His death was violent and unexpected, the effect of casualty; although this perhaps is the only misfortune of life to which the person of a prince is generally less subject than that of other men.  Being at his beloved exercise of hunting in the New Forest in Hampshire, a large stag crossed the way before him, the King hot on his game, cried out in haste to Walter Tyrrel, a knight of his attendants, to shoot; Tyrrel, immediately let fly his arrow, which glancing against a tree, struck the King through the heart, who fell dead to the ground without speaking a word.  Upon the surprise of this accident, all his attendants, and Tyrrel[15] among the rest, fled different ways; until the fright being a little over, some of them returned, and causing the body to be laid in a collier’s cart, for want of other conveniency, conveyed it in a very unbecoming contemptuous manner to Winchester, where it was buried the next day without solemnity, and which is worse, without grief.

[Footnote 15:  Yet Eadmer saith, that Tyrrel told him, he had not been in the Forest that day. [D.S.]]

I shall conclude the history of this prince’s reign, with a description and character of his body and mind, impartially from the collections I have made; which method I shall observe likewise in all the succeeding reigns.

He was in stature somewhat below the usual size, and big-bellied, but he was well and strongly knit.  His hair was yellow or sandy; his face red, which got him the name of Rufus; his forehead flat; his eyes were spotted, and appeared of different colours; he was apt to stutter in speaking, especially when he was angry; he was vigorous and active, and very hardy to endure fatigues, which he owed to a good constitution of health, and the frequent exercise of hunting; in his dress he affected gaiety and expense, which having been first introduced by this prince into his court and kingdom, grew, in succeeding reigns, an intolerable grievance.  He also first brought in among us the luxury and profusion of great tables.  There was in him, as in all other men, a mixture of virtues and vices, and that in a pretty equal degree, only the misfortune was, that the latter, although not more numerous, were yet much more prevalent than the former.  For being entirely a man of pleasure, this made him sacrifice all his good qualities, and gave him too many occasions of producing his ill ones.  He had one very singular virtue for a prince, which was that of being true to his word and promise:  he was of undoubted personal valour, whereof the writers in those ages produce several instances; nor did he want skill and conduct in the process of war.  But, his peculiar excellency, was that of great dispatch, which, however usually decried, and allowed to be only a happy temerity, does often answer all the ends of secrecy and counsel in a great commander, by surprising and daunting an enemy when he least expects it; as may appear by the greatest actions and events upon the records of every nation.