Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/120

Rh too, are those words of Fulchered, spoken so openly and so daringly, "The bow of God's vengeance is bent against the wicked; and the arrow swift to wound is already drawn out of the quiver."

Either all these persons were prophets, or accessories to the murder, or—for there is one more solution—the Chroniclers invented this portion of the story. If we admit this last supposition, we cannot receive the other parts of the narrative without the greatest suspicion. We have almost a sufficient warrant to read them in an exactly opposite sense to what they were intended to bear.

Let us remember, also, that Flambard, Rufus's prime minister, who was universally hated by the clergy, and who had lately banished Godric, of Christchurch, into Normandy, was instantly stripped of his possessions by Henry, and Godric reinstated, and the banished Anselm recalled; and, lastly, and most important of all, that Tiril, who had just arrived from Normandy, was a friend of Anselm's, and, further, that Alanus de Insulis, better known as le Docteur Universel, who lived not long after the event, actually says that in his opinion it was caused by treachery. Surely all these facts and 102