William Rufus, although an effective soldier, is…

William Rufus, although an effective soldier, is a ruthless ruler and, it seems, is little liked by those he governs.

His chief minister is Ranulf Flambard, whom he had appointed Bishop of Durham in 1099: this is a political appointment, to a see that is also a great fiefdom.

The particulars of the king's relationship with the people of England are not credibly documented.

Contemporaries of William, as well as those writing after his death, roundly denounce him for presiding over what these dissenters consider to be a dissolute court.

In keeping with tradition of Norman leaders, William scorns the English and the English culture.

As regent for his brother Robert in Normandy, William from 1097 to 1099 has campaigned in France.

He has secured northern Maine but failed to seize the French-controlled part of the Vexin region.

The King appears confident of regaining the remainder of Normandy from Robert, and Henry appears ever closer to William, the pair campaigning together between 1097 and 1098 in the Norman Vexin.

He is planning in 1100 to invade Aquitaine, in southwestern France.

Henry goes hunting in the New Forest, probably near Brockenhurst, on August 2 of this year, and is killed by an arrow through the lung, though the circumstances remain unclear.

The earliest statement of the event is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which notes that the king was "shot by an arrow by one of his own men".

Later chroniclers added the name of the killer, a nobleman named Walter Tirel, although the description of events was later embroidered with other details that may or may not be true.

The first mention of any location more exact than the New Forest comes from John Leland, who wrote in 1530 that William died at Thorougham, a place name which has since fallen into disuse but was probably located at what is now Park Farm on the Beaulieu estates.

The king's body is abandoned by the nobles at the place where he had fallen.

A peasant later finds it.

William of Malmesbury, in his account of William's death, states that the body was taken to Winchester Cathedral by a few countrymen.

To the chroniclers—men of the Church—such an 'act of God' was a just end for a wicked king.

Over the following centuries, the obvious suggestion that one of William's enemies may have had a hand in this extraordinary event has repeatedly been made: chroniclers of the time point out themselves that Tirel was renowned as a keen bowman, and thus was unlikely to have loosed such an impetuous shot.

Moreover, William's brother Henry was among the hunting party that day and benefited directly from William's death, being crowned king shortly thereafter.