But when he heard Cordelia's death, Who died indeed for love 170 Of her dear father, in whose cause She did this battel move, He swooning fell upon her breast, From whence he never parted; But on her bosom left his life 175 That was so truly hearted. The lords and nobles, when they saw The end of these events, The other sisters unto death They doomed by consents; 180 And being dead, their crowns they left Unto the next of kin: Thus have you seen the fall of pride, And disobedient sin. 76 deny'd. 157. whose noble. FAIR ROSAMOND. The celebrated mistress of Henry the Second was daughter to Walter Clifford, a baron of Herefordshire. She bore the king two sons, one of them while he was still Duke of Normandy. Before her death she retired to the convent of Godstow, and there she was buried; but Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, not courtly enough to distinguish between royal and vulgar immoralities, caused her body to be removed, and interred in the common cemetery, "lest Christian religion should grow in contempt." The story of Queen Eleanor's poisoning her rival is not confirmed by the old writers, though they mention the labyrinth. All the romance in Rosamond's history appears to be the offspring of popular fancy. Percy has collected the principal passages from the chronicles in his preface to the ballad. _Fair Rosamond_ is the work of Thomas Deloney, a well-known ballad-maker who died about 1600. Our copy is the earliest that is known, and is taken from Deloney's _Strange Histories_, ed. of 1607, as reprinted by the Percy Society, vol. iii. p. 54. The same is found in the _Crown Garland of Golden Roses_, ed. 1659 (Per. Soc. vol. vi. p. 12), and in the _Garland of Good Will_, ed. 1678 (Per. Soc. vol. xxx. p. 1.): and besides, with trifling variations, in _A Collection of Old Ballads_, i. 11, Percy's _Reliques_, ii. 151, and Ritson's _Ancient Songs_, ii. 120, from black-letter copies. Another ballad with the title of the _Unfortunate Concubine, or, Rosamond's Overthrow_, is given in the collection of 1723, vol. i. p. 1. The story is also treated in the forty-first chapter of Warner's _Albion's England_. Warner has at least one good stanza,[3] which is more than can be said of this wretched, but very popular, production. Some corrections have been adopted from the _Crown Garland of Golden Roses_. [3] With that she dasht her on the lips, So dyèd double red; Hard was the heart that gave the blow, Soft were those lips that bled. * * * * *