Due to my red-faced complexion i was nicknamed Rufus and due to my long blond hair, never marrying and dressing in the height of fashion people assumed i was gay.
Another clue may have been the 'fornicators and sodomites’ as they were called who were favoured at court during my reign, a little clue there for the eagle-eyed historians.
This didn't prevent me being every bit as ruthless as my Father William the Conqueror and blinded and castrated those who opposed me and many did when i piled on the taxes to pay for my extravagant lifestyle.
The Church didn't like me because i had no time for all things religious, instead of appointing an Archbishop of Canterbury i took all the rents for myself and they were not particularly impressed that Church income should have been spent on fancy curly-toed shoes and silk trousers.
My big brother Robert meanwhile was becoming the hero of Christendom as he liberated Jerusalem from the Turks in the first crusade but i got rather less credit for my campaigns against the Welsh and the Scots, I captured Carlisle for crying out loud.
I travelled the country imposing myself as a guest on various noblemen around my kingdom at little or no notice and they were expected to welcome me with great feasts and entertainments and generally paying for everything until the we got bored and decided to move on.
So after a dozen years on the throne, I was unpopular with the Church establishment, despised at home and abroad and had behaved badly towards my younger brother Henry, the most likely heir to the throne and I became increasingly paranoid, particularly after my nephew was killed by an arrow in the New Forest.
All of which makes my own death three months later in the same place all the more suspicious.
We were out hunting when an arrow pierced my heart and my body was left slumped against a tree and although i didn't see who it was, my younger brother Henry dashed to get himself crowned King just three days later.
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