Most of the subsequent chroniclers seem to have followed Higden in their relation of the story. By Tudor times the romantic and tragic episode had become a favourite theme in popular lore; it was enshrined by the Elizabethan poet Drayton in his "Epistle to Rosamond," the bower being therein described as an arrangement of subterranean vaults. It achieved its greatest popularity, however, in the ballad form, and was printed, with several other "Strange Histories or Songs and Sonnets of Kinges, Princes, Dukes, Lords, Ladyes, Knights and Gentlemen, etc.," in a black-letter volume written or edited by Thomas Delone (or Delorney) in 1612. Two editions of the ballad were represented in the collection of Samuel Pepys, under the title of "The Life and Death of Rosamond, King Henry the Second's Concubine. And how she was Poysoned to Death by Queen Elenor." John Aubrey, in his "Remaines," 1686, tells us that his nurse used to sing the following verses to him: "Yea, Rosamond, fair Rosamond, Her name was called so, To whom dame Elinor our Queene Was known a deadly foe, The King therefore for her defence Against the furious Queene At Woodstocke builded such a Bower The like was never seen. "Most curiously that Bower was built Of stone and timber strong. An hundered and fifty dores Did to this Bower belong, And they so cunningly contriv'd With turnings round about That none but with a clew of thread Could enter in or out." The whole ballad will be found in the well-known "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," collected by Bishop Percy and published by him in 1765. Of a widely different nature was the version published in 1729 by Samuel Croxall in his "Select Collection of Novels," Vol. IV. "The Loves of King Henry II and Fair Rosamond." Here the attitude assumed is one of learned contempt for popular credulity. "What have we in this Story," says Croxall, "but a Copy of Ariadne's Clue and the Cretan Labyrinth?... Yet are we not to wonder that the monkish Historians should deliver down to us a Tale of such Absurdity, when the same Chronicles tell us that, in that King's Reign, a Dragon of marvellous Bigness was seen at St. Osyth's in Essex, which, by its very motion, set many Houses and Buildings on Fire." As for the inscription on Rosamond's tomb, quoted by Brompton, our critic is equally scornful. "The conceit," he says, "is poor and common and, like the other Poetry of those times, depends on a certain Jingle and Play on the Words. The sense of them has been thus expressed in honest English Metre:" (Whether the verse is in better taste when expressed in honest English metre the reader must judge for himself.) "Rose of the World, not Rose the peerless Flow'r, Within this Tomb hath taken up her Bow'r. She scenteth now, and nothing Sweet doth smell Who earst was wont to savour passing well."