HeroFamous
Fair Rosamund
Too beloved for holy ground.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Roofless walled enclosure and a small chapel ruin
- Legend from
- Medieval chronicles; later ballads
- Best time
- Summer evenings by the river
- Tone
- Melancholy
The king's hidden love lies somewhere under these walls, and her grave was too beloved for a bishop's liking.
By the Thames at Godstow stand the bare walls of a Benedictine nunnery founded by 1133. Here was buried Rosamund Clifford, Fair Rosamund, the mistress of Henry II, who died about 1176. Legend made her the beauty kept hidden from a jealous queen. Her tomb at Godstow became so honoured that the bishop of Lincoln had it moved out of the church in 1191. The Victoria County History notes drily that there is no evidence for the guide-book tale that she was educated at Godstow, or even lived there.