Qu’il ait oi merci de mei
Par sa sainte chere douçor,
Kar mult sui vers lui peccheor.”
In the earlier of Giraldus’ two stories, one which has much in common with this of Benoît, the arrow strikes the King accidentally, but there is nothing about its glancing from a tree. As he looks on William Rufus as the maker of the New Forest, he describes his going forth to hunt there with some solemnity;
“Protinus contra dissuasionem in prædictam forestam, ubi tot ecclesias destituerat, totosque fideles qui glebæ ibidem ab antiquo ascripti fuerant immisericorditer exheredaverat, venatum ivit. Nec mora, soluta per interemptionem contentione ubi deliquit, casuali cujusdam suorum ictu sagittæ letaliter percussus decubuit; miles enim directo in feram telo, nutu divino cælum pariter et telum regente, non feram eo sed ferum et absque modo ferocem, transpenetravit.” (Cf. the extracts in [p. 337].)
Having got thus far, pretty nearly in Benoît’s company, Giraldus goes on to tell his other story which brings in the Prior of Dunstable. But Dunstable, in its own Annals, did not claim an earlier founder than Henry the First. We are therefore left to guess as to the origin of a story which speaks of the priory of Dunstable as already existing in the time of Rufus, and even as enjoying exceptional favour at his hands. The “miles quidam” of the former story here becomes Ralph of Aix, who is brought in after much the same fashion in which Walter Tirel is in those versions of the story which mention him.
These are the chief varieties in the story of the death of Rufus; but the tale is so famous, it has taken such a hold on popular imagination from that day to our own, that it may be well to do as we have done in some earlier cases, and to trace some of the forms which the story took in the hands of writers of later times.
The Hyde writer (302), who always has notions of his own about all matters, has nothing special to tell us about the death of Rufus—“Norman-Anglorum rex Willelmus,” in his odd style—but the story of the dream takes a new shape. A monk in Normandy, in extreme sickness, sees the usual vision of the Lord and the suppliant woman, here called less reverentially “puella vultu sole speciosior,” who complains of the evil doings of Rufus and asks for vengeance (“celerrimam de eo expetiit vindictam, asserens se a canibus ejus et lupis potius quam ministris diu esse laniatam”). He has a further dream about the sins of his own abbot, whom he rebukes, and causes a letter to be sent to the King. The King mocks, but less pithily and characteristically than he does in Orderic (“Quicumque sorti vel somniis crediderit, sicut semper vivet suspiciosus et inquietus, ita semper revertitur”). On this manifestation of unbelief follows the judgement (“Deus Omnipotens telum quod diu vibraverat misericorditer, tandem super regem projecit terribiliter”). He is shot casually in his hunting (“venatum pergens, venatus est, et ex improviso sagitta percussus;”—where surely “venatus est” is meant to be passive). He dies without confession or communion; he is buried, and Henry reigns in his stead. Then, as a kind of after-thought, comes in the mention of Walter Tirel;
“Fertur autem quod eodem die venatum pergenti obtulit munus sagittarum quidam adveniens, quarum unam Waltero Tirello viro Ponteiensi in munere dedit secumque venire coegit. Denique silvam ingressi, dum gregem bestiarum accingunt et invicem trahunt, eadem sagitta, idem Walterus regem vicinus, ut aiunt, percussit et subito extinxit.”
The author of the “Brevis Relatio” (Giles, 11) cuts the actual death of Rufus very short, and mentions no particular actor, but he connects it in a somewhat singular way with the presence of Henry;