The Cooper Family of Derbyshire

Lady Godiva Buckingham, an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, was the beautiful wife of Leofric III, Earl of Mercia and lord of Coventry.; She is known to have persuaded her husband to found monasteries at Coventry and Stow. The people of Coventry were suffering grievously under the Earl's oppressive taxation. Lady Godiva appealed again and again to her husband, who obstinately refused to remit the tolls. At last, weary of her entreaties, he said he would grant her request if she would ride naked through the streets of the town. According to legend, she consented to ride naked through the town on a white horse; Lady Godiva took him at his word, and after issuing a proclamation that all persons should keep within doors or shut their windows, she rode through, clothed only in her long hair.; Only one person disobeyed her orders to remain indoors behind closed shutters; this man, a tailor known afterward as "Peeping Tom", bored a hole in his shutters that he might see Godiva pass and immediately became blind. Her husband kept his word and abolished the onerous taxes. The oldest form of this legend is in the 13th-century Flores Historiarum (Flowers of the Historians); A festival in her honor was instituted as part of Coventry Fair in 1678.The oldest form of the legend has Godiva passing through Coventry market from one end to the other while the people were assembled, attended only by two female (clothed) riders. This version is given in Flores Historiarum by Roger of Wendover (died 1236), a somewhat credulous collector of anecdotes, who quoted from an earlier writer. The still later story, with its episode of Peeping Tom, appeared first among 17th century chroniclers. Whether the Lady Godiva of this story is the Godiva or Godgifu ("gift of God") of history is undecided.