England strained uneasily under the harsh rein
which he placed upon it, and he harried the country mercilessly, turning
a great area of fertile land into a desert. That he might have a
hunting-park near the royal palace, he laid waste all the land that lay
between Winchester and the sea, planting there, in place of the homes
destroyed and families driven out, what became known as the "New
Forest." Nothing angered the English more than this ruthless act. A law
had been passed that any one caught killing a deer in William's new
hunting-grounds should have his eyes put out. Men prayed for
retribution. It came. The New Forest proved fatal to the race of the
Conqueror. In 1081 his oldest son Richard mortally wounded himself
within its precincts. In May of the year 1100 his grandson Richard, son
of Duke Robert, was killed there by a stray arrow. And, as if to
emphasize more strongly this work of retribution, two months afterwards
William Rufus, the Red King, the son of the Conqueror, was slain in the
same manner within its leafy shades.
William Rufus--William II. of England--was, like all his Norman
ancestors, fond of the chase. When there were no men to be killed, these
fierce old dukes and kings solaced themselves with the slaughter of
beasts.
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