The Death of King Rufus - part 4

"...The sun sank; twilight fell on the forest, and still the Red King lay bleeding beneath the oak. A charcoal burner returning from his day's work found the body at last, and putting it into his cart took it to Winchester, where the slain monarch was finally buried.

Kingsley, in his quaint imitation of a ballad of the period, gives a somewhat different version of the story:-

THE RED KING. The king was drinking in Malwood Hall,
There came in a monk before them all;
He thrust by squire, he thrust by knight,
Stood over against the dais aright;
And "The word of the Lord, thou cruel Red King,
The word of the Lord to thee I bring.
A grimly sweven I dreamt yestreen;
I saw thee lie under the hollins green
And through thy heart an arrow been
And out of thy body a smoke did rise,
Which smirched the sunshine out of the skies.
So if thou God's anointed be,
I rede thee unto thy soul thou see:
For mitre and pall thou hast y'sold,
False knight to Christ, for gain and gold;
And for this thy forest were digged down, all
Steading and hamlet and churches tall;
And Christe's poor were ousten forth,
To beg their bread from south to north;
So tarry at home and fast and pray,
Lest fiends hunt thee in the judgment day."
The monk he vanished where he stood;
King William sterte up wroth and wod;
Quod he: "Fools' wits will jump together,
The Hampshire ale and the thunder weather
Have turned the brains of us both, I think;
And monks are curst when they fall to drink.
A lothly sweven I dreamt last night,
How there hoved anigh me a griesly knight,
Did smite me down to the pit of hell,
I shrieked and woke, so fast I fell.
There's Tyrrel as sour as I, perdie,
So he of you all shall hunt with me,
A grimly brace for a hart to see:" The Red King down from Malwood came,
His heart with wine was all aflame,
His eyne were shotten, red as blood,
He rated and swore wherever he rode. They roused a hart, that grimly brace,
A hart of ten, a hart of grease,
Fled over against the kinge's place.
The sun it blinded the kinge's ee,
A fathom beyond his hocks shot he;
"Shoot thou," quod he, "in the fiende's name!
To lose such a quarry were seven years shame!"
And he hove up his arm to mark the game
Tyrrel he shot full light, God wot;
For whether the saints they swerved the shot,
Or whether by treason men knowen not,
But under the arm, in a secret part,
The iron fled through the kinge's heart. Tyrrel he smiled full grim that day,
Quod "Shooting of kings is no bairn's play;"
And he smote in the spurs and fled fast away."

 Valentine (undated)
Map - Malwood Castle
Map - Winchester