Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/311

 to his own, and when Count Elias of Maine, desiring to take the cross, sought to assure the peace of his county during his absence by acknowledging the suzerainty of the new ruler of Normandy and requesting his license to depart. William answered by a demand for the absolute surrender of Maine, and, when Elias refused, threatened him with instant war. It was, however, not till January 1098 that he found time to fulfil the threat, and then he took little personal share in the war, which was carried on for him chiefly by Robert of Bellême [q. v.] On 28 April Elias was captured by Bellême. William immediately summoned all the forces—‘French, Burgundian, Flemish, British, and men of other neighbouring lands’—who would come to him for his liberal pay, to meet him at Alençon in June for the conquest of Maine. He besieged Le Mans, but was forced by lack of fodder to raise the siege. In August, however, some rather obscure negotiations ended in the surrender of the city to him, on condition that he should set Elias free. William entered Le Mans in triumph. On his return to Rouen Elias was brought before him and proposed to enter his service, with the avowed object of thereby earning his restoration to the countship of Maine. At the instigation of Robert of Meulan [see, d. 1118], William refused his request. Elias then declared he would strive to regain his heritage by force; William scornfully bade him begone and do his worst. On 27 Sept. the Red King again attacked the Vexin. He was joined by the Duke of Aquitaine; but though the war dragged on through the winter, the allies could make no real progress against the stubborn resistance of the French, and at last Rufus agreed to a truce, which enabled him to return to England at Easter (10 April) 1099. At Pentecost (19 May) he ‘held his court for the first time in his new building at Westminster,’ the building of which the present Westminster Hall is the successor and representative. In June Elias regained possession of Le Mans. This news reached William as he was setting out from Clarendon to hunt in the New Forest. He set spurs to his horse and rode off alone straight to Southampton, sprang on board the first ship he saw, and, though it was a crazy old vessel and a storm was gathering, bade the crew put to sea at once. In vain they remonstrated. ‘Kings never drown,’ said Rufus. Next morning he landed at Touques. He rode to Bonneville, mustered his troops, and marched upon Le Mans. Its castles were still held by the garrisons which he had left there. Elias, thus placed between two fires, evacuated the city and withdrew to the southern border of Maine. Rufus followed him and laid siege to his castle of Mayet, but after a narrow escape of being killed by a stone thrown at him from its walls, he was persuaded by his followers to raise the siege. He then returned to Le Mans, and punished the cathedral chapter for having dared, two years before, to choose themselves a bishop without his leave, by driving out the canons who had consented to the election. The bishop himself was accused of having permitted Elias to use the towers of the cathedral as bases of operations against the castle. William bade him pull the towers down, and he seems to have been ultimately compelled to execute the order.

At Michaelmas William returned to England. At Christmas he held his court at Gloucester; at Easter 1100 he was at Winchester; at Whitsuntide at Westminster. In the course of the summer he received an offer of the duchy of Aquitaine, to hold in pledge during its ruler's intended absence in the Holy Land. He then ordered the construction of a large fleet and the levy of an immense host, with which he prepared to cross the sea, keep the returning Duke Robert out of Normandy, and win for himself the mastery of all western Gaul from the Channel to the Garonne. ‘Where will you keep next Christmas?’ asked one of his companions at a hunting party in the New Forest (seemingly at Brockenhurst) on 1 Aug. ‘At Poitiers,’ was William's reply. But ‘thereafter on the morrow was the king William shot off with an arrow from his own men in hunting.’ These words of the English ‘Chronicle’ sum up all that is certainly known as to the manner of the Red King's death. Whether the arrow was shot by Walter Tirel [q. v.] or by some one else, whether it was aimed at the king or hit him by accident, remains undetermined. His ‘own men’ dispersed at once, and it was left to the peasantry of the neighbourhood to wrap the bleeding corpse in coarse cloths, lay it in a cart, and bring it to Winchester. There next day it was buried, ‘out of reverence for the regal dignity,’ in the cathedral under the central tower; but no religious service accompanied or followed the burial.

Although no sovereign ever did more, both by his public and private conduct, to deserve and provoke excommunication, the church had spared Rufus hitherto, probably from fear of goading him to yet further depths of wickedness. The pope indeed had threatened him once (April 1099), but had been induced by Anselm to refrain from executing the