(To be continued.)

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FAIR ROSAMOND.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

In a late Number of the mirror, in which you have given a view of the Labyrinth at Woodstock, and several particulars respecting Fair Rosamond, many doubts are stated relative to her death, viz. how and what time.  I therefore send you the following account from Collins’s Peerage of England:—­

“Rosamond de Clifford was the eldest of the two daughters of Walter de Clifford, by Margaret his wife, daughter and heir of Ralph de Toeny, Lord of Clifford Castle, in Herefordshire, (and had with her the said castle and lands about it as an inheritance.) This Rosamond was the unfortunate concubine of Henry II., for whom the king built that famous Labyrinth[2] at Woodstock, where she lived so retired, as not easily to be found by his jealous queen.  The king gave her a cabinet of such elegant workmanship,[3] as showed the fighting of champions, moving of cattle, flying of birds, and swimming of fish, which were so artfully represented, as if they had been alive. She died 23rd Henry II. anno 1176, by poison (as was suspected) given her by Queen Eleanor, and was buried in the Chapter-house of the Nunnery of Godstow.”

G.F.

    [2] Chron.  Joreval, 1151.
    [3] Ibid.

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GODSTOW NUNNERY.

On the banks of the Isis, about two miles from Oxford, are the remains of Godstow Nunnery.  It was founded towards the end of the reign of Henry I. by Editha, a lady of Winchester, and when dissolved in the reign of Henry VIII. it was valued at L274. per annum.  A considerable portion of its buildings remained until the end of the reign of Charles I. about which time they were accidentally destroyed by fire.  The present remains consist chiefly of ranges of walls on the north, south, and east sides of an extended area.  Near the western extremity of the high north wall are the remains of two buttresses.  There is a small building which abuts on the east, and ranges along the southern side, which was probably the Chapter House of the Nuns.  The walls are entire, the roof is of wood, and some of the rafter work is in fair preservation.  It is in this building that the remains of Rosamond are supposed to have been deposited, when they were removed from the choir of the church, by the order of Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1191.  On the north wall is painted a pretended copy of her epitaph in Latin.  Many stone coffins have at various times been found on this spot.

HALBERT H.

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SCRAPS FROM TURKISH HISTORY.

(For the Mirror.)