Hello, welcome to the history of England, episode 26, William Rufus Normandy and the

first crusade.

Last week we reached the slightly ignoble land of one of England's most celebrated kings,

William the Conqueror. Before he died, William had demonstrated his lack of sentiment by sending

his second and favourite son William away from his bedside and off to England so that he could

claim his inheritance before Robert Curtis could get in his way. Physically, William was a thick

set man with yellow hair and a red face, hence his nickname Rufus. He had no concountance with

different colour dyes, he was not particularly tall and he'd acquired his father's enormous

strength and also his gut.

Poor old William Rufus traditionally hasn't had a very good press, so for example I quote

from AL Poole, a professor at Oxford in 1951. He wrote,

From the moral standpoint, William was probably the worst king that has occupied the throne

of England. Actually, I do think this judgement is quite interesting as a piece of historiography.

We do try, don't we, to hold on to objectivity as a guiding principle in history, but

however hard we try, we can't help the values of our age influencing us.

Paul's house judgement was at least partly based on Rufus's blasphemous and irreverent attitude

to the church, and quite possibly on the fact that Rufus was probably homosexual.

So the record has been significantly rectified by more recent historians and placemore in context,

but certainly the contemporary chronicles are by no means positive. On his death in 1099,

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle let rip with comments such as,

He was harsh and fierce with his men, his land and all his neighbours. He was ever

agreeable to evil men's advice. God's churches here pressed, therefore he was to nearly all his

...