The permission which he gave to Henry II., King of England, to invade Ireland, on the condition that every family of that island should pay annually a penny to the papal chair, because all islands belong to the pope, is worthy of remark. On this grant the subsequent popes founded their claims on Ireland.—Encyclopedia.
Note EEE.—[Page 184.]
“The wasted form of Rosamond.”—It is not a very easy task to reduce to anything like perspicuity the various traditions which float through the chronicles, regarding Queen Eleanor’s unfortunate rival, the celebrated Rosamond Clifford. No one who studies history ought to despise tradition, for we shall find that tradition is generally founded on fact, even when defective or regardless of chronology. It appears that the acquaintance between Rosamond and Henry commenced in early youth, about the time of his knighthood by his uncle, the King of Scotland; that it was renewed at the time of his successful invasion of England, when he promised marriage to the unsuspecting girl. As Rosamond was retained by him as a prisoner, though not an unwilling one, it was easy to conceal from her the facts that he had wedded a queen and brought her to England; but his chief difficulty was to conceal Rosamond’s existence from Eleanor, and yet indulge himself with frequent visits to the real object of his love.
Brompton says, “That one day, Queen Eleanor saw the king walking in the pleasance of Woodstock, with the end of a ball of floss silk attached to his spur, and that, coming near him unperceived, she took up the ball, and the king walked on, the silk unwound, and thus the queen traced him to a thicket in the labyrinth or maze of the park, where he disappeared. She kept the matter secret, often revolving in her own mind in what company he could meet with balls of silk.
“Soon after, the king left Woodstock for a distant journey; then Queen Eleanor, bearing this discovery in mind, searched the thicket in the park, and found a low door cunningly concealed; this door she had forced, and found it was the entrance to a winding subterranean path, which led out at a distance to a sylvan lodge, in the most retired part of the adjacent forest.” Here the queen found in a bower a young lady of incomparable beauty, busily engaged in embroidery. Queen Eleanor then easily guessed how balls of silk attached themselves to King Henry’s spurs.
Whatever was the result of the interview between Eleanor and Rosamond, it is certain that the queen neither destroyed her rival by sword nor poison, though in her rage it is possible that she might threaten both.
The body of Rosamond was buried at Godstow, near Oxford, a little nunnery among the rich meadows of Evenlod. King John thought proper to raise a tomb to the memory of Rosamond; it was embossed with fair brass, having an inscription about its edges, in Latin, to this effect,
“This tomb doth here enclose
The world’s most beauteous rose
Rose passing sweet erewhile,
Now nought but odor vile.”
Queens of England.
Note FFF.—[Page 185.]
“Imprisonment of Queen Eleanor.”—Queen Eleanor, whose own frailties had not made her indulgent to those of others, offended by the repeated infidelities of the king, stirred up her sons, Richard and Geoffrey, to make demands similar to that of their brother, and persuaded them, when denied, to fly also to the court of France. Eleanor herself absconded; but she fell soon after into the hands of her husband, by whom she was kept confined for the remainder of his reign.—Pictorial History of England.