William Rufus is remembered as an irreligious king who deliberately kept bishoprics vacant in order to collect their revenues for himself, and who openly mocked religion and was a homosexual. More modern theories, such as those of Dr Margaret Murray in the 1920s, have proposed that he was not just an atheist but actually a devil worshipper. Certainly, his death while hunting in the New Forest on August 2, 1100 (he was shot with an arrow by a knight named Walter Tyrrol in what was allegedly an accident), bears all the hallmarks of some sort of pagan ritual, in which the king was sacrificed in order to bring fertility to the land. Suspicion has also fallen on his younger brother Henry, who rushed to London to have himself crowned king as [[Henry I]]. Walter Tyrrol, William's killer, fled to France, but later returned to England and was never prosecuted.
[[Category:United Kingdom Monarchs]]
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{{Nb_english_monarchs}}