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published in 1842. No alteration was made in any subsequent
edition. The poem was written in 1840 when Tennyson was
returning from Coventry to London, after his visit to
Warwickshire in that year. The Godiva pageant takes place in
that town at the great fair on Friday in Trinity week. Earl
Leofric was the Lord of Coventry in the reign of Edward the
Confessor, and he and his wife Godiva founded a magnificent
Benedictine monastery at Coventry. The first writer who mentions
this legend is Matthew of Westminster, who wrote in 1307, that
is some 250 years after Leofric's time, and what authority he
had for it is not known. It is certainly not mentioned by the
many preceding writers who have left accounts of Leofric and
Godiva (see Gough's edition of Camden's 'Britannia', vol. ii.,
p. 346, and for a full account of the legend see W. Reader, 'The
History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, wi