Godiva, Lady, in British legend, the wife of the Earl of Coventry. When the mothers of the town came to Godiva and represented that their taxes were so oppressive that their children were without bread, and must die, she went to her grim lord Leofric, among his hounds and followers, and begged that the taxes might be remitted. He twitted her on her want of sincere interest in such trash, and when she insisted that she would do much, even to the laying down of her life for breadless children, he told her that if she would ride naked through the town he would remit the tax. She caused a proclamation to be made, so runs the story, that all the inhabitants should shut themselves up within their houses and not dare to look out. Then clothed only in her long hair, which reached to her knees, she rode the length of the main street on her palfrey and returned. Only one person ventured to look out, the legend goes, but he was struck with immediate blindness. He has since been called "Peeping Tom of Coventry." The earl vas obliged to keep his word. Taxes were remitted; children were fed. The legend was kept alive for many a century by a yearly pageant or procession. Tennyson has told the story well in his poem of Godiva.

---