Page:The Queens of England.djvu/67

ELEANOR OF AOUITAINE. 53 remain of the gay festivity she kept up at her various palaces of Westminster, Winchester and Woodstock. It was at the favorite summer palace of Woodstock that the beloved Rosa- mond was concealed, and here, in the second year of her con- nection with the king, had she given birth to her second son. As regarded Rosamond, two things were impossible to Henry, either to keep his marriage with the queen from her knowledge, or to keep her much longer from the knowledge of the queen. Rosamond lived in a bower or secret chamber, as tradition has it, at some little distance from the palace in the center of a labyrinth or thicket. Of course, Eleanor's jealousy and sus- picion once roused, would not rest until the secret was discov- ered ; and the mode of its discovery, tradition and the old bal- lads, which always have their origin in truth, tell us, was by means of a clue of silk, which had attached itself to Henry's spur on leaving Rosamond's bower, and which, being traced backwards by the queen, into whose chamber Henry had unconsciously brought it, led her into the very presence of her rival. Eleanor, however, was less vindictive than tradition avers ; she neither stabbed Rosamond to the heart, nor yet com- pelled her to drain "a cup of poison strong." This, however, she did, there is no doubt— she insisted, very naturally, on the removal of so dangerous a rival ; and Rosamond, in the relig- ious spirit of her age, voluntarily entered the nunnery at God- stow, leaving her two sons to the care of King Henry, who, though it does not appear that he concerned himself further as to their mother, always showed the affections of a parent to- wards them. Rosamond died twenty years afterwards at God- stow, where her life of penitence and prayer had won for her the respect almost of a saint. In the year 11 56 Eleanor gave birth to her eldest daughter, the Princess Matilda, and in September of the following year, at Oxford, to Richard, afterwards called Cceur de Lion. In 1 1 59 Henry and Eleanor were again crowned at Worcester, and the September following was born another son called Geoffrey Plantagenet, who the same year was betrothed to Constance the Princess of Bretagne, at that time under two years old. Henry had unjustly seized upon Bretagne, and now wished to conciliate the offended people by marrying the in- fant duchess to his son. He also revived the claims of his wife to the earldom of Thoulouse, but in this was opposed by Louis of France, who, in aid of Raymond, Earl of Thoulouse, threw