Note 821 — Chapter VII

Orderic (782 D) says that they brought his body, “veluti ferocem aprum venabulis confossum.” We get the same idea a little improved in William of Newburgh (i. 2), who says, “Quippe in venatione sagitta proprii militis homo ferocissimus pro fera confossus interiit.” (The words in Italics must be a translation of the Chronicle.) The full developement comes in Thomas Wykes (Ann. Mon. iv. 13), who must surely have had William of Newburgh before him. He, like Giraldus and others (see above, p. 322), looked on Rufus as the maker of the New Forest, if not as the inventor of forests in general. “Rex Willelmus Angliæ, dictus Rufus, qui pro eo quod accipitrum et canum ludicris quasi se totum dederat, totum fere regnum Angliæ in multorum perniciem et omnium regnicolarum dispendium primus afforestavit, propellentibus eum ad interitum peccatis suis, a quodam milite suo Waltero Tyrel, in Nova Foresta, tanquam pro fera, confossus sagitta quadam, vulneratus interiit.”