Rosamond

Rosamond, wife of the Lombard king Alboin

Rosamond (rŏz`əmənd), fl. c.570, wife of the Lombard king Alboin. The daughter of King Kunimund of the Gepidae, a Germanic people, she was captured by Alboin, who had defeated and killed her father. When Alboin forced her to drink from a cup made from her father's skull, she had him murdered by two of his own courtiers and took refuge with the Byzantine prefect at Ravenna. Although married to one of her fellow conspirators, Helmechis, she preferred the prefect, Longinus. When Rosamond offered Helmechis a poisoned drink, he swallowed half and forced her to drink the remainder. Her story, neither confirmed nor disproved by historical research, is the subject of two tragedies, Swinburne's Rosamund and Alfieri's Rosmunda.

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Rosamond, mistress of Henry II of England

Rosamond (Rosamond Clifford), d. 1176, mistress of Henry II of England. She was not openly acknowledged by the king until 1174, after he had imprisoned his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. On Rosamond's death soon afterward she was buried in Godstow Abbey, but her remains were removed to the chapter house after Henry's death. Many stories were written about Rosamond by later chroniclers, the best-known involving variations on a tragic death. She was supposedly murdered at Woodstock by Eleanor of Aquitaine, either by poison, stabbing, beheading, or being bled to death in her bath.