It is not half large enough.
William Rufus on his new Westminster Hall, as reported by Henry of Huntingdon
William II
parents: William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders
date and place of birth: between about 1056 and 1060, in Normandy
wife: none
children: none
years of reign: 1087-1100
date of coronation: 26 September 1087 at Westminster Abbey
date and place of death: 2 August 1100 in the New Forest, Hampshire
place of burial: Winchester Cathedral
William Rufus was the third son of William the Conqueror, and the one his father trusted most. His elder brother Richard died in a hunting accident in the New Forest in the 1070s. His eldest brother, Robert Curthose, rebelled against their father more than once, and in one skirmish in 1079 unhorsed and wounded him; William fought on his father's side. When the Conqueror lay dying at Rouen in September 1087, Normandy had to go to Robert, as the eldest son, but England was the Conqueror's to give, and he gave it to William. He sent his son to England with a letter for Archbishop Lanfranc before he had even died. Lanfranc crowned William at Westminster on 26 September, seventeen days after his father's death.
The name Rufus, "the red," probably described his ruddy face rather than his hair. He was stocky, strong and fond of hunting, with a stammer that grew worse when he was angry, and he swore by "the Holy Face of Lucca," a famous crucifix. Nearly everything we know about his character comes from monks who hated him, and we should read their accounts with that in mind.
The Rebellion of 1088
Many Norman barons held land on both sides of the Channel and wanted a single lord for both. In the spring of 1088 a group of them, led by the Conqueror's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, rose for Robert. Rufus turned to the English. He promised them good laws, lower taxes and the end of the hated forest laws, and they turned out in force for him. He besieged Odo in Rochester Castle, and Robert, who had promised to cross with an army, never came. The rebellion collapsed, and Odo left England for good. Rufus quietly forgot most of his promises.
Normandy and the Crusade
Rufus spent much of his reign trying to take Normandy from his brother, first by war and bribery and then by an easier route. In 1095 Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade, and Robert decided to go. He needed money, and in 1096 he pawned the whole duchy to Rufus for ten thousand marks. Rufus raised the money with a heavy tax on England, and ruled Normandy for the rest of his life. He also secured the north. In 1092 he took Carlisle from the Scots and built a castle there, moving the English border north. The following year Malcolm III of Scotland invaded Northumbria and was killed near Alnwick.
Anselm
When Lanfranc died in 1089, Rufus left Canterbury without an archbishop for four years and collected its revenues himself. He did the same with other vacant bishoprics and abbeys, a practice his chief minister, Ranulf Flambard, turned into a system. In 1093 Rufus fell dangerously ill at Gloucester and, fearing for his soul, named Anselm, the saintly Abbot of Bec, as archbishop. Anselm tried to refuse, and the bishops had to force the pastoral staff into his clenched fist. Rufus recovered and regretted it. He and Anselm argued about church reform, money, and which of the two rival popes England should recognise. In 1097 Anselm left for Rome without the king's permission, and Rufus seized the archbishopric's lands again.
The monastic chroniclers never forgave him. Eadmer, Anselm's biographer, and William of Malmesbury described a court full of young men with long hair, shoes with pointed toes and effeminate manners, and a king who mocked religion. They hinted he was homosexual. He never married and had no known children, legitimate or otherwise, but beyond that the evidence is thin.
Westminster Hall
The most lasting thing Rufus built still stands. Between 1097 and 1099 he raised a great hall beside the palace at Westminster, about 240 feet long, the largest hall in England and among the largest in Europe. It hosted his crown-wearing feast at Whitsun 1099. When a courtier remarked on its size, Rufus reportedly answered that it was not half large enough, and only a bedchamber compared with what he had in mind. Richard II gave it its famous hammerbeam roof three centuries later, and it survives as the oldest part of the Palace of Westminster. It has seen the trials of William Wallace, Thomas More and Charles I, and the lying-in-state of monarchs and Churchill.
Death in the New Forest
On the afternoon of 2 August 1100 Rufus went hunting in the New Forest. His companions included his younger brother Henry and a French knight, Walter Tirel. At some point the king and Tirel were alone. According to William of Malmesbury, a stag ran between them, the king shot and missed, and Tirel shot at another stag and hit the king instead. The arrow went into Rufus's chest and he died almost at once. Tirel fled to France and, years later, swore to Abbot Suger that he had not been in the same part of the forest as the king that day.
Henry did not stay with the body. He rode to Winchester, took the treasury, and was crowned at Westminster three days later as Henry I, before his brother Robert could return from crusade. Local men carried the king's body to Winchester on a cart. He was buried under the cathedral tower without much ceremony, and when the tower collapsed in 1107, some said God had passed judgement on him.
Historians have argued ever since about whether Henry arranged his brother's death. He gained the most from it and moved fast, but deaths in hunting accidents were common, and Rufus's own brother Richard and nephew, another Richard, had both died in the same forest. The Rufus Stone, set up in the eighteenth century, marks the supposed spot near Minstead.
For the dynasty as a whole, see our page on the Normans.
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Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. "William II, Rufus" https://englishhistory.net/middle-ages/william-ii/, September 30, 2026