T about two miles from Oxford, on the banks of the Isis, are the remains of Godstow Nunnery, where Fair Rosa. mood was buried. There are remains of the north, south, and east walls, and of a small building, thought to have been a chapter-house, where Rosamond may have been buried finally.

Her first grave was an open tomb m front of the altar; over the coffin was spread a pall of pure white silk, and tapers were constantly burnt around it.

St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, was greatly displeased at the tender reverence shown by the nuns to poor Rosamond's body, and immediately ordered it to be carried out into the churchyard. But as soon as he was dead the faithful nuns gathered together their penitent sister's bones into a bag enclosed in a leaden case, and buried them again beneath the altar.

After their second burial they were not disturbed again till the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., when Leland says her tomb was opened by the Royal Commissioners in it was found the leaden case, within which the bones were wrapt in leather; "when it was opened," he adds, "a very sweet smell came from it."

Rosamond's story caught the national fancy. Delony and Daniel both wrote of her; one a beautiful ballad, the other a lovely poem, called the "Complaint of Rosamond" Drayton also dedicated two of his poetical epistles to her memory, and Chaucer alludes to her. Addison wrote an opera called "Rosamond."

By Rosamond's grave a nut tree has sprung up, and waves above it its branches. It bears a profusion of nuts, but singularly enough they are without kernels; as deceptive as the royal glamour shed over her sad life.

Her eldest son - the beloved and faithful brother of Richard and John - was William Longepee, who became by his marriage Earl of Salisbury. He was one of the bravest and best men of his time. Her other son was, as we have said else. where, an archbishop.

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