WILLIAM II.—1087 to 1100.
How William the Second and Robert of Normandy besieged their brother
Henry in his castle; how William was killed in the New Forest, and
how London Bridge and Westminster Hall were built in his reign.
As soon as William the Conqueror’s death was known in England, his
second son, William, who was called Rufus, which means the Red,
persuaded the noblemen in England to make him king, instead of his
elder brother, Robert. I dare say the noblemen were soon sorry they
did so; for although none of William the Conqueror’s sons were very
good, this William Rufus was the worst of all. Robert became Duke of
Normandy, but his brother William gave him a great deal of money,
to let him govern the dukedom, while he went to fight in the Holy
Land, where a great many warriors went to rescue Jerusalem from the
Mahometans. These were called _Crusaders_, which means “soldiers of
the Cross,” and their wars were called the Crusades.
King William Rufus then ruled over Normandy and England too, and
behaved as a much worse tyrant than his father.
I must tell you a story about William and his two brothers, Robert
and Henry. Robert, the eldest, as I told you, became Duke of
Normandy, when William made himself King of England, but they neither
of them thought of giving anything to Henry; so he got a good many
soldiers together, and went to live in a castle on the top of a high
rock, called St. Michael’s Mount, close to the sea-shore of Normandy,
and he and his soldiers used to come out and plunder the fields of
both Robert and William, whenever they had an opportunity. This
was wrong in Henry in every way, but chiefly because he robbed and
frightened people who had never done him any harm, and had nothing to
do with the unkindness of his brothers.
Well, Robert and William collected an army, and went to his castle,
to drive him out, and they contrived to keep him so closely confined,
that neither he nor his people could get out to fetch water. Robert
and William heard of this, and that the people in the castle were
dying of thirst. William was very glad, because he said they would
soon get the castle; but Robert, who was much more generous,
immediately gave his brother Henry leave to send and get as much
water as he wanted; and besides that, Robert sent him some of the
best of his own wine. Henry soon after gave up the castle.
This story shows you how cruel William was to his own brother; so you
may think he did not behave better to his subjects, and that they
were not very sorry when he was killed by accident. Some tell the
story of his death in this manner:—One day when he was hunting in
the New Forest, made by his father, which you read about in the last
chapter, he had a gentleman named Walter Tyrrel with him, who was
reckoned skilful in shooting with a bow and arrow. This gentleman,
seeing a fine deer run by, wished to show the king how well he could
shoot; but he was a little too eager, and his arrow, instead of going
straight to the deer, touched a tree, which turned it aside, and it
killed the king, who was standing near the tree. But the truth is
that it was never known who shot the arrow that killed the wicked
king.
Some poor men found William’s body lying in the forest, and carried
it to Winchester, where it was buried.
William Rufus does not deserve to be remembered for many things, yet
we must not forget that he built a good bridge over the river Thames,
just where the old London bridge stood, till it was taken down, when
the fine new bridge was finished; besides that, he built Westminster
Hall, very near the Abbey, and when you walk to Westminster you will
see part of the very wall raised by him. But its large and beautiful
roof was built three hundred years later by Richard II.