while hunting in the New Forest.
He had five or six sisters.
The existence of sisters Adeliza and Matilda is not absolutely certain, but four sisters
are more securely attested as being: Adela, who married the Count of Blois; Cecily, who
became a nun; Agatha, who died before marriage; and Constance, who married the Duke of Brittany.
Relations between the three sons of William I were recorded to have been strained.
William's contemporary, chronicler Orderic Vitalis, wrote about an incident that took
place at L'Aigle, in 1077 or 1078: William and Henry, having grown bored with casting
dice, decided to make mischief by emptying a chamber pot onto their brother Robert from
an upper gallery, thus infuriating and shaming him.
A brawl broke out, and their father was forced to intercede to restore order.
According to William of Malmesbury, William Rufus was "well set; his complexion florid,
his hair yellow; of open countenance; different coloured eyes, varying with certain glittering
specks; of astonishing strength, though not very tall, and his belly rather projecting."
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 English Channel.
Since the younger William and his brother 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.
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.
As Robert failed to appear in England to rally his supporters, William won the support of
the English with silver and promises of better government, and defeated the rebellion, thus
securing his authority.
In 1091 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 Le Maine.
This plan was later abandoned, but William continued to pursue a ferociously warlike
defence of his French possessions and interests to the end of his life, exemplified by his
response to the attempt by Elias de la Flèche, Count of Maine, to take Le Mans in 1099.
Thus William Rufus was secure in what was then the most powerful kingdom in Europe,
given the contemporary eclipse of the Salian emperors.
As in Normandy, his bishops and abbots were bound to him by feudal obligations; and his
right of investiture in the Norman tradition prevailed within his kingdom, during the age
of the Investiture Controversy that brought excommunication upon the Salian Emperor Henry
IV.
Anglo-Norman royal institutions reached an efficiency previously 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 law unified the realm,
rendering him relatively impervious to papal condemnation.
Relations with the Church, and personal beliefs Less than two years after becoming king, William
II lost his father William I's advisor and confidant, the Italian-Norman Lanfranc, Archbishop
of Canterbury.
After Lanfranc's death in 1089, the king delayed appointing a new archbishop for many years,
appropriating ecclesiastical revenues in the interim.
In panic, owing to serious illness in 1093, William nominated as archbishop another Norman-Italian,
Anselm – considered the greatest theologian of his generation – but this led to a long
period of animosity between Church and State, Anselm being a stronger supporter of the Gregorian
reforms in the Church than Lanfranc.
William and Anselm disagreed on a range of ecclesiastical issues, in the course of which
the king declared of Anselm that "Yesterday I hated him with great hatred, today I hate
him with yet greater hatred and he can be certain that tomorrow and thereafter I shall
hate him continually with ever fiercer and more bitter hatred".
The English clergy, beholden to the king for their preferments and livings, were unable
to support Anselm publicly.
In 1095 William called a council at Rockingham to bring Anselm to heel, but the archbishop
remained firm.
In October 1097, Anselm went into exile, taking his case to the Pope.
The diplomatic and flexible Urban II, a new pope, was involved in a major conflict with
the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, who supported an antipope.
Reluctant to make another enemy, Urban came to a concordat with William Rufus, whereby
William recognised Urban as pope, and Urban gave sanction to the Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical
status quo.
Anselm remained in exile, and William was able to claim the revenues of the archbishop
of Canterbury to the end of his reign.
However, this conflict was symptomatic of medieval English politics, as exemplified
by the murder of Thomas Becket during the reign of the later Plantagenet king Henry
II and Henry VIII's actions centuries later, and as such should not be seen as a defect
of William II's reign in particular.
Of course, contemporary churchmen were themselves not above engaging in such politics: it is
reported that, when Archbishop Lanfranc suggested to William I that he imprison the rebellious
bishop Odo of Bayeux, he exclaimed "What! he is a clergyman".
Lanfranc retorted that "you will not seize the bishop of Bayeux, but confine the earl
of Kent": Odo was both bishop of Bayeux, and earl of Kent.
Also, while there are complaints of contemporaries regarding William II's personal behaviour,
he was instrumental in assisting the foundation of Bermondsey Abbey, endowing it with the
manor of Bermondsey; and it is reported that his "customary oath" was "By the Face at Lucca!"
It seems reasonable to suppose that such details are indicative of William II's personal beliefs.
War and rebellion
William Rufus inherited the Anglo-Norman settlement detailed in the Domesday Book, a survey undertaken
at his father's command, essentially for the purposes of taxation, which could not have
been undertaken anywhere else in Europe at that time, and is a sign of the control of
the English monarchy.
If he was less effective than his father in containing the Norman lords' propensity for
rebellion and violence, through charisma, or political skills, he was forceful in overcoming
the consequences.
In 1095, Robert de Mowbray, the earl of Northumbria, refused to attend the Curia Regis, the thrice-annual
court where the King announced his governmental decisions to the great lords.
William led an army against Robert and defeated him.
Robert was dispossessed and imprisoned, and another noble, William of Eu, accused of treachery,
was blinded and castrated.
In external affairs, William had some successes.
In 1091 he repulsed an invasion by King Malcolm III of Scotland, forcing Malcolm to pay homage.
In 1092 he built Carlisle Castle, taking control of Cumberland and Westmoreland, which had
previously been claimed by the Scots.
