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, but he was struck with immediate blindness. He has since been called "Peeping Tom of Coventry." The earl was 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. See COVENTRY. Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep'd--but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers who wait On noble needs, cancell'd a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass'd; and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, One after one; but even then she gain'd Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd To meet her lord, she took the tax away And built herself an everlasting name.