On 2 August 1100, William II was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. His death left no agreed successor and allowed his younger brother Henry to take the English throne before their elder brother could return from abroad.

William, known as William Rufus, had ruled England since 1087. He was a son of William the Conqueror and had no legitimate children.

The basic fact of his death is clear, but its exact circumstances are not. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the king was shot by an arrow during the hunt by one of his own men. Later chroniclers named the French nobleman Walter Tirel as the archer.

Those accounts described the shooting as an accident. One version said Tirel fired at a deer and struck the king instead. The familiar claim that the arrow glanced from a tree appeared later and cannot establish what happened.

Tirel left England after the death and denied responsibility. No inquiry produced a settled account. Suggestions that William was deliberately killed, perhaps to allow Henry to become king, remain unproved.

The succession was immediately uncertain. William’s elder brother Robert was Duke of Normandy and the eldest surviving son of William the Conqueror. He had a strong hereditary claim but was returning from the First Crusade.

Henry was in England and was probably among the hunting party. He left the New Forest and went to Winchester, where the royal treasury was kept. William of Breteuil, one of the officials responsible for it, argued that Robert’s claim should be respected. Henry secured the treasury despite the objection.

William’s body was taken to Winchester and buried in the cathedral. Arrangements for the next reign were already being made while the dead king was being carried from the forest.

Henry travelled to London and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 5 August, three days after William’s death. Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury was abroad, so Maurice, Bishop of London, performed the coronation.

Henry needed support because his claim could be challenged. He issued a coronation charter promising to end several abuses associated with William’s government, protect the Church and restore what he presented as the laws of Edward the Confessor.

Robert returned to Normandy and invaded England in 1101. The brothers avoided a battle and reached an agreement under which Robert recognised Henry as king in return for an annual payment and other concessions.

William’s death did not settle the succession by itself. Henry’s possession of the treasury, rapid coronation and political promises secured his reign.