Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/81

  

CLIFFORD, ROSAMOND (d. 1176?), mistress of Henry II, was the daughter of  [q. v.], and granddaughter of Richard FitzPonce, the ancestor of the Clifford family. There are reasons for believing that Walter was already married by 1138. Hence his daughter Rosamond may possibly have been born, as is often asserted, before 1140.

The surname Clifford does not seem to have been ascribed to Fair Rosamond till the publication of the first edition of Stow's 'Chronicle of England' (1580), where she is called 'Rosamond, the faire daughter of Walter, lord Clifford.' But there can be little or no doubt of Rosamond's parentage. In the 'Hundred Rolls of Ed. I' (ii. 93, 94) we find the verdict of the jurors of Corfham running as follows: 'Dicunt quod [Corf ham erat in] antique dominico Regum, set Henricus Rex pater Johannis Regis dedit [Waltero] de Clyfford pro amore Rosamundse filise suæ.' Hence, at least as early as 2 Ed. I (1274), it was already the popular story on a Clifford manor that Rosamond Clifford had been the mistress of Henry II.

No contemporary writer mentions the legends commonly associated with the name of Rosamond, most of which prove to be popular myths. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing at the close of the twelfth century, in his treatise 'De Principis Institutione,' tells us that Henry II, after having imprisoned his wife Eleanor, began to live in open adultery with some one who can hardly have been any one else than Rosamond: '[Rex] qui adulter antea fuerat occultus effectus postea manifestus non mundi quidem rosa juxta falsam et frivolatissimam compositionem sed inmundi verius rosa vocata palam et impudenter abutendo' (pp. 21, 22). The date of this open connection with Rosamond is fixed ('biennali vero clade sedata') after the suppression of the great rebellion which lasted from March 1173 to September 1174 (Itin. of Hen. II, pp. 172, 184). Hence it must have been about 1174 or 1175 that Henry proclaimed his adultery with Rosamond. Three later writers, John Brompton (of uncertain date), Knyghton (c. 1400), and Higden (c. 1350), give a similar account with additional details of their own. Verbal coincidences show that they all had access, directly or indirectly, to Giraldus Cambrensis. They all also probably had access to some other common source of information, as they all speak of Rosamond's having been hidden away from the queen's jealousy at Woodstock in a secret chamber of 'Dædalian workmanship,' the 'maze' of popular ballads and legend (, p. 1151;, p. 2395; , viii. 52). They likewise declare Rosamond to have died soon after her open acknowledgment by the king (' sed ilia cito obiit '), and to have been buried in the chapterhouse at Godstow nunnery. Giraldus Cambrensis knows nothing of the Woodstock residence or of the Godstow burial; but the latter fact is corroborated by Robert of Gloucester (c. 1800), and is established by a charter printed in the 'Monasticon,' where Osbert FitzHugh (apparently Rosamond's brother-in-law) bestows his salt pit at Wick on the Godstow nunnery at the petition of Walter de Clifford (Rosamond's father) for the salvation of the souls of his (i.e. Walter's) wife and his daughter Rosamond, 'quarum corpora ibidem requiescant' (Monast. iv. 366, No. 13). Walter de Clifford, the father, is proved by other charters to have endowed the nunnery of Godstow 'pro animabus uxoris meæ Margaretæ Clifford et nostræ filiæ Rosamundæ.' Benedict of Peterborough and Hoveden tell us that Henry II had bestowed many gifts on Godstow, 'which had previously been but a small nunnery,' for the sake of Rosamond, 'quæ quondam extiterat arnica Henrici regis.' The same chroniclers say that in 1191 St. Hugh, the bishop of Lincoln, on a visitation of Godstow, found Rosamond's tomb set in the middle of the church choir before the altar, and adorned with silken hangings, lamps, and waxen candles. Disgusted at such profanation he gave orders for her body to be taken up and buried outside the church. It would seem that she was reinterred in the chapterhouse ( in loc. cit.'), where her tomb had the famous inscription:

Here her bones may have remained till the time of the Reformation, about which date we learn from Leland (ap. Monasticon, iv. 365) that 'Rosamunde's tumbe at Godstowe nunnery was taken up a-late. It is a stone with this inscription, Tumba Rosamunda.' According to the account of Allen, president of Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College, who died in 1632 in the ninetieth year of his age, this stone was broken into pieces; but tradition still pointed out 'her stone coffin' in