VI.-GASCOIGNE'S PRAISE OF THE FAIR BRIDGES, ON HER HAVING A SCAR IN HER FOREHEAD. GEORGE GASCOIGNE was a celebrated poet in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and appears to great advantage among the miscellaneous writers of that age. He was author of three or four plays, and of many smaller poems, one of the most remarkable of which is a satire in blank verse, called the Steele-glass, 1576, 4to. Mr. Thomas Warton thinks "Gascoigne has much exceeded all the poets of his age, in smoothness and harmony of versification." But the truth is, scarce any of the earlier poets of Queen Elizabeth's time are found deficient in harmony and smoothness, though those qualities appear so rare in the writings of their successors. 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; 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 tumbâ, Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda: Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet." ... How the queen gained admittance into Rosamond's bower is differently related. Holinshed 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 History 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 shee had found what she sought, and upon Rosamund so vented her spleene, as the lady lived not long after." 3d ed. 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 (Stowe, 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 tombstone, as we learn from a person of credit, 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 tombstone 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. History further informs us that King John repaired Godstow nunnery, and endowed it with yearly revenues, that these holy virgins might releeve with their prayers, the soules of his father king Henrie, and of lady Rosamund there interred." * In what situation her remains were found at the dissolution of the nunnery, we learn from Leland: "" Rosamundes tumbe at Godstowe nunnery was taken up [of] late; it is a stone with this inscription, Tumba Rosamunde. Her bones were closid in lede, and withyn that bones were closyd yn lether. When it was opened a very swete * Vide Reign of Henry II. in Speed's History, written by Dr. Barcham, Dean of Bocking. smell came owt of it." See Hearne's discourse above quoted, written in 1718; at which time he tells us, were still seen by the pool at Woodstock the foundations of a very large building, which were believed to be the remains of Rosamond's labyrinth. Henry had two sons by Rosamond. These were William Longue-espé (or Longsword), Earl of Salisbury, and Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincolne, afterwards Archbishop of York. The ballad of Fair Rosamond appears to have been first published in Strange Histories or Songs and Sonnets, of Kinges, Princes, Dukes, Lords, Ladyes, Knights, and Gentlemen, etc., by Thomas Delone, Lond. 1612, 4to. It is now printed (with conjectural emendations) from four ancient copies in black letter, two of them in the Pepys Library. WHEN as king Henry rulde this land, The second of that name, Most peerlesse was her beautye founde, Her crisped lockes like threads of golde The blood within her crystal cheekes As though the lillye and the rose Yea Rosamonde, fair Rosamonde, Her name was called so, The king therefore, for her defence Against the furious queene, At Woodstocke builded such a bower, Most curiously that bower was built And they so cunninglye contriv'd That none but with a clue of thread, And for his love and ladyes sake, That was so faire and brighte, But fortune, that doth often frowne For why, the kinges ungracious sonne, But yet before our comelye king His farewelle thus he tooke: "My Rosamonde, my only Rose, The flower of mine affected heart, Whose sweetness doth excelle: For I must leave my fairest flower, |