The Fair Rosamund 1140-1176


osamund (Rose of the World) Clifford was born in Herefordshire near to the Welsh border, the daughter of Walter de Clifford of the family Fitz-Ponce. Her real name was Jane. It is recorded at the time of the Doomsday Book that a man called Drogo had a son, Richard, who wed Maud de Tosny, the daugher of Ralf de Tosny, receiving Clifford Castle as his wife's dowery. Thus their same famous for becoming the misstress of King Henry II in whose reign Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered.

Henry met her during the summer of 1165 when he stayed at her family's castle during campaigns in Wales.

Very beautiful she was described as "A sweeter creature in this world/ Could prince never embrace".

For a long time theirs was a love secret from Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Henry built an underground labyrinth as a love nest hidden deep in the forest at Woodstock, Oxfordshire. He only owned up to this relationship after he had had his wife imprisoned for her part in stirring her sons Richard & John in rebellion in 1174.

According to legend, Queen Eleanor found the hiding place and came and poisoned her rival. This account first appears i the French Chronicle of London in the 14th century. A more prosaic version is that Rosamund eventually retired from Woodstock to a nunnery at Godstow beside the river Thames at Oxford. There is also nothing to back up the assertion that who was the mother of Henry's son, William Longsword, the Earl of Salisbury.
The place name Godstow means 'God's Place', and the abbey was founded in 1133 by Lady Edith Launceline at the place where she witnessed a shaft of light reaching the ground. There Rosamund is thought to have died from natural causes and was buried in the local church.

Today, 'Rosamund the Fair' is a floating restaurant in Oxford.

Rosamund's tomb attracted pilgrims and was venerated. However in 1191 when the Bishop of Lincoln visited the church he ordered the nuns to remove her body because she had been the king's mistress.

During the English Civil War the abbey was ruined but its hospice survived, and today still offers hospitality in its role as the 'Trout Inn' where peacocks strut around the garden with Oxford's dreaming spires in the background.

This is a picture of Rosamund painted by Arthur Hughes in 1854

Below is a painting of Rosamund by Waterhouse.

Thomas Love Peacock, a friend of Shelley, wrote a poem called 'The Genius of the Thames' in which he mentions Rosamund.

The wild-flower waves in lonely bloom,
On Godstow's desolate wall:
Their thin shades flit through twilight gloom,
And murmered accents feebly fall.
The aged hazel nurtures there
Its hollow fruit so seeming fair,
And lightly throws its humble shade,
Where Rosamunda's form is laid.

The rose of earth, the sweetest flower
That ever graced a monarch's breast,
It vernal beauty's loveliest hour,
Beneath that sod was laid to rest.
In vain the bower of love around,
The Daedalean path was wound:
Alas! that jealous hate should find
The clue for love alone designed!

The venomed bowl, - the mandate dire,-
The menaced steel's uplifted glare,-
The tear, that quenched the blue eye's fire,-
The humble ineffectual prayer:-
All these shall live, recorded long
In tragic and romantic song,
And long a mortal's charm impart,
To melt and purify the heart.
A nation's gem, a monarch's pride,
In youth, in loveliness she died:
The morning sun's ascending ray
Saw none more fair, so blest and gay:
Ere evening came, her funeral knell
Was tolled by Godstow's convent bell.

The marble tomb, the illumined shrine,
Their unavailing splendour gave-
Where slept in earth the maid divine,
The votive silk was seen to wave.
To her as to a martyred saint,
His vows the weeping pilgrim poured:

The drooping traveller, sad and faint,
Knelt there and found his strength restored:
To that fair shrine, in solemn hour,
Fond youths and blushing maidens came,
And gathering from its mystic power
A brighter, purer, holier flame:
The lightest heart with awe could feel
The charm her hovering spirits shed:
But superstition's impious zeal
Distilled its venom on the dead!

The illumined shrine has passed away:
The sculptured stone in dust is laid:
But when the midnight breezes play
Amid the barren hazel's shade,
The lone enthusiast, lingering near,
The youth whose slighted passion grieves,
Through fancy's magic spell may hear
A spririt in the whispering leaves;
and dimly see, while mortals sleep,
Sad forms of cloistered maidens move,
The transient dreams of life to weep,
The fading flowers of youth and love!

The above painting is by Evelyn de Morgan

Clifford Castle Today


Clifford Castle where the fair Rosamund once dwelt is but a an overgrown ruin where animals graze. It has lost its grandeur, but still keeps a little charm. Here it is pictured below:

You would need to write to the owner for permission to walk amongst these stones.


In the stormy days of Norman and Plantagenet, the noble family of de Clifford ranked among the great barons of the realm, and held extensive possessionss upon the marches of Wales, for example in 1222 Dymock in Gloucestershire was given by Henry III to Walter de Clifford, the brother of the Fair Rosamund: 

                          'Here in the shade of age-worn Hatterel
                           A rose once bloomed, soon by the torrid blast
                           Of Jealous hatred withered.

                           *       *       *       *       *       *
                      
                           The ruined arch and fall'n parapet
                           With weeds o'errun, these only mark the place
                           Which echoed once with princely revelry;
                           Clifford long since hath lost its ancient race'.
Of the castle, erected by Fitz-Osborne in the eleventh century, considerable fragments still remain; from whose ivy-mantled ebrasures an extensive view is obtained of the sinuous course of the river and surrounding heights, dominated by the Hatterel Hills about Hay, and the Black Mountains in Wales.

The church features a few interesting monuments of the de Cliffords.

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