to inspire them with sentiments of prowess, generosity, gallantry, and religion.

The New Forest, Hampshire, which is a most extensive tract of land, (being not less than forty miles in circumference,) has been so denominated for nearly seven hundred years. It is situated on the south side of the county, and, anciently, contained many populous towns and villages, and thirty-six parish churches, all of which are said to have been destroyed by William the Conqueror, and his son William Rufus, to gratify their inordinate love of hunting.

A celebrated oak in this forest, also remarkable for its premature vegetation, formerly stood near Stony Cross, at a small distance north from Castle Malwood, and believed to be the very tree against which the arrow glanced that caused the death of William Rufus. Charles II. commanded this tree to be paled round, and in Leland's time, there was a chapel near the spot. At present, however, neither chapel nor tree remains. In the place of the latter, Lord Delaware, about sixty years ago, erected a triangular stone, about five feet high, surmounted by a ball, and having the following inscription:

"Here stood the oak tree on which an arrow, shot by Sir Walter Tyrrel, at a stag, glanced and struck King William II., surnamed Rufus, on the breast; of which stroke he instantly died, on the 2d of August, 1100.

King William II., surnamed Rufus, being slain, as before related, was laid in a cart belonging to one Purkess, and drawn

from hence to Winchester, and buried in the cathedral church of that city.

"That where an event so memorable had happened might not hereafter be unknown, this stone was set up by John, Lord Delaware, who had seen the tree growing in this place, anno 1745."

This stone stands in Minstead parish, near Malwood Castle Lodge.

Dr. Lingard asserts in his History of England, that Rufus was intentionally slain by Tyrrel, who, immediately afterwards, quitted this country, and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; this act was attributed to remorse, and, consequently, construed into a proof of his guilt. But, as most historians agree that it was accidental, we will extract the opinions of our most popular writers upon the subject.

William II. surnamed Rufus, second son of the Conqueror, and King of England, was crowned at Westminster, in September, 1087. When he was firmly seated on the throne, he forgot his promise of relieving the English from oppression, and even enhanced the severity of the forest laws. The death of Lanfranc, whom he respected, left him at liberty to seize vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and to bestow church lands on his captains and favourites. In 1090, he visited Normandy, with hostile intentions respecting his brother, (who succeeded to the dukedom,) but a negociation took place, and they were reconciled. He returned to England, ac

companied by his brother Robert, who commanded an army which was sent against Malcolm, King of Scotland. But a variance soon took place between the brothers, occasioned by the encroaching and treacherous disposition of William, and led him to excite the Norman barons to rebel against Robert. Whilst William was prosecuting hostile measures against his brother, he was recalled to England, in 1095, to suppress a conspiracy among the barons in the north, whom he speedily defeated, and severely punished. The spirit of crusading having, at this time, pervaded Europe, Robert was seized with the mania, and mortgaged his dukedom to William for 10,000 marks, to enable him to unite with the crusaders in 1096. William, having gone over to the continent to take possession of Normandy and Maine, was taken extremely ill, and, apprehending danger, resolved to repair the injury which he had done to the church, and to supply the vacancy of the archbishopric of Canterbury, which had been occasioned by the death of Lanfranc. Anselm was nominated, but the king and the primate soon disagreed; and, although a synod was assembled for the deposition of the archbishop, the king failed in the attempt. Anselm desired permission to leave the kingdom, and obtained leave, but his temporalities were seized, and the pope received him as a confessor in the cause of religion.

William's French acquisitions were the oc

casion of trouble to him; for, whilst he was hunting in the New Forest, he was informed that the citadel of Maine was besieged; he therefore hastened to Dartmouth, and determined to embark without delay. As the weather was tempestuous, the mariners expressed some apprehension of danger; the king, however, was resolute and persevering, and asked them if they had ever heard of a king who was drowned? Having accomplished his object, he was applied to by the Duke of Guienne, who was under the influence of the passion for crusading, for the loan of a sum of money, as a mortgage on his rich provinces of Guienne and Poitou. William accepted the proposal; but, whilst he was preparing to carry over the money and to take possession of the provinces, he was accidentally killed in the New Forest. Having alighted from his horse after a chase, a stag sprung up near him; and a French gentleman, Walter Tyrrel, perceiving the animal, shot off an arrow, which, glancing from a tree, entered the king's breast, and penetrated to the heart. Tyrrel, who lived many years after, always declared he was not in the Forest any part of the day on which the king was killed. The king's body was found by the country people, and interred without ceremony at Winchester: this happened on August 2, 1100, when the king was in the 40th year of his age, and the 13th of his reign. Henry, the grandson of

the Conqueror, lost his life also in the same forest. While pursuing his game, he was caught by the hair of his head, which got entangled in the bough of a tree, and was there suspended till he died. "The incidents of his reign," says a biographer, "prove him to have possessed vigour and decision, courage and policy; but to have been violent, perfidious, and rapacious, and void of all sense of justice and honour." In his reign were erected the Tower, London-bridge, and Westminster-hall.

Other Particulars relative to the Death of Rufus.

of

Sir Walter Tyrrell, who is accused of killing the king, and who always denied the charge, is said to have deposed on oath, in the presence Lugar, Abbot of St. Denis, that he never saw the king on the day of his death, nor entered that part of the forest in which he fell. Be that as it may, Tyrrell fled out of the kingdom; and the circumstance of his accusation and probable guilt has lately been more strongly and fully explained by a gentleman residing in the New Forest, and well conversant in its local history, who thus writes to the editor of a provincial journal: There is," he says, "in all good maps of Hampshire, and, amongst others, in Carey's new map, a ford marked in the river