Lady godiva

Large scale sculpture of Lady Godiva by John Thomas. Maidstone Museum, England.

Lady Godiva by ChrisRawlins on DeviantArt

Lady Godiva

Lady Godiva, an Anglo Saxon legend

Godiva (Old English: Godgifu, "god gift"), often referred to as Lady Godiva, was an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to a legend dating back at least to the 13th century, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants. The name "Peeping Tom" for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom had watched her ride and was struck blind or dead.

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Lady Godiva

Maureen O'Hara in Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955)

D667_536 20/08/2012 : Coventry, Broadgate: Lady Godiva (Sir William Reid Dick, 1949)

Steel and Velvet, 2011, Acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 40" Lady Godiva after John Collier, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 36x 48" A Vie For Valor, 2010, Oil on Panel, 24 x 36" Raptor's Roost Photography www.robertweselmann.com Memorial to Smitty, 2010, Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24" Dusk Descends, 2010, Mixed Media, 18 x 36"

Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom secretly agreed that when she rode naked on a white horse through the streets of Coventry in the 11th century, he would be watching.

Re-enacting famous historical stuff is fun!

Lady Godiva and her husband, Leofric, were wealthy, powerful and charming. She was a philanthropist and spent her time helping local churches, and he was the Earl of Mercia and tended to the stately matters of the kingdom. So how did the famous tale come to be?