still bleeding. He got it into his cart. It
was the body of the King. Shaken and
tumbled, with its red beard all whitened with
lime and clotted with blood, it was driven in
the cart by the charcoal burner next day to
Winchester Cathedral, where it was received
and buried.

Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to
Normandy, and claimed the protection of the
King of France, swore in France that the
Red King was suddenly shot dead by an
arrow from an unseen hand, while they were
hunting together; that he was fearful of
being suspected as the King's murderer; and
that he instantly set spurs to his horse, and
fled to the sea- shore. Others declared that
the King and Sir Walter Tyrrel were hunting
in company, a little before sunset, standing
in bushes opposite one another, when a
stag came between them. That the King
drew his bow and took aim, but the string
broke. That the King then cried "Shoot,
Walter, in the Devil's name! " That Sir
Walter shot; that the arrow glanced against
a tree, was turned aside from the stag, and
struck the King from his horse, dead.

By whose hand the Red King really fell,
and whether that hand dispatched the arrow
to his breast by accident or by design, is only
known to GOD. Some think his brother may
have caused him to be killed; but the Red
King had made so many enemies, both among
priests and people, that suspicion may reasonably
rest upon a less unnatural murderer.
Men know no more than that he was found
dead in the New Forest, which the suffering
people had regarded as a doomed ground for
his race.

Fine-Scholar, on hearing of the Red King's
death, hurried to Winchester with as much
speed as Rufus himself had made, to seize
the Royal treasure. But the keeper of the
treasure, who had been one of the hunting-
party in the Forest, made haste to Winchester
too, and, arriving there at about the same
time, refused to yield it up. Upon this, Fine-
Scholar drew his sword, and threatened to
kill the treasurer; who might have paid for his
fidelity with his life, but that he knew longer
resistance to be useless when he found the
Prince supported by a company of powerful
barons, who declared they were determined
to make him King. The treasurer, therefore,
gave up the money and jewels of the Crown:
and on the third day after the death of the
Red King, being a Sunday, Fine-Scholar stood
before the high altar in Westminster Abbey,
and made a solemn declaration that he would
resign the Church property which his brother
had seized; that he would do no wrong to the
nobles; and that he would restore to the
people the laws of Edward the Confessor, with
all the improvements of William the
Conqueror. So began the reign of KING HENRY
THE FIRST.

The people were attached to their new
King, both because he had known distresses,
and because he was an Englishman by birth
and not a Norman. To strengthen this last
hold upon them, the King wished to marry
an English lady, and could think of no other
wife than MAUD THE GOOD, the daughter of
the King of Scotland. Although this good
Princess did not love the King, she was so
affected by the representations the nobles
made to her of the great charity it would be
in her to unite the Norman and Saxon races,
and prevent hatred and bloodshed between
them for the future, that she consented to
become his wife. After some disputing among
the priests, who said that as she had been in
a convent in her youth, and had worn the veil
of a nun, she could not lawfully be married
against which the Princess stated that her
aunt, with whom she had lived in her youth,
had indeed sometimes thrown a piece of
black stuff over her, but for no other reason
than because the nun's veil was the only dress
the conquering Normans respected in girl
or woman, and not because she had taken the
vows of a nun, which she never had—she was
declared free to marry, and was made King
Henry's Queen. A good Queen she was;
beautiful, kind-hearted, and worthy of a better
husband than the King.

For he was a cunning and unscrupulous
man, though firm and clever. He cared very
little for his word, and took any means to gain
his ends. All this is shown in his treatment
of his brother Robert—Robert who had
suffered him to be refreshed with water, and
had sent him the wine from his own table,
when he was shut up, with the crows flying
below him, parched with thirst, in the castle
on the top of St. Michael's Mount, where his
Red brother would have let him die.

Before the King began to deal with Robert,
he removed and disgraced all the favorites of
the late King, who were for the most part
base characters, much detested by the people.
Flambard, or Firebrand, whom the late King
had made Bishop of Durham, of all things in
the world, Henry imprisoned in the Tower;
but Firebrand was a great joker and a jolly
companion, and made himself so popular with
his guards that they pretended to know
nothing about a long rope that was sent into
his prison at the bottom of a deep flagon of
wine. The guards took the wine, and
Firebrand took the rope; with which, when they
were fast asleep, he let himself down from a
window in the night, and so got aboard ship
and away to Normandy.

Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar
came to the throne, was still absent in the
Holy Land. Henry pretended that Robert
had been made Sovereign of that country;
and he had been away so long, that the
ignorant people believed it. But, behold, when
Henry had been some time King of England,
Robert came home to Normandy, having
leisurely returned from Jerusalem through
Italy, in which beautiful country he had