Oxfordshire Folktales (14 page)

It was not the milk of human kindness that flowed in Eleanor's breast as she approached her husband's love-nest at Woodstock. Fierce creatures roamed the grounds, but none were as deadly as she; a woman scorned. With a small retinue of soldiers, Eleanor ventured deep into the forest, which was planted like a labyrinth – its many twists and turns designed to disorientate any casual visitor – but she was determined, and not without her wits. Her intelligence was renowned and an intelligent woman was dangerous!

She spotted a silken thread snagged on a branch. She recognised it as the kind that belonged to a certain needlework chest – once offered to her, now to his mistress. Furious, she followed this clue and came to the bower. There she came upon the young woman, sewing in the sunlight, guarded by a solitary knight – who was quickly overpowered by her men.

She confronted her rival.
This
was what had lured Henry from their marriage bed? A young slip of a maid, though she doubted she was a maid any more. She was pretty, in her way, but witless, going by her blathering protests of innocence – and docile; easier for Henry to manage. She laughed contemptuously.

Implacable, she offered Rosamund a choice between a dagger and a cup of poisoned wine. Rosamund looked at the Queen in horror. Was this to be her fate? What had she done wrong? She had only followed her heart; she had only wanted to make Henry happy. But in her heart of hearts she knew that what she had done was reprehensible. She had wanted the status of being Henry's lover – secretly craving what Eleanor possessed: her husband; a title; children; power; wealth; and influence. Be careful what you wish for, they say, as here was Eleanor before her – furious, and rightly so. She was only getting what she deserved.

Rosamund sighed, and bowed her head. Begging Eleanor's forgiveness, she accepted her fate. ‘Let me take a drink from your cup.'

‘You shall find it bitter,' replied Eleanor.

Rosamund had only known sweetness in her life. Perhaps it was time she tasted bitterness.

Fair Rosamund chose the poison and died in the bower that Henry had made for her, and that was the end of her.

Or so the story goes.

* * *

Eleanor was forever cast as the ‘hard woman'; Rosamund the hapless heroine – the victim of a dangerous game.

Yet that wasn't quite how it was. When news of the affair became public in 1174, Rosamund retired to Godstow Nunnery. The attention she was getting was becoming unbearable. Gerald of Wales wrote a scathing public attack on her character. His real target was Henry – because of the King's frequent wars against Wales – but the main casualty was Rosamund. He mocked the King's mistress as Rosa-immundi, ‘Rose of Unchastity'. For Rosamund it was too much, and she brought the affair to a close. She joined her sisters at Godstow Nunnery and did not hear from the King again. It was as though she had vanished from the world. Inside the cloistered walls, she was unaware of the rumours swirling around the country of her apparent murder – a neat fiction to explain the end of the affair, perhaps even crafted by Henry himself and spread by his men, to slander his heartless wife, who had, in truth, murdered love.

Behind the veil at Godstow, Rosamund lived out the remainder of her days in virtuous chastity, reflecting upon her ‘sins'. She found a peace there, a lasting happiness, at one with the Lord. As fair as she was in secular life, refined she became in the spiritual – her soul sifted by a simple, disciplined cycle of prayer, work and contemplation. When she died, she was buried with great honour. Henry, who had never forgotten her, and the Clifford family, paid for her tomb in the choir of the convent's church, and for an endowment that would ensure care of the tomb by the nuns. Her grave would become a shrine for many young women who took solace in her fall and return to grace; until her bones were removed by an over-zealous St Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln.

While visiting Godstow, Hugh of Lincoln noticed Rosamund's tomb right in front of the high altar. The tomb was laden with flowers and candles. The bishop was outraged at the worship of ‘Rosamund the harlot', and ordered her remains removed from the church.

She was to be buried outside the church ‘with the rest, that the Christian religion may not grow into contempt, and that other women, warned by her example, may abstain from illicit and adulterous intercourse.'

The nuns moved her relics in a perfumed leather bag to the cemetery by the Chapter House. Here, Henry, her father and many others would come to remember her until the nunnery was destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a German traveller recorded the inscription, faded but still visible on the tombstone:

Let them adore … and we pray that rest be given to you, Rosamund.

This is followed by a cruel rhyming epitaph: ‘Here in the tomb lies the rose of the world, not a pure rose; she who used to smell sweet, still smells – but not sweet.'

Yet when her tomb was opened, there was said to be the scent of crushed roses. Rosamund – fair in life, fair in death.

Near Woodstock town in Oxfordshire

As I walked for to take the air

To view the fields and meadows round

Me thought I heard mournful sound.

Down by a crystal river side,

A gallant bower I espied,

Where a fair lady made great moan,

With many a bitter sigh and groan.

