In an out-part of the town are the remains of a pretty large fortification, but quite in ruins. We were entertained at supper with an excellent concert, composed of a variety of instruments.
The next day we went as far as the Royal Palace of Woodstock, where King Ethelred formerly held a Parliament, and enacted certain laws. This palace, abounding in magnificence, was built by Henry I., to which he joined a very large park, enclosed with a wall; according to John Rosse, the first park in England. In this very palace the present reigning Queen Elizabeth, before she was confined to the Tower, was kept prisoner by her sister Mary. While she was detained here, in the utmost peril of her life, she wrote with a piece of charcoal the following verse, composed by herself, upon a window shutter:—
“O Fortune! how thy restless wavering state Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit! Witness this present prison whither fate Hath borne me, and the joys I quit. Thou causedest the guilty to be loosed From bands wherewith are innocents enclosed; Causing the guiltless to be strait reserved, And freeing those that death had well deserved: But by her envy can be nothing wrought, So God send to my foes all they have thought. A.D., M.D.L.V.”
Not far from this palace are to be seen, near a spring of the brightest water, the ruins of the habitation of Rosamond Clifford, whose exquisite beauty so entirely captivated the heart of King Henry II. that he lost the thought of all other women; she is said to have been poisoned at last by the Queen. All that remains of her tomb of stone, the letters of which are almost worn out, is the following:—
“ . . . Adorent, Utque tibi detur requies Rosamunda precamur.”
The rhyming epitaph following was probably the performance of some monk:—
“Hic jacet in tumbâ Rosamundi non Rosamunda, Non redolet sed olet, quæ redolere solet.”
Returning from hence to Oxford, after dinner we proceeded on our journey, and passed through Ewhelme, a royal palace, in which some alms-people are supported by an allowance from the Crown.
We went through the little town of Henley; from hence the Chiltern Hills bear north in a continued ridge, and divide the counties of Oxford and Buckingham.