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. In early summer of the year 1100 the Red King was at Winchester
Castle, on the skirts of the New Forest. Thence he rode to Malwood-Keep,
a favorite hunting-lodge in the forest. Boon companions were with him,
numbers of them, one of them a French knight named Sir Walter Tyrrell,
the king's favorite. Here the days were spent in the delights of the
chase, the nights in feasting and carousing, and all went merrily.

Around them spread far and wide the umbrageous lanes and alleys of the
New Forest, trees of every variety, oaks in greatest number, crowding
the soil. As yet there were no trees of mighty girth. The forest was
young. Few of its trees had more than a quarter-century of growth,
except where more ancient woodland had been included. The place was
solitary, tenanted only by the deer which had replaced man upon its
soil, and by smaller creatures of wing and fur. Barely a human foot trod
there, save when the king's hunting retinue swept through its verdant
aisles and woke its solitary depths with the cheerful notes of the
hunting-horn. The savage laws of the Conqueror kept all others but the
most daring poachers from its aisles.

Such was the stage set for the tragedy which we have to relate. The