the stone came to be demolished after the nunnery was dissolved. The account is, that "the tombstone of Rosamund Clifford was taken up at Godstow, and broken in pieces, and that upon it were interchangeable weavings drawn out and decked with roses red and green, and the picture of the cup, out of which she drank the poison given her by the queen, carved in stone." Rosamond's father having been a great benefactor to the nunnery of Godstow, where she had also resided herself in the innocent part of her life, her body was conveyed there, and buried in the middle of the choir; in which place it remained till the year 1191, when Hugh bishop of Lincoln caused it to be removed. The fact is recorded by Hovedon, a contemporary writer, whose words are thus translated by Stowe: "Hugh bishop of Lincolne came to the abbey of nunnes, called Godstow, . . . . and when he had entred the church to pray, he saw a tombe in the middle of the quire, covered with a pall of silke, and set about with lights of waxe: and demanding whose tomb it was, he was answered, that it was the tombe of Rosamond, that was some time lemman to Henry II. . . . . . who for the love of her had done much good to that church. Then, quoth the bishop, take out of this place the harlot, and bury her without the church, lest Christian religion should grow in contempt, and to the end that, through the example of her, other women being made afraid may beware, and keepe themselves from unlawful and adAnnals, vouterous company with men." p. 159. History further informs us that king John repaired Godstow nunnery, and endowed it with yearly revenues, "that these holy virgins might releeve with their prayers, the soules of his father King Henrie, and of Lady Rosamund there interred."* In what situation her remains were found at the dissolution of the nunnery, we learn from Leland, "Rosamundes tumbe at Godstowe nunnery was taken up [of] late; it is a stone with this inscription, TUMBA ROSAMUNDE. Her bones were closid in lede, and withyn that bones were closyd yn lether. When it was opened a very swete smell came owt of it."* See Hearne's discourse above quoted, written in 1718; at which time he tells us, were still seen by the pool at Woodstock the foundations of a very large building, which were believed to be the remains of Rosamond's labyrinth. To conclude this (perhaps too prolix) account, Henry had two sons by Rosamond, from a computation of whose ages, a modern historian has endeavoured to invalidate the received story. These were William Longueespé (or Long-sword) earl of Salisbury, and Geoffrey bishop of Lincolne.† Geoffrey was the younger of Rosamond's sons, and yet is said to have been twenty years old at the time of his election to that see in 1173. Hence this writer concludes that King Henry fell in love with Rosamond in 1149, when in King Stephen's reign he came over to be knighted by the king of Scots; he also thinks it probable that Henry's commerce with this lady "broke off upon his marriage with Eleanor [in 1152], and that the young lady, by a natural effect of grief and resentment at the defection of her lover, entered on that occasion into the nunnery of Godstowe, where she died probably before the rebellion of Henry's sons in 1173." [Carte's Hist. Vol. I., p. 652.] But let it be observed, that Henry was but sixteen years old when he came over to be knighted: that he stayed but eight months in this island, and was almost all the time with the King of Scots; that he did not return back to England till 1153, the year after his marriage with Eleanor; and that no writer drops the least hint of Rosamond's having ever been abroad with her lover, nor indeed is it probable that a boy of sixteen should venture to carry over a mistress to his mother's court. If all these circumstances are considered, Mr. Carte's account will be found more incoherent and improbable than that of the old ballad; which is also countenanced by most of our old historians. Indeed the true date of Geoffrey's birth, and consequently of Henry's commerce with Rosamond, seems to be best ascertained from an ancient manuscript in the Cotton library; wherein it is thus registered of Geoffrey Plan This would have passed for miraculous, if it had hap pened in the tomb of any clerical person, and a proof of his *Vid. Reign of Henry II., in Speed's History, writ by being a saint. Dr. Barcham, Dean of Bocking. Afterwards Archbishop of York, temp. Rich. I. tagenet, "Natus est 5° Henry II. [1159.] Factus est miles 25° Henry II. [1179.] Elect. in Episcop. Lincoln, 28° Henry II. [1182.]" Vid. Chron. de Kirkstall, (Domitian XII.) Drake's Hist. of York, p. 422. The ballad of Fair Rosamond appears to have been first published in "Strange Histories or Songs and Sonnets, of Kinges, Princes, Dukes, Lords, Ladyes, Knights, and Gentlemen, &c. By Thomas Delone. London, 1612." 4to. It is now printed (with conjectural emendations) from four ancient copies in black-letter; two of them in the Pepys library. WHEN as King Henry rulde this land, A faire and comely dame. "ELEANOR, the daughter and heiress of William duke of Guienne, and count of Poictou, had been married sixteen years to Louis VII. king of France, and had attended him in a croisade, which that monarch commanded against the infidels; but having lost the affections of her husband, and even fallen under some suspicions of gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Louis, more delicate than politic, procured a divorce from her, and restored her those rich provinces, which by her marriage she had annexed to the crown of France. The young count of Anjou, afterwards Henry II. King of England, though at that time but in his nineteenth year, neither discouraged by the disparity of age, nor by the reports of Eleanor's gallantry, made such successful courtship to that princess, that he married her six weeks after her divorce, and got possession of all her dominions as a dowery. a dowery. A marriage thus founded upon interest was not likely to be very happy it happened accordingly. Eleanor, who had disgusted her first husband by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her jealousy: thus carrying to extremity, in the different parts of her life, every circumstance of female weakness. She had several sons by Henry, whom she spirited up to rebel against him; and endeavouring to escape to them disguised in man's apparel in 1173, she was discovered and thrown into a confinement, which seems to have continued till the death of her husband in 1189. She however survived him many years; dying in 1204, in the sixth year of the reign of her youngest son, John." See Hume's History, 4to. vol. I. pp. 260, 307. Speed, Stowe, &c. It is needless to observe that the following ballad (given with some corrections, from an old printed copy) is altogether fabulous ; whatever gallantries Eleanor encouraged in the time of her first husband, none are imputed to her in that of her second. QUEENE Elianor was a sicke woman, And afraid that she should dye; By one, by two, by three; 5 |