f trees, by which means she came to knew of her rival.
The meeting of the two women can better be imagined than described:
the queen poured out a torrent of reproaches and invectives, ending by
offering to Rosamond the cup of poison or a dagger, and did not leave
the place until the victim of her jealousy was no more.
But the tragic death of Rosamond did not serve to enlist for the queen
the affections of her consort, nor did it tend to promote her domestic
peace. Never was a family so torn by dissension and sin; her children
were arrayed against their father and one another, and all were
opposed to herself. Her husband added to her many troubles the further
shame of installing in her place the wife of his son. Seeking release
from a situation past all endurance, she eloped from a castle in
Aquitaine, intending to find an asylum in the dominions of King Louis
of France, her former husband. She was captured by Henry's myrmidons
and thrown into prison, there to remain sixteen years until liberated
by her renowned son, Richard Coeur de Lion. The sufferings of her life
tempered her spirit and brought her into reliance upon religion for
her comfort and strength.
Another example of the high courage and decision of purpose which the
life of Eleanor of Aquitaine furnished in its later history is found
at a subsequent period in another Eleanor, the daughter of Edward
II. This patient, suffering wife, roused to indignant resistance
of an unpardonable indignity, exhibited the spirit of an undaunted
character. She had been married, at the tender age of fifteen, to the
stern Reynald II., Earl of Gueldres and Zutphen. When the large dower
she brought her husband had been spent by him, he sought pretext for
a divorce from one with whom he could feel no sympathy; but for this
her blameless life furnished no excuse. Although the countess was
constantly surrounded by spies and her every act and word reported to
her lord, she moved with stately dignity in the atmosphere of intrigue
and deceit. In default of any other plea, her husband represented
to the pope that she was afflicted with leprosy. Arrayed solely in
a tunic, and enveloping herself in a capacious mantle, she made her
way with majestic mien into the council room of the palace, where the
perfidious lord was in consultation with his assembled nobles about
the details of the sinister purpose which he was seeking to effect.
With the words, "I am come, my beloved lord, to seek a
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