This rendering is perhaps preferable to that of Stowe ("Annals," 1631), which concludes with: "Though she were sweete, now foully doth she stinke, A mirrour good for all men, that on her thinke." In any case the epitaph must be accounted a libel in one respect, for Leland, the Antiquary to Henry VIII, records that, on the opening of Rosamond's tomb, at the dissolution of Godstowe nunnery, the bones were found to be encased in leather, surrounded by lead, and that "a very swete smell came out of it." An interesting point mentioned by Croxall is that in his time "a delightful Bower" was still in existence at Woodstock and was shown as the original of the story. Another reliable writer of the same period (Thomas Hearne, 1718) makes a similar observation, but in this case it is made clear that the remains are those of a large building, not, as we might have inferred, those of a hedge maze or arbour. These remains, whatever they may have been, have disappeared long since. Woodstock Park, according to the historian Rouse of Warwick, was the first park to be made in England. Henry the First had a palace here, but the present great building, the masterpiece of Sir John Vanbrugh, was built for the first Duke of Marlborough and was named after the scene of his famous victory, Blenheim. The traditional story of Fair Rosamond, in which she is made to figure as a cruelly wronged and guileless damsel of impregnable virtue and the victim of an unreasoning jealousy, formed the basis of many novels, _e.g._, "Fair Rosamond," by T. Miller ("The Parlour Library"), 1847, and as late as 1911 it was cast into the form of a one-act tragedy by Mr. Oliver W. F. Lodge, under the name of "The Labyrinth," and was first performed by the Pilgrim Players on October 14 in that year. A little-known opera by Addison deals with the same theme; it is entitled "Rosamond" and is inscribed to the Duchess of Marlborough. The most poignant and beautiful version of the tragedy is that given by Swinburne in his "Rosamond" (not, of course, to be confused with his "Rosamund"). Tennyson, in his "Becket," makes that prelate rescue Rosamond from the Queen at the crucial moment and take her to Godstowe nunnery, whence she later escapes to intercede--ineffectually--with his murderers in Canterbury Cathedral. No authentic portrait of Rosamond is known to exist, but in Hampton Court Palace, just outside Cardinal Wolsey's Room, there hangs a half-length female portrait by an unknown painter (No. 961 [937]), which is labelled Rosamond Clifford. The lady depicted, however, is attired in a fashion which did not obtain until considerably later than the time of Rosamond; in fact, there seems to be no justification whatever for assuming that the picture represents the fair Rosamond at all, except perhaps in the imagination of the artist. CHAPTER XX MAZE ETYMOLOGY