Richard of Normandy

Richard of Normandy was born around 1054 in Normandy, France, and was the second of four sons of William the Conqueror, King of England, and Matilda of Flanders.

 

In 1070 or shortly afterward, Richard was out hunting in the New Forest in southern England when he collided with an overhanging branch and died from injuries from that accident.

The English chronicler and Benedictine Monk, Orderic Vitalis, recounts that Richard "when a youth who had not yet received the belt of knighthood, had gone hunting in the New Forest and whilst he was galloping in pursuit of a wild beast, he had been badly crushed between a strong hazel branch and the pommel of his saddle, and mortally injured" dying soon after.

Richard was buried at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire, England.

Ironically, his younger brother William Rufus would also die from an injury in the New Forest thirty years later when he was struck by an arrow through the lung in 1100.