Fair Rosamund Clifford (Roud No. 3729) - Sung by Hedy West on "Old Times & Hard Times" (1967) Folk-Legacy Records - FSA-32.
This is a bittersweet song. The legends surrounding Rosamund Clifford's poisoning must have been very popular at the time.
Here is the complete text of the ballad as printed on the old broadside sheets: https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/35500/xml
And a recording of said text: https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/recordings/r3.658.mp3
Andrew Cronshaw used the tune for a beautiful arrangement of Childe Maurice (Child No. 83): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo8o-Ztq4-I
Liner notes:
This isn't a West family song, but comes from Massachusetts and is quoted in Eloise Hubbard Linscott's Folk Song's of Old New England. It's a rare song. It seems to have turned up only once in the USA and is known in England only from old broadsides. It concerns "Rosamund the fayre daughter of Walter Lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II (poisoned by Queen Eleanor as some thought) who dyed at Woodstock, AD 1177, where King Henry had made for her a house of wonderful working". Thomas Deloney, the Elizabethan balladeer, had a long ballad about the same lady, but he didn't mention the curious incest motive that is so strong in the present version. Hedy West says : "Through repeated singing I have altered the last phrase of the melody."
I have a sister, young Clifford said,
A sister no man knows,
She hath the colour all in her cheeks
Like a drop of blood in snow(s).
She hath a waist, a waist, a waist,
Like to my silver cane,
I would not for ten thousand worlds
Have King Henry know her name.
King Henry in his fair bower
Was hid so close and still,
That every word young Clifford said,
He wrote down in a bill.
The first fair line she looked upon
She did begin to smile,
The next fair line she looked upon
The tears ran down in aisle(s).
[I have heard two additional verses from another singer that could be added here for the sake of completeness:
Go fetch to me my planet book,
That's in my secret room,
Go fetch to me my planet book,
That I may seek my doom.
Her planet book it was brought out,
And laid upon her knee,
She found that all would come to pass,
And poisoned she must be.]
Oh cursed be my brother Clifford,
Oh cursed may he be,
Can't he dote on his hawks and hounds,
But he must dote on me.
2:51
1:26
2:36
4:21
