Circumstantial evidence in the behaviour of those around him – including his younger brother Henry I – raises strong, but unproven, suspicions of murder.

Historian Frank Barlow observed William was "[a] rumbustious, devil-may-care soldier, without natural dignity or social graces, with no cultivated tastes and little show of conventional religious piety or morality – indeed, according to his critics, addicted to every kind of vice, particularly lust and especially sodomy."

He had extended Anglo-Norman rule in Wales, brought Scotland firmly under his lordship, recovered Maine, and kept up the pressure on the Vexin.

[5] He was the third of four sons born to William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, the eldest being Robert Curthose, the second Richard, and the youngest Henry.

Since the younger William and his brother Robert were natural rivals, these nobles worried that they could not hope to please both of their lords, and thus ran the risk of losing the favour of one ruler or the other, or both.

This plan was later abandoned, but William continued to pursue a ferociously warlike defence of his French possessions and interests to the end of his life, exemplified by his response to the attempt by Elias de la Flèche, Count of Maine, to take Le Mans in 1099.

The king's personal power, through an effective and loyal chancery, penetrated to the local level to an extent unmatched in France.

[13] Less than two years after becoming king, William II lost his father's adviser and confidant, the Italian-Norman Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The diplomatic and flexible Urban II, a new pope, was involved in a major conflict with Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, who supported Antipope Clement III.

[c] Of course, contemporary churchmen were themselves not above engaging in such politics: it is reported that, when Archbishop Lanfranc suggested to William I that he imprison the rebellious bishop Odo of Bayeux, he exclaimed "What!

"[d] William Rufus inherited the Anglo-Norman settlement detailed in the Domesday Book of 1086, a survey undertaken at his father's command, essentially for the purposes of taxation, which was an example of the control of the English monarchy.

If he was less effective than his father in containing the Norman lords' propensity for rebellion and violence, through charisma or political skills, he was forceful in overcoming the consequences.

In 1095, Robert de Mowbray, the earl of Northumbria, refused to attend the Curia Regis, the thrice-annual court where the King announced his governmental decisions to the great lords.

In a display of the effectiveness of English taxation, William raised the money by levying a special, heavy, and much-resented tax upon the whole of England.

[24][25] A memorial stone in the grounds of Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, states "Remember King William Rufus who died in these parts then known as Truham whilst hunting on 2nd August 1100".

[31] To the chroniclers, men of the Church, such an "act of God" was a just end for a wicked king, and was regarded as a fitting demise for a ruler who came into conflict with the religious orders to which they belonged.

[32] Over the following centuries, the obvious suggestion that one of William's enemies had a hand in this event has repeatedly been made: chroniclers of the time point out themselves that Tirel was renowned as a keen bowman, and thus was unlikely to have loosed such an impetuous shot.

It looked as though there would soon be a war between William and his brother Robert, which would result in one of them being eliminated, thus opening the way for Henry to acquire both England and Normandy through a single assassination.

Indeed, Henry's actions "seem to be premeditated: wholly disregarding his dead brother, he rode straight for Winchester, seized the treasury (always the first act of a usurping king), and the next day had himself elected.

That the spot where an Event so Memorable might not hereafter be forgotten; the enclosed stone was set up by John Lord Delaware who had seen the Tree growing in this place.

King William the Second, surnamed Rufus being slain, as before related, was laid in a cart, belonging to one Purkis,[e] and drawn from hence, to Winchester, and buried in the Cathedral Church, of that City.

[48] Contemporaries of William raised concerns about a court dominated by homosexuality and effeminacy, epitomised through seemingly "luxurious" attire and unusual footwear than with sexual practices.

[50] The historian Emma Mason has noted that while during his reign William himself was never openly accused of homosexuality, in the decades after his death numerous medieval writers spoke of this and a few began to describe him as a "sodomite".

[51] Barlow said that the Welsh chronicles claim that Henry was able to succeed to the throne because his brother had made use of concubines and thus died childless, although no illegitimate offspring are named.

Noting that no "favourites" were identified, and that William's "baronial friends and companions were mostly married men", despite having concluded that the chroniclers were "hostile and biased witnesses", Barlow considers that "there seems no reason why they should have invented this particular charge" (of homosexuality) and states that, in his opinion, "On the whole the evidence points to the king's bisexuality".