Some years after the murder, the King bequeathed England and Normandy
(SS108, 159) to Prince Henry.[1] He at the same time provided for his
sons Geoffrey and Richard. To John, the youngest of the brothers, he
gave no territory, but requested Henry to grant him several castles,
which the latter refused to do. "It is our fate," said one of the
sons, "that none should love the rest; that is the only inheritance
which will never be taken from us."
[1] After his coronation Prince Henry had the title of Henry III; but
as he died before his father, he never properly became king in his own
right.
It may be that that legacy of hatred was the result of Henry's unwise
marriage with Eleanor, an able but perverse woman, or it may have
sprung from her jealousy of "Fair Rosamond" and other favorites of the
King.[1] Eventually this feeling burst out into civil war. Brother
fought against brother, and Eleanor, conspiring with the King of
France, turned against her husband.
[1] "Fair Rosamond" [Rosa mundi, the Rose of the world (as THEN
interpreted)] was the daughter of Lord Clifford. According to
tradition the King formed an attachment for this lady before his
unfortunate marriage with Eleanor, and constructed a place of
concealment for her in a forest in Woodstock, near Oxford. Some
accounts report that Queen Eleanor discovered her rival and put her to
death. She was buried in the nunnery of Godstow near by. When
Henry's son John became King, he raised a monument to her memory with
the inscription in Latin:
"This tomb doth here enclose
The world's most beauteous Rose--
Rose passing sweet erewhile,
Now naught but odor vile."