When, in 1190, Hugh bishop of Lincoln visited the nunnery of Godstow, just outside Oxford, he was appalled by what he found there. In the church, in front of the High Altar, stood a magnificent sepulchre, hung about with rich tapestries and lamps, towards which the nuns clearly displayed considerable reverence. Inquiring which great personage was buried there, he was told that this was the tomb of Rosamund Clifford, the mistress of Henry II, for love of whom the heartbroken king had erected this monument following her death. Indeed, said the nuns, this royal generosity had caused their house, previously poor and needy, to prosper greatly, since the many other noble gifts that it subsequently received enabled them to beautify their buildings and to keep lamps burning constantly around this seeming shrine. St Hugh, as he later became, could be modest and gentle or stern and intransigent as the situation demanded. As prior of Witham, a Carthusian house, he had not hesitated to criticize Henry II as a beloved but sometimes wayward son while the king was alive, and he did not for a moment hesitate to do so now. Like Christ cleansing the Temple, he forthwith ordered that the monument should be destroyed and Rosamund's bones exhumed and buried outside the church, so that this tomb of a harlot should in no way exert a bad influence over other women or besmirch the holy House of God. And it was done.