(From ‘The Oxfordshire Tragedy’, or ‘Near Woodstock Town’)

Once, there was a handsome young nobleman from Oxfordshire called Robert, who married a comely young maid called Amy. They were both young, beautiful and brimming with life, and it felt like the world was their oyster. Deep in love, all things were possible and the future was theirs. Alas, tragedy was to strike and their fate was to be no fairytale.

Robert Dudley was the fifth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and Jane Guildford, and he was always destined for great things. There was something in his manner, the way he held himself and later, as a handsome young man, the dashing figure he cut. Women admired him and men wanted to be like him. He was to catch the eye of the most powerful woman in the land; but at the age of eighteen he was besotted with Amy Robsart. She was the woman who had won his heart. He wooed her and married her, for who could refuse him? For a while they lived in happiness. It was like a dream come true.

But Robert was often called away to court – more often than Amy would like. However happy they seemed to be when they were together, she could not help fretting about all the fine pretty ladies at court – who no doubt flirted with him. He placated her with soft words, reassuring her that her heart was safe with him. She was the only woman in the world that mattered – the love of his life! Amy would watch him gallop away, clutching her breast.

These were dramatic, dangerous times. There were many intrigues at court, which Robert became involved in. He was never able to discuss these with Amy, for her own safety, and so his comings and goings were often veiled in secrecy. Only later did it come to light how deep he was involved in not only courtly intrigues, but the deadliest of games. Robert supported his father in the vain attempt to place Jane Grey on the throne in July 1553, and was condemned to death for doing so; dark times indeed.

It was only when he was facing execution that Robert was able to reveal his part in the plot to his wife, who had, through her influence and wealth, been able to arrange a brief, private visit to him in the Tower. She thought that would be the last she would ever see of him and she left as though she herself was walking to the block.

Robert’s father lost his head for his part in the plot – a deadly blow to them all – but then a miracle occurred and Robert was pardoned. That was October 1554. For his own good, he went abroad and distinguished himself with his brother in the campaign against France in 1557. He received some kindness from Queen Mary’s husband, Philip II of Spain, but his real fortunes began when Elizabeth, upon her accession, made him her Master of the Horse.

And so Robert returned to England in glory. He was the Faerie Queen’s chosen one. Some wicked gossips said he was her suitor. Amy tried to ignore such cruel words – for did he still not come back to her, a loyal husband? And the Queen and her Master of the Horse was often heard arguing most passionately. Some speculated that Queen Bess bore little love for him, but used him as a stalking horse – to deter other suitors who were eager to win her hand and her vast wealth, power and lands. At the end of the day, these were all words, idle speculation – for what did it matter, as long as her beloved Robert was back in her bed, well, most nights?

But then in 1560, on a dark night, tragedy struck. The exact nature of events is still a mystery, but the facts are plain enough. On the 8th of September of that year, at Cumnor Place, in Oxfordshire, Amy was found dead, lying at the foot of the stairs with a broken neck. Some say that she died of a broken heart; others say that she was murdered by her husband, the Queen’s favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Of course, Robert played the grieving widower very convincingly and performed all the necessary rites.

And yet, the death of his wife was all too convenient, for it cleared the way for him to marry Queen Elizabeth – the greatest of prizes. Although this powerful union failed to manifest, there was still plenty of evidence to suggest Robert was the Queen’s chosen one: she rewarded him with rich gifts of Crown lands and, in a moment of weakness, she named him Protector of the Realm in the event of her death, when she had her only recorded illness in 1562.

Whatever the circumstances and motives of Amy’s death, Robert, having observed the etiquette of grieving, set forth to marry the Queen by all means available to him. He told Spanish ambassadors that he would bring England back to Catholicism if Philip would help him to her hand. And so, he was considerably flabbergasted when the Queen gravely proposed him as a husband for her rival, Mary Queen of Scots. In order to fit him for the post, she created him, in 1564, Earl of Leicester.

He should have been pleased.

His career should have taken off after that, but it was far from glorious – his relations with the Queen were strained and perhaps the result of a painful game they played with each other, behaving and appearing to the entire world like spurned lovers.

The wounded heart is the most savage of beasts.

Dudley owned Cornbury Park, near Woodstock town. When life at court got too much, he often enjoyed hunting there. Things had got rather difficult of late and although he had done his best to defend the realm against the Spanish, his attempts had not always been successful or appreciated. He had been accused of extravagance and incompetence in his command of the Queen’s Troops, and yet had she not entrusted him with them at Tilbury in August 1588, when the defeat of the Spanish Armada was yet hardly known? Perhaps that elusive Faerie Queen still held a candle for him in secret? Did true love ever truly die? He was pondering this one day in late summer, as he was riding through the golden forest of Cornbury, the sunlight shimmering through the canopy, when a pale figure suddenly appeared before him, making his horse shy and throwing him from his saddle. Momentarily stunned, he brushed the mulch from his face and gasped – before him was his former wife!