Subsequently, the two kings quarrelled over Malcolm's possessions in England, and Malcolm
again invaded, ravaging Northumbria.
At the Battle of Alnwick, on 13 November 1093, Malcolm was ambushed by Norman forces led
by Robert de Mowbray.
Malcolm and his son Edward were killed and Malcolm III's brother Donald seized the throne.
William supported Malcolm's son Duncan II, who held power for a short time, and then
another of Malcolm's sons, Edgar.
Edgar conquered Lothian in 1094 and eventually 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.
William made two forays into Wales in 1097.
Nothing decisive was achieved, but a series of castles were constructed as a marchland
defensive barrier.
In 1096, William's brother Robert Curthose joined the First Crusade.
He needed money to fund this venture and pledged his Duchy of Normandy to William in return
for a payment of 10,000 marks—a sum equalling about a quarter of William's annual revenue.
In a display of the effectiveness of English taxation, 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.
As regent for his brother Robert in Normandy, William campaigned in France from 1097 to
1099.
He secured northern Maine but failed to seize the French-controlled part of the Vexin region.
At the time of his death, he was planning to invade Aquitaine, in southwestern France.
Death in the New Forest
William went hunting on 2 August 1100 in the New Forest, probably near Brockenhurst, and
was killed by an arrow through the lung, though the circumstances remain unclear.
The earliest statement of the event was in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which noted that
the king was "shot by an arrow by one of his own men".
Later chroniclers added the name of the killer, a nobleman named Walter Tirel, although the
description of events was later embroidered with other details that may or may not be
true.
The first mention of any location more exact than the New Forest comes from John Leland,
who wrote in 1530 that William died at Thorougham, a placename which has since fallen into disuse
but was probably located at what is now Park Farm on the Beaulieu estates.
The king's body was abandoned by the nobles at the place where he fell.
A peasant later found it.
His younger brother, Henry, hastened to Winchester to secure the royal treasury, then to London,
where he was crowned within days, before either archbishop could arrive.
William of Malmesbury, in his account of William's death, stated that the body was taken to Winchester
Cathedral by a few countrymen.
To the chroniclers – men of the Church – such an 'act of God' was a just end for a wicked
king.
Over the following centuries, the obvious suggestion that one of William's enemies may
have had a hand in this extraordinary event has repeatedly been made: chroniclers of the
time point out themselves that Tirel was renowned as a keen bowman, and thus was unlikely to
have loosed such an impetuous shot.
Moreover, William's brother Henry was among the hunting party that day and benefited directly
from William's death, being crowned king shortly thereafter.
Modern scholars have reopened the question, and some have found the assassination theory
credible or compelling, but the theory is not universally accepted.
Barlow says that accidents were common and there is not enough hard evidence to prove
murder.
Bartlett says that the entire royal system was based on intense rivalries between brothers
that made murder a strong possibility.
Poole says the facts "look ugly" and "seem to suggest a plot."
John Gillingham points out that if Henry had planned to murder his brother it would have
been within his interests to wait until a later time.
It looked as though there would soon be a war between William and his elder brother
Robert, which would result in one of them being eliminated, thus opening the way for
Henry to acquire both England and Normandy through a single assassination.
Tirel fled immediately.
Henry had the most to gain by his brother's death.
Indeed, Henry's actions "seem to be premeditated: wholly disregarding his dead brother, he rode
straight for Winchester, seized the treasury, and the next day had himself elected".
William's remains are in Winchester Cathedral, scattered among royal mortuary chests positioned
on the presbytery screen, flanking the choir.
His skull appears to be missing, but some long bones may remain.
The Rufus Stone A stone known as the "Rufus Stone" marks the
spot where William II supposedly fell.
The claim that this is the location of his death appears to date from no earlier than
a 17th-century visit by Charles II to the forest.
At the time the most popular account of William's death involved the fatal arrow deflecting
off a tree, and Charles II appears to have been shown a suitable tree.
Letters in The Gentleman's Magazine reported that the tree was cut down and burned during
the 18th century.
Later in that century the Rufus stone was set up.
Originally it was around 5 feet 10 inches tall with a stone ball on top.
King George III visited the stone in 1789, along with his queen, and an inscription was
added to the stone to commemorate the visit.
It was protected with a cast iron cover in 1841 after repeated vandalism.
The inscription on the Rufus Stone reads:
Here stood the oak tree, on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell 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.
Contemporary assessment Although William was an effective soldier,
he was a ruthless ruler and, it seems, was little liked by those he governed: according
to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he was "hated by almost all his people and abhorrent to
God."
Chroniclers tended to take a dim view of William's reign, arguably on account of his long and
difficult struggles with the Church: these chroniclers were themselves generally clerics,
and so might be expected to report him somewhat negatively.
His chief minister was Ranulf Flambard, whom he appointed Bishop of Durham in 1099: this
was a political appointment, to a see that was also a great fiefdom.
The particulars of the king's relationship with the people of England are not credibly
documented.
Contemporaries of William, as well as those writing after his death, roundly denounced
him for presiding over what these dissenters considered to be a dissolute court.
In keeping with tradition of Norman leaders, William scorned the English and the English
culture.
Ancestors Notes
Citations
References
External links
Portraits of King William II at the National Portrait Gallery, London