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So by many a byway I went northward to Minstead in Malwood, where I found a most curious church, rather indeed a house than a church, with dormer windows in the roof, an enormous three-decker pulpit within, galleries, and two great pews, one with a fireplace, and I know not what other quaint rubbish of the eighteenth century.
He was found two eves ago pierced to the heart with an arrow beneath an oak in Malwood Chace." "God have mercy on his poor soul!" ejaculated Edgar, crossing himself. "No moment vouchsafed for penitence! Alas! Who did the deed, Father Dunstan?" "That is not known," returned the priest, "save that Walter Tyrrel is fled like a hunted felon beyond seas, and my Lord Henry to Winchester."
They relate that having plentifully regaled that day, he soothed his cares with a more than usual quantity of wine." All this, I suppose, befell in the Castle of Malwood. After dinner the King prepared to hunt. "Being in great spirits," says Ordericus, "he was joking with his attendants while his boots were being laced, when an armourer came and presented him six arrows.
The Abbot stood by the narrow window, and his long black shadow fell slantwise across the rush-strewn floor. "Twenty years ago," he said, "your father, the Franklin of Minstead, died, leaving to the Abbey three hides of rich land in the hundred of Malwood, and leaving to us also his infant son on condition that we should rear him until he came to man's estate.
"This seemed to me to be also rather risky, so I said boldly that I thought Goschen had done wonders in the House and country, considering he had a poor voice and was naturally cautious. I told them I loved him personally and that Jowett at whose house I first met him shared my feeling in valuing his friendship. After this he took his departure, promising to bring me roses from Malwood.
In the High Street of Lyndhurst the wayfarers had to pick their way, for the little town was crowded with the guardsmen, grooms, and yeomen prickers who were attached to the King's hunt. The King himself was staying at Castle Malwood, but several of his suite had been compelled to seek such quarters as they might find in the wooden or wattle-and-daub cottages of the village.
There is an abundance of woodland everywhere, checquered by green lawns. At our back is the enclosed park, within which some intrenchments mark the site of Castle Malwood, where tradition says that William Rufus passed the night previous to his death.
In 1099, another Richard, an illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy, was killed in the New Forest by striking his head against the branch of a tree; and a belief in a family fate began to prevail, so much so that Bishop Gundulf warned the King against hunting there; but William, as usual, laughed him to scorn, and in the summer of 1100 took up his residence in his lodge of Malwood, attended by his brother Henry, and many other nobles.
Whose arrow it was that slew him, whether it came aforethought from an English bow or by chance from that of Walter Tyrrel, we shall never know. The Red King fell in the New Forest and there was no one in all broad England to mourn him. William of Malmesbury says that a few countrymen carried his body to Winchester. We may well ask why not to Malwood Castle, which was close by?
From Minstead I went on up the Bartley water to Stone Cross, nearly four hundred feet over the Forest, from which by good fortune I saw the mighty Abbey of Romsey in the valley of the Test, where I intended to sleep. Then I went down past Castle Malwood to where stands Rufus' Stone.
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