Episode At Woodstock Poem by Martin Ward

Episode at Woodstock

In Blenheim's parkland
once stood Woodstock Manor:
a home and pleasure ground
of great kings. Its presence
merely marked now
by a single stone.
The edifice erased
by a Duchess of Marlborough
determined that the architect
Sir John Vanbrugh
should not squat in
the renovated ruins,
or that its shambles
should detract from
the hero Duke's
palatial vista.

Saxon kings held their
Wittans at Woodstock,
whilst Plantagenet kings
fulfilled their fancies:
importing porcupines,
leopards and camels
to roam the seven mile perimeter
of Oxfordshire menagerie.
Here, fair Rosamund
fired the red-haired Henry's passion;
though not as romantic legend
would have us believe,
when discovered by tell-tale thread,
took choice of suicide
from Queen Eleanor's hand:
poison or dagger; preferring nunnery.

In 1238 (one Henry later)
an assassin entered a window
at midnight, with dagger drawn,
intent on murdering the king.
One of the Queen's maids;
Margaret Biset by name,
saved the king's life
by her terrible screams which woke the guards.
For she was holy and devoted to God,
and by chance was awake, singing her Psalter by candle light.
Of an illustrious family,
more illustrious by her character.
An insane priest (feigned or unfeigned)
by the name of Ribbaud
was the determined assailant,
halted from his dastardly deed.
Arrested amidst Margaret's screams,
he was taken forth to Oxford
to face his fate, cruelly creative
in its conception and execution:
torn to pieces by wild horses.
Revenge and warning
that sprayed the field crimson
on that vengeful morn.

Have remembrance of history
in all its forms, as oblivious tourists
tread the grounds where many an
episode at Woodstock took place.