A Head for Poisoning (61 page)

For three years or so, Rufus ruled both England and Normandy, while Henry, still landless, frittered away his time at court. Then news came that the Crusade was over, and that Jerusalem had been wrested from the control of the Saracens and was in Christian hands. The Duke began his return to Normandy. The journey took some time, since the Duke, never one to decline enjoyment, was persuaded to remain for several months as the honoured guest of the rich and powerful Geoffrey of Conversano. The Duke married Geoffrey's daughter, and the dowry she brought him was ample to pay off the mortgage and reclaim Normandy from Rufus. Circumstances were looking bleak indeed for Prince Henry: one brother was firmly entrenched as King of England, while the other was returning to reclaim Normandy, complete with a wife who would doubtless provide him with an heir. The birth of a son to the Duke would take Henry yet one step further from his dreams of lands and power.

On 2 August 1100, while staying at his manor of Brockenhurst, Rufus decided to go hunting. It is difficult to distinguish between legend and truth about the events on the day that Rufus died, but accounts say that Rufus was ill, and the hunting expedition that was due to leave in the morning was postponed until the afternoon. Several noblemen were in the company of the King's little party, including Prince Henry; Sir Walter Tirel, the Count of Poix; and Earl Gilbert and his brother, Richard, of the large and powerful house of Clare.

As was the custom, the party split to hunt, and Rufus and Tirel found themselves together. One account maintains that a fletcher made a gift of fine arrows to Rufus before the hunt, and Rufus generously presented half of them to Tirel, reputedly a good shot. As evening drew in, the beaters began to herd the deer towards the forest glade in which Rufus and Tirel waited. What happened next will never be known for certain. The story goes that as the frightened stags were driven into the clearing, Rufus fired and missed; Tirel's arrow was said (by the chronicler Oderic Vitalis in 1135) to have “shaved the hair on the animal's back, sped on and wounded the King standing beyond.” Rufus pitched forwards and drove the arrow farther into his chest. Tirel promptly fled the scene of the crime and headed for France. Years later, he swore an oath to the saintly Abbot Suger of Paris that it was not his arrow that had killed Rufus, and even that he was not in the same part of the forest.

Prince Henry immediately rode for Winchester, where the royal treasury was held, reaching it that evening. He demanded the keys to the treasury, and, within three days, he had been crowned King of England. Rufus's body was taken to Winchester the day after his death, where he was buried. In 1107, the tower of Winchester Cathedral collapsed, and some sources suggest it was because such an evil man lay in a sacred place. The chronicler William of Malmsbury, however, notes that the structure of the tower was inherently unstable long before Rufus was buried under it.

Meanwhile, there is no evidence that Walter Tirel ever gained from his alleged part in the killing: he received no manors and no favours from the new King. The powerful Clare family, however, went from strength to strength. Earl Gilbert's brother, Richard, was one of the first to gain from Henry's largesse, and he was made Abbot of the wealthy monastery of Ely before Christmas that year. It should also be noted that Tirel's wife was Alice Clare, and that some historians consider the possibility that Tirel may have been a scapegoat in the hands of his powerful relations.

It is impossible to say whether Rufus's death was a tragic accident or the result of a carefully executed plan. However, the one person clearly to gain from Rufus's sudden death was Prince Henry. Henry acted quickly and without hesitation, and was crowned before many people in England even knew that Rufus was dead. And there was also the Duke, riding back to reclaim Normandy. Had Rufus died in October, it would have been too late for Henry to benefit: the Duke would have taken the throne based on the document in which Rufus had named him heir in the event of his death. In the words of the eminent historian Christopher Brooke: “It is impossible to avoid altogether the suspicion that Rufus's death was the result of a conspiracy in which his younger brother and successor was involved. … If Rufus's death in August 1100 was an accident, Henry I was an exceptionally lucky man.”

Goodrich Castle stands on a rocky spur overlooking the River Wye in the county of Hereford and Worcester. Historical documents of around 1100 mention a castle on the site—called Godric's castle—that was apparently built by a man called Godric Mappestone. Godric was mentioned in Domesday Book as the holder of a manor called Hulle (Howl) in Walecford (now Walford). It seems that this Godric Mappestone built a fortress to guard the ancient ford across the River Wye. By 1144, however, the Mappestones had lost Goodrich, and it passed into the hands of the Lord of Monmouth, and then the Crown.

Goodrich Castle can still be visited today, and is in the care of English Heritage. It is a spectacular sight, with great buttressed towers standing over a rock-cut moat. No traces of Godric's buildings remain, although it is likely that the outline of the later fortress followed the lines and boundaries established by him. Most buildings date from the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, although the most impressive is the mighty Norman keep, three storeys high and pierced with small round-headed windows.

Meanwhile, one of the most powerful lords along the Welsh borders in the early twelfth century was Robert de Bellême. He was lord of several large stretches of countryside in Normandy, where he ruled tyrannically until he inherited lands from his brother in England in 1098. These included the earldom of Shrewsbury, the lordship of Montgomery, and a number of smaller estates. In 1101, the Duke of Normandy staged an invasion to grab the throne from King Henry, and the Earl of Shrewsbury was one of his most powerful supporters.

The invasion was unsuccessful, but King Henry was not a man to allow such matters to go unavenged. By 1102, Henry's spies had amassed so much evidence proving Shrewsbury's treachery, that he was summoned to the king's court to answer for his crimes. Knowing that he would be found guilty, Shrewsbury prepared for battle. The King himself took to the field, and Shrewsbury was finally captured and banished, losing all his English estates. Shrewsbury returned to Normandy, where he vented his spleen on his hapless subjects, committing atrocities that appalled even hardened medieval barons.

Henry was still not satisfied, and set out to wrest Normandy from his brother. After a series of battles, Duke Robert was captured and condemned to spend the rest of his life in an English prison. He died twenty-eight years later in Cardiff Castle at the age of eighty. The slippery Shrewsbury escaped, but fell into Henry's hands in 1112. He, too, was imprisoned, but no one knows when he died. Records show that he was still incarcerated at Wareham in 1130.

Even by medieval standards, Shrewsbury was a monstrous figure. Perhaps the best description of him is given by the Oxford historian A. L. Poole: “The most powerful and the most dangerous of the Norman baronage, he was also the most repellent in character. In a society of ruffianly, bloodthirsty men, Robert de Bellême stands out as particularly atrocious; an evil, treacherous man with an insatiable ambition and a love of cruelty for cruelty's sake; a medieval sadist, whose ingenious barbarities were proverbial among the people of that time.”