He
died in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1100, of his reign the
thirteenth, on the fourth before the nones of August, aged above forty
years."
So died the Red King. Whose arrow it was that slew him, whether it came
aforethought from an English bow or by chance from that of Walter
Tyrrel, we shall never know. The Red King fell in the New Forest and
there was no one in all broad England to mourn him. William of
Malmesbury says that a few countrymen carried his body to Winchester.
We may well ask why not to Malwood Castle, which was close by? We may
ask, but we shall get no answer. According to a local legend it was a
charcoal burner of Minstead, Purkess by name, who found the King's body
and bore it away, and ever after his descendants have remained in
Minstead, neither richer nor poorer than their ancestor. As for Sir
Walter, he is said to have sworn to the Prior of St Denys de Poix, a
monastery of his foundation, that he knew nothing of the King's death.
Leland tells us that in his day not only did the tree still exist
against which, according to him, the arrow glanced off and struck the
King, but a little chapel remained there then very old, in which Mass
was wont to be offered for the repose of the King's soul.
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