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 THE HISTORY OF

daughter of Walter Lord Clifford, was born in the year 1134; her father was a nobleman of high reputation and wealth, and brought up his daughter in a style befitting his rank.

Fair Rosamond was born at the time when the skirmishes between Matilda (Queen of Henry I.) and king Stephen, kept all England in a ferment. Henry, son of Matilda, and afterwards Henry II., was educated at Oxford, and in its vicinity was his boyhood past. It is now impossible to ascertain the exact time when he first beheld Rosamond, but she must have been very young, for it is recorded that he had seen her in 1149, when Rosamond was a boarder at Godstow Nunnery.

The nunnery at Godstow was founded by Lady Ida, of Winchester, who became abbess of the establishment; she attached a church to it, and dedicated the