The Revolt of the Eaglets

Chapter XI THE LADY OF GODSTOW

In the convent of Godstow, Rosamund knew that her end was near. It was just a little more than a year since she had arrived at the convent where she had been received with pleasure by the nuns. It was not only that the King had endowed the convent with gifts since she had come, which had made her popular; her gentle nature very soon made her beloved by all.

There was none more devout than Rosamund. She spent long hours in meditation and penance; so deeply concerned was she with her sins, which seemed to her to have been of such magnitude that no matter if she lived for twenty years she could never wipe them out, even if she passed those years in extreme piety.

Sometimes she talked of this to the nuns who sought to comfort her.

‘I know that it was wrong. I should never have agreed to become the King’s mistress. I loved him and could deny him nothing. I cannot describe to you the charm of Henry Plantagenet.’

‘Others have sinned in like fashion, my daughter,’ the Abbess reminded her. ‘They have sought and found forgiveness as you are doing.’

But Rosamund was too heavily weighed down by her conception of sin to be comforted. If she had been seduced against her will, it would have been different; if she had given way to save her family from the King’s displeasure there would have been some hope for her soul.

‘But no,’ she said. ‘He came to my father’s castle and was entertained there. We took one look at each other and the temptation was born. I remember well how I returned to my bedchamber and my heart beat as it never did before. I loosened my hair so that it fell about my shoulders and I put on my most becoming robe. I waited for the summons and when it came most willingly I went.’

‘You were but a child.’

‘A child who knew the difference between good and evil.’

She could not excuse herself. She wept often; she sewed garments for the poor until there were deep shadows under her once beautiful eyes. And each day she grew more pale and wan.

Occasionally she heard news of what was happening in the world outside Godstow. It was said that there would soon be a royal wedding for Prince Richard and the Princess Alice of France.

Poor Alice! What would her life be? How could she go to her bridegroom when she had already borne the King a child? Few knew of that, and Rosamund hoped never would. One day would Alice feel the heavy weight of her sins as insupportable as Rosamund now found hers?

And the King? How would he feel about letting Alice go? Yet he had let Rosamund go and surely he had once loved her even as he now loved Alice.

It was a sad and sorry world and Rosamund was convinced that her sins were too great for heavenly forgiveness.

She was no longer a young woman so perhaps the King had tired of her for that reason. She would soon have seen forty winters. So many years it had been since the King had first sent for her. Yet she remembered that occasion in every detail and with her was the certain knowledge that if she were young again and the King was there, everything would have happened as it had before.

That was what made her feel so doomed.

The Abbess remonstrated with her. Should she not work a little in the gardens? That would give her a little fresh air, and she loved the plants.

‘I love the gardens,’ answered Rosamund. ‘To tend the flowers would give me the utmost pleasure. From now on I want to turn my back on everything that pleases me. I have had pleasure enough in my life. It is now time for me to endure the pain.’

Confined in her cell she would spend long hours on her knees, the hairy garment she wore tormenting her soft skin. And at length there came a day when the Abbess despaired of her life, so much had she neglected her health and so deeply enamoured did she seem of death.

She was unable to rise from her pallet and when the nuns brought certain comforts to her cell she scorned them. They sought to wrap her in warm covering but she spurned it; she had grown so thin that she was not recognisable as the beautiful penitent who had entered the convent only a year before.

‘Rest easy, my daughter,’ said the Abbess. ‘Your sins will be forgiven for you have truly repented.’

Rosamund shook her head and the tears fell down her sunken cheeks.

‘Nay,’ she said. ‘Do you know the big tree in the gardens … my favourite tree?’

The Abbess nodded.

‘When that turns to stone you will know that I have been received into Heaven.’

‘You have shown true repentance, and God is good.’

But Rosamund could not believe that her sins were forgiven, for she only had to think of Henry Plantagenet and she knew that were he to come to her and insist on her going to him she would be unable to prevent herself doing so. How could one be forgiven a sin when in one’s heart one knew that should the temptation occur again, there would be no resisting it?

The nuns wept for her when she was dead. She had been a good and gracious lady; and much good had come to Godstow because it had sheltered her.

The King came to the convent. He was deeply distressed. His dear Rosamund, dead! Fair Rosamund. The Rose of the World who through him had become the Rose of Unchastity.

‘She was a good woman,’ he said, ‘and dearly I loved her. If she sinned it was in loving me. She was my comfort when I needed comfort. She gave me solace which as King I needed. Because of her I was a better man than I would otherwise have been.’

He wished her to be buried with some pomp. Let her coffin be placed in the gardens of the convent she loved so well. The grave would not be closed. A tabernacle should be built above the coffin; then an altar should be created and the coffin placed on it. The coffin should be covered by a pall of silk; tapers should be kept constantly burning at either end and banners should wave above it.

Thus it would be seen that this was a shrine to one who had been highly valued by the King, and he had decided that one day a suitable monument should be built beneath which she would be buried.

Until that time let her lie in state and let the nuns of Godstow keep the tapers burning and pray constantly for the salvation of the soul of one whom the King had loved dearly.