Page:Comic History of England.djvu/98

94 was shot accidentally by a companion, or assassinated, it is not yet known which, and when found by a passing charcoal-burner was in a dead state. He was buried in 1100, at Winchester.

Rufus had no trouble in securing the public approval of his death. He was the third of his race to perish in the New Forest, the scene of the Conqueror's cruelty to his people. He was a thick-set man with a red face, a debauchee of the deepest dye, mean in money matters, and as full of rum and mendacity as Sitting Bull, the former Regent of the Sioux Nation. He died at the age of forty-three years, having reigned and cut up in a shameful manner for thirteen years.

Robert having gone to the Holy Land, Henry I. was crowned at Westminster. He was educated to a higher degree than William, and knew the multiplication table up to seven times seven, but he was highly immoral, and an armed chaperon stood between him and common decency.

He also made rapid strides as a liar, and even his own grocer would not trust him. He successfully fainted when he heard of his son's death, 1120 A.D.

His reign closed in 1135, when Stephen, a grandson of the Conqueror, with the aid of a shoe-horn assumed the crown of England, and, placing a large damp towel in it, proceeded to reign. He began at once to swap patronage for