Isisbridge

Hookykate says:
Fair Rosamund , the mistress of Henry II, was, according to legend, murdered by Henry's wife, Queen Eleanor, who offered her the choice between a dagger & a cup of poison.......Rosamund took the poison, & died straight away. This was at Woodstock [where Henry had 'made her a bower'. But it seems that she actually died here at the convent at Godstow, & was buried with honour before the high altar......but not for long. Bishop Hugh of Lincoln , in 1191, asked whose tomb it was, covered in silk & lit by candles.....& told the nuns to take the harlot out & bury her outside! So she was buried in the cloisters. But that tomb too was destroyed at the Reformation........the convent had become a private dwelling, & was burnt down during the Civil War. So only these ruins remain.

But that doesn't answer why the ghost of Fair Rosamund is said to walk, rustling in a silk gown, at Creslow Manor, Bucks.... Dates all wrong for that.....but probably because Rosamund's surname was Clifford [as was the later Creslow Manor's lot...] It is certain that Rosamund did withdraw to live at Godstow Nunnery after Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine , & she died there in 1177.......but i don't know what became of the 2 children she bore Henry. Perhaps Eleanor got rid of them, too!

Were you at Oxford then?

I didn't know Oxford in the 80s, but I'm sure it was much nicer then. Oxford University creates disharmony everywhere it builds its ugly new blocks, and Oxford City Council spoils what is left, with shiny bins and ugly new bus shelters.

St Ebbes Street will have changed since you knew it. Bonn Square was destroyed in 2008, with the council felling all of the trees and replacing them with a row of tall posts. The mult-storey car park, and most of the Westgate, has since been demolished and is currently being rebuilt.

An interesting shot indeed and even more interesting information above .. thanks for sharing


Best wishes ... Steve

Yes, poor old Henry to be married to such a jealous woman!
It's a wonder he didn't kill HER when he found out.

Perhaps it is just that most historic novels about the family Plantagenet popular here show Eleanor as a strong woman with modern ideas but inherently mostly good, when seen past medieval patriarchial double morals and therefore some utterly necessary intrigues not to get herself killed by a hollier than thou power hungry clergy -- almost a role model for a girl of today...

I never heared the story about this Rosamund and her death, but the "Rose of the World" wordplay I have come across before. "Hic jacet in tumba Rosamundi non Rosamunda, non redolet sed olet, quae redolere solet. " Never really learning about whom this was written originally and how old it is... I actually took it for granted that it is about Rose Kelly and therefore of a much newer date.

Oh, okay.... a bit more in depth then. I just had found Fair Rosamund's latin epitaph on the Wikipedia site about her, as soon I found out the full name is Rosamund Clifford, which was comparable easy online as well. I was amazed as I had known it before, hower that came from discussion and interpretations about the 3 Roses by Alistair Crowley (mundi, coeli and inferni). Someone claimed that little and a bit mean latin word game would be about his his poor alcohol addicted wife i think or just they just wondered if it was, anyway the text stuck better than those weird and rather long poetry pieces of his with me. It's brief to the point and cleverly made. Who ever wrote it had a great command over their latin to think off something like that, although it seems a bit more humorous than a serious propper epitaph some grief stricken late medieval guy would put on the tombstone of a love interest that died in a nunnery... What a gruesome joke when it is hinting on the smell of a corpse and not just of the way a drinker would reek from the mouth and so give away they had been at the bottle again and would kill themselves with it eventually!!! :o(

Yes. Just some occult idea I think. I have not studied any exclusive secrets for members of some lodge, that's perhaps why I have a bit issues with understanding the poetry. It's just so long and a kind of hard to read oldfashioned sort of english language, full of strange imagery settled in the grey zone inbetween a regular welltempered classicist symbolism and base adult stuff.

Fair Rosamuds brief latin epitaph is IMO the much preferable read, albeit a bit un-epithaphy, if that's a word. :o)
The short but intricate latin text means more or less open to interpretation:
"In this tomb here lies the rose of the world, yet not a pure rose.
One which used to smell well but now reeks as one would expect ."