replied, "Be patient and wait awhile, and soon thou wilt
be fully avenged of him." I trembled at hearing this and doubt not that
the divine anger presently threatens the King; for I understood that
the cries of the holy virgin, our mother the Church, had reached the
ears of the Almighty by reason of the robberies, the foul adulteries
and the heinous crimes of all sorts which the King and his courtiers
cease not daily of committing against the divine law.'"

On being informed of this, the venerable Abbot Serle wrote letters
which he despatched in a friendly spirit from Gloucester informing the
King very distinctly of all the monk had seen in his vision.

William of Malmesbury also records that the King himself the day before
he died, dreamed that he was let blood by a surgeon, and that the
stream, reaching to heaven, clouded the light and intercepted the day.
Calling on St Mary for protection he suddenly awoke, commanded a light
to be brought and forbade his attendants to leave him. They then
watched with him several hours until daylight. Shortly after, just as
the day began to dawn, a certain foreign monk told Robert Fitz Haman
one of the principal nobility that he had that night dreamed a strange
and fearful dream about the King: "That he had come into a certain
church, with menacing and insolent gesture as was his custom, looking
contemptuously on the standers by. Then violently seizing the Crucifix
he gnawed the arms and almost tore away the legs; that the image
endured this for a long time, but at length struck the King with its
foot, in such a manner that he fell backwards; from his mouth as he lay
prostrate issued so copious a flame that the volumes of smoke touched
the very stars. Robert, thinking that this dream ought not to be
neglected as he was intimate with him, immediately related it to the
King. William, repeatedly laughing, exclaimed, 'He is a monk and dreams
for money like a monk; give him a hundred shillings.'"

"Nevertheless," adds William of Malmesbury, "being greatly moved, the
King hesitated a long while whether he should go out to hunt as he
designed; his friends persuading him not to suffer the truth of the
dreams to be tried at his personal risk. In consequence he abstained
from the chase before dinner, dispelling the uneasiness of his
unregulated mind by serious business. They relate that having
plentifully regaled that day, he soothed his cares with a more than
usual quantity of wine."

Al