CHAPTER XII. Allington Castle.- Reminiscences of Sir Thomas Wyatt -- - hurst, the seat of the Sidneys. Hever Castle. - Eden Page 312 THE THAMES AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. CHAPTER I. Ruins of Godstow Nunnery.- The Legends of Fair Rosamond. The Monks of Ensham. - Woodstock Park and its Memories. - Rosamond's Bower, Chaucer's House. His Description of Woodstock Park. - Queen Elizabeth's Verses while a Prisoner. - The Ghosts of Woodstock. Blenheim. ASSING from Oxford into Berkshire, and on through Botley, we follow the windings of the Thames for about two miles, by the by-road, till we ar rive at Witham, the seat of the Earl of Abingdon, and so on to the ancient site of Godstow Nunnery, famous for its legendary and poetic associations. Who has not heard the touching story of "Fair Rosamond ?" a story upon which VOL. II. B historians in later years have attempted to throw discredit, but which will ever hold its place in the popular heart. And here we are upon the scene of it. Here on this bank the "Rose of the World" passed the innocent years of her early girlhood; and here she was buried, with that insulting epitaph so well known Hic jacet in tumba, Rosa Mundi, non Rosamunda; inscribed however in later years, when her royal lover, so faithful to her memory, was no more. How sweet are the lines of the neglected and almost unknown poet, Daniel, upon this subject! We quote his Complaint of Rosamond, premising, that the poet succeeded Spenser as Laureate, in the year 1599, soon after which the poem was published. After describing the grief of Henry II. on discovering the body of his beautiful mistress, he continues Thus as these passions do him overwhelm, With strict embraces so doth he enfold it. "Pitiful mouth!" said he, "that living gavest The sweetest comfort that my soul could wish, This sorrowing farewell of a dying kiss! "Ah, how, methinks, I see, Death dallying seeks Do yet retain the hues of former grace, "Wonder of beauty! oh, receive these plaints, These obsequies, the last that I shall make thee, That loved thee living, dead will not forsake thee, "Yet, ere I die, thus much my soul doth vow And I will cause posterity shall know How fair thou wert above all womankind. And after ages monuments shall find, Rose of the world! that sweeten'd so the same!" The beauty of the quotation may plead excuse for its length, and some reader, perhaps unaware that such a poet as Daniel ever wrote, |