Page:History of fair Rosamond (1).pdf/4

4 same to the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist; which was opened in 1138. Rosamond could not have been more than ten or eleven years of age when she was received into this holy house; the regulations of which were by no means so strict as those of most religious establishments. Stow records, that the females of the nunnery "were wont to appear at the fair, if they list, and would go to Medley, and other places of diversion."

At Medley a large building between Godstow and Oxford, according to tradition, the young and ardent Henry first saw our heroine, when he was but fifteen, and her self only twelve years of age. Young, handsome and accomplished,—ere the world had taught his breast one lesson of guilt, ere society had planted weeds in the pure soul of nature—he saw the gentle girl: too young for love, they felt an interest for each other; and she would wander from the precincts of Godstow, to meet the truant prince who strayed from his tutor at Oxford, to pass an hour with the lovely Rosamond.

When Henry attained sixteen, he was called from his studies and his pleasures, to assert his claim to the crown, at the sword's point. The field of battle, the