'"
On being informed of this, the venerable Abbot Serle wrote letters
which he despatched in a friendly spirit from Gloucester informing the
King very distinctly of all the monk had seen in his vision.
William of Malmesbury also records that the King himself the day before
he died, dreamed that he was let blood by a surgeon, and that the
stream, reaching to heaven, clouded the light and intercepted the day.
Calling on St Mary for protection he suddenly awoke, commanded a light
to be brought and forbade his attendants to leave him. They then
watched with him several hours until daylight. Shortly after, just as
the day began to dawn, a certain foreign monk told Robert Fitz Haman
one of the principal nobility that he had that night dreamed a strange
and fearful dream about the King: "That he had come into a certain
church, with menacing and insolent gesture as was his custom, looking
contemptuously on the standers by. Then violently seizing the Crucifix
he gnawed the arms and almost tore away the legs; that the image
endured this for a long time, but at length struck the King with its
foot, in such a manner that he fell backwards; from his mouth as he lay
prostrate issued so copious a flame that the volumes of smoke touched
the very stars.
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