a marriage. If so, she was innocent, and Henry was
guilty for having virtually repudiated this marriage in order to
connect himself with Eleanora for the sake of her kingdom. On the
other hand, if she were not married to Henry, but used her arts to
entice him away from his true wife, then she was deeply in fault. It
is very difficult now to ascertain which of these suppositions is the
correct one. In either case, Henry himself was guilty, toward the one
or the other, of treacherously violating his marriage vows--the most
solemn vows, in some respects, that a man can ever assume.

Rosamond had two children, named William and Geoffrey, and at one time
in the course of his life Henry seemed to acknowledge that they were
his only two children, thus admitting the validity of his marriage
with Rosamond. This admission was contained in an expression which he
used in addressing William on a field of battle when he came toward
him at the head of his troop. "William," said he, "you are my true and
legitimate son. The rest are nobodies." He may, it is true, have only
intended to speak figuratively in saying this, meaning that William
was the only one worthy to be considered as his son, or it may be that
it was an inadvertent and hasty acknowledgment that Rosamond, and not
Eleanora, was his true wife. As time rolled on, however, and the
political arrangements arising out of the marriage with Eleanora and
appointment of her sons to high positions in the state became more and
more extended, the difficulties which the invalidation of the marriage
with Eleanora would produce became very great, and immense interests
were involved in sustaining it. Rosamond's rights, therefore, if she
had any, were wholly overborne, and she was allowed to linger and die
in her nunnery as a private person.

When at length she died, the nuns, who had become greatly attached to
her, caused her to be interred in an honorable manner in the chapel,
but afterward the bishop of the diocese ordered the remains to be
removed. He considered Rosamond as having never been married to the
king, and he said that she was not a proper person to be the subject
of monumental honors in the chapel of a society of nuns; so he sent
the remains away, and ordered them to be interred in the common
burying-ground. If Rosamond was what he supposed her to be, and if he
removed the remains in a proper and respectful manner, he was right in
doing what he did. His motive may have been,