For all that he doubtless had access to sources of which
we now know nothing, and the whole atmosphere of his story suggests
that, as we might expect, the King was murdered because of his general
harshness and oppression, perhaps especially exemplified in his Forest
Law. It was he and not the Conqueror who demanded the life of a man for
that of a beast; his father had been content with an eye or a limb.
It would seem, according to Ordericus, that the whole country was full
of stories of terrible visions concerning the end of the King long
before his sudden death. Henry of Huntingdon, for instance, tells us
that "blood had been seen to spring from the ground in Berkshire," and
adds that "the King was rightly cut off in the midst of his injustice,"
for "England could not breathe under the burdens laid upon it."
Ordericus himself says that "terrible visions respecting him were seen
in the monasteries and cathedrals by the clergy of both classes, and
becoming the talk of the vulgar in the market-places and churchyards,
could not escape the notice of the King."
He then gives a particular instance: "A certain monk of good
repute and still better life, who belonged to the Abbey of St Peter at
Gloucester, related that he had a dream in the visions of the night to
this effect: 'I saw,' he said, 'the Lord Jesus seated on a lofty
throne, and the glorious host of heaven, with the company of the
saints, standing round.
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