Most of the circumstances in this popular story of king Henry II. and the beautiful Rosamond have been taken for fact by our English historians; who, unable to account for the unnatural conduct of queen Eleanor in stimulating her sons to rebellion, have attributed it to jealousy, and supposed that Henry's amour with Rosamond was the object of that passion.
Our old English annalists seem, most of them, to have followed Higden the monk of Chester, whose account, with some enlargements, is thus given by Stow:—"Rosamond the fayre daughter of Walter lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II. (poisoned by queen Elianor, as some thought) dyed at Woodstocke [A.D. 1177] where king Henry had made for her a house of wonderfull working; so that no man or woman might come to her, but he that was instructed by the king, or such as were right secret with him touching the matter. This house after some was named Labyrinthus, or Dedalus worke, which was wrought like unto a knot in a garden, called a maze;[564] but it was commonly said, that lastly the queene came to her by a clue of thridde, or silke, and so dealt with her, that she lived not long after: but when she was dead, she was buried at Godstow in an house of nunnes, beside Oxford, with these verses upon her tombe:—
'Hic jacet in tumba, Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda:
Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet.'
"In English thus:—
'The rose of the world, but not the cleane flowre,
Is now here graven; to whom beauty was lent:
In this grave full darke nowe is her bowre,
That by her life was sweete and redolent:
But now that she is from this life blent,
Though she were sweete, now foully doth she stinke.
A mirrour good for all men, that on her thinke.'"
Stowe's Annals, ed. 1631, p. 154.
How the queen gained admittance into Rosamond's bower is differently related. Hollinshed speaks of it, as "the common report of the people, that the queene ... founde hir out by a silken thread, which the king had drawne after him out of hir chamber with his foot, and dealt with hir in such sharpe and cruell wise, that she lived not long after." Vol. iii. p. 115. On the other hand, in Speede's Hist. we are told that the jealous queen found her out "by a clew of silke, fallen from Rosamund's lappe, as shee sate to take ayre, and suddenly fleeing from the sight of the searcher, the end of her silke fastened to her foot, and the clew still unwinding, remained behinde: which the queene followed, till she had found what she sought, and upon Rosamund so vented her spleene, as the lady lived not long after." 3rd edit. p. 509. Our ballad-maker with more ingenuity, and probably as much truth, tells us the clue was gained by surprise, from the knight who was left to guard her bower.
It is observable, that none of the old writers attribute Rosamond's death to poison (Stow, above, mentions it merely as a slight conjecture); they only give us to understand, that the queen treated her harshly; with furious menaces, we may suppose, and sharp expostulations, which had such effect on her spirits, that she did not long survive it. Indeed on her tomb-stone, as we learn from a person of credit,[565] among other fine sculptures, was engraven the figure of a cup. This, which perhaps at first was an accidental ornament (perhaps only the chalice) might in after times suggest the notion that she was poisoned; at least this construction was put upon it, when the stone came to be demolished after the nunnery was dissolved. The account is, that "the tomb-stone 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 Hoveden, a contemporary writer, whose words are thus translated by Stow: "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 example of her, other women being made afraid may beware, and keepe themselves from unlawfull and advouterous company with men."—Annals, p. 159.