and heaven indeed visits the transgressions of man in sublunary vengeance, the gratification of ambition, in his nuptials with Eleanor of Guienne, was the "pleasant vice" of Henry; for seldom has the patience of a father been tried by so ungracious a brood as that which sprang from the repudiated princess for whom Rosamond was abandoned.-The unnatural wars waged against the king by his legitimate sons are well known.-Amid these dreary scenes he was solaced by the filial attachment and unshaken honour of the child on whose birth he had cast so cruel a stigma. The Archbishop of York, Henry's second son by Rosamond, fought for him in the field with bravery and skill, and was ever at hand to administer the comfort of reverent friendship to his distressed hours. This son staid by him to the last; and when the aged king sank to death, quite heart-broken by the vindictive ingratitude of his other children, the bishop attended his corpse to the nunnery of Fontervrault, and watched near it while it lay in state.

The remains of Godstow-Nunnery chiefly consist of ranges of wall on the north, south, and east sides of an extensive area; and a small building at one angle. Near the western extremity, of the high north wall are fragments of two buttresses; and here, according to the engraving before-mentioned, was formerly a massy tower, beyond which protruded a range of embattled. wall, communicating with the principal entrance. Over this entrance, in a lateral direction, was a lofty round tower. The chief domestic buildings, according to the same engraving, occupied the western division of the area, and had a range of cloisters constructed beneath. Beyond these were the kitchen and outhouses, on a spot now used as garden-ground by the occupier of a neighbouring small house of entertainment, and partly fenced towards the north by the original wall. The church was on the north side. A part of the church tower was standing till within these two years, a venerable and interesting relic! It was taken down by order of the Earl of Abingdon, in whom is vested the property of these curious memorials of distant times; and his VOL. XII. lordship

2 F

lordship used the materials in aid of a new church, which he has built in the neighbouring parish of Witham.

The small building which abuts on the east, and ranges along the southern side, was probably the "Chapter-house" of the Nuns. The walls are entire. The roof is of wood; and some of the rafter-work is yet in fair preservation. The chapel had several windows, and that at the east contained three lights; but all are stopped up. There is no pavement; and the earth on the footing is as rough and billowy as can be readily imagined. Various fragments of hay and straw are scattered about; for the structure, at different times, has been used as a cow-house, and a stable for horses.

It is in this building that the remains of Rosamond are believed to have been placed, when a sordid want of feeling caused them to be removed from the choir of the church. On the north wall of the chancel, over the spot supposed to have been formerly occupied by her tomb, is painted a copy of the epitaph, Hic jacet in Tumbra Rosa, &c. with some English lines, in black letter, (now half obliterated,) ridiculously pretending to be a copy of an inscription on her monument.

In regard to this spot we are enabled to mention a circumstance, which may gratify curiosity, if it do not possess high interest. Anthony Wood, in a memorandum preserved among his papers in the Ashmolean Museum, appears to doubt whether this building, the presumed chapter-house of the nuns, had really ever been used as a place of burial. A gentleman of Christ Church, Oxford, attended by some friends, resolved, a few months back, to ascertain the fact, and we are favoured with the result of his investigation. He removed the earth from the supposed site of Rosamond's tomb; and, at the depth of about four feet, he came to a female skeleton, without any indication of name or rank, or even the remains of a coffin. A little eastward was part of a second skeleton. Thus is the doubt raised by Anthony Wood satisfactorily removed. But it seems obvious either that the bones of Rosamond, when enclosed" in lead and leather," were merely

encased,

encased, above ground, in the frame-work of an altar-tomb; or (which, perhaps, is most probable,) that the precise spot of her second sepulture has been improperly described by tradition. There is not the slightest reason for supposing that the skeletons found were those of any other than ordinary nuns.

The building was divided by a wooden screen, of which only some small indications now remain. The whole of the fabric appears to have been of rude workmanship. Hearne mentions an "old stone, lying in the chancel, which is said to have been the altar-piece;" but this has long since been removed. Grose was shewn, in the chapel," a large stone coffin, pretended to be that from which Rosamond's bones were taken; it seemed to be contrived for two bodies, having been divided in the middle by a ridge of stone, running from head to foot."* and forgotten.

This is now gone

made for the purpose of This cut probably interMany stone coffins were

About twenty years back a cut was accelerating the navigation of the Isis. fered with the site of the old church. turned up; one of which is in the possession of Mr. Alderman Fletcher, of Oxford. It appears that Walter, Lord Clifford, and his wife, Margaret, were both buried at Godstow.

On a bridge, in the vicinity of the nunnery, probably that over the Isis, we are told by Leland there was a cross erected, with this inscription:

Qui meat huc, oret, signumque salutis adoret,

Utque sibi detur veniam, Rosamunda, precetur.

It is observed by Gough, "that, if we read tibi for sibi, this is a prayer for Rosamond's soul; much more probably than that she was to be applied to as a saint, for then we should read Rosamundam." It is likely that the cross was raised by Rosamond's parents, promptly after her funeral; and it is natural to suppose that the piety of the age would induce them to wish for

* An engraving, from a drawing by Grose, of this very curious instance of a double coffin, is inserted in the Gent. Mag. for November, 1791.

the prayers of all travellers, in favour of a remission of their daughter's transgressions.

BINSEY is a very small village, at a short distance from Oxford, on the damp level of the Port Meadow. Here, we are told, that saintly virgin, Frides wide, constructed a church, with "watlyn and rough-hewn timber, to the honour of St. Margaret, about the year 730. Frideswide, taking great delight in the solitary shades and privacy of this neighbourhood, which was then environed with woods, not only built the church, but also several other edifices adjoining, purposely that she, and her sisters, the nuns who lived with her in Oxford, might retire in times of distraction in the city. Binsey continued a cell, or place of retirement for the nuns, in succeeding ages, and hitherto, also, were sent their more stubborn sort, to be punished for crimes committed against the prior or his brethren, which was commonly either by inflicting on them confinement in a dark room, or by withdrawing from them their usual repast, or the like."

The present church is an ancient brick building, without spire, or tower, and stands considerably remote from the village.

At the west end was the noted well of St. Margaret, to which, in conjunction with the various reliques in the church, or chapel, crowds of votaries came, in long and weary pilgrimage. Several priests dwelt here, under the appointment of the prior of St. Frides wide's, to confess and absolve the devotees; and it is said that Seckworth, on the opposite side of the river, (of which place few traces now remain,) contained twenty-four inns for the reception of these pious travellers. Over the well was a covering of stone; and, on the front," the picture of St. Frideswide, pulled down," says Wood, " by Alderman Sayre, of Oxford, in 1639."

The village of Ensham is distant from Oxford five miles, on the north-west. Few villages in the county are adorned by more pleasing

Peshall, apud Wood.