40 Fun Facts About Lady Godiva

What nickname, now a byword for a voyeur, was given to the one man who spied on Lady Godiva's ride?

Peeping Tom is missing from the medieval accounts and joined the story centuries later. Coventry's annals first name him in 1773, when the city paid for a new wig and paint for his wooden effigy.

According to legend, Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry to make her husband lift what burden from the townspeople?

Heavy taxes were the townspeople's grievance, and the earl promised relief only if his wife made the ride. The tale first appears well over a century after her death, and historians doubt it happened.

In the legend of her naked ride through Coventry, what alone is said to have covered Lady Godiva's body?

Her long hair is the only covering the legend allows her. In Hollywood's 1955 film of the story, the star wore a leotard under her hair and the ride was shot on a closed set.

Which children's author wrote The Seven Lady Godivas, a 1939 picture book for adults he called his greatest failure?

Dr. Seuss saw most of the 10,000 copies go unsold, and they were remaindered in cigar stores for 25 cents. He said he could not draw convincing naked women.

Godiva Chocolatier, which took Lady Godiva's name in 1945, began as a family praline workshop in which country?

Belgium is where Pierre Draps started making pralines at home in 1926. His sons adopted the Godiva name in 1945, an idea credited to one son's wife, Gabrielle.

Which future Western star had an uncredited bit part as a Saxon in the 1955 film Lady Godiva of Coventry?

Clint Eastwood is listed only as First Saxon and went uncredited. He spent three weeks on the film in 1954, years before the TV Western Rawhide made his name.

Which Queen hit from the album Jazz has Freddie Mercury compare himself to Lady Godiva as he speeds along?

Don't Stop Me Now was written by Freddie Mercury for the 1978 album and released as a single early the next year. Its singer likens himself to several fast-moving things, Coventry's naked rider among them.

Which famous record of Norman England lists the lands Lady Godiva had held before her death?

Domesday Book shows her as one of the few English nobles, and the only woman, to remain a major landholder after 1066. By the time of the survey she had died and others held her estates.

In many versions of the Lady Godiva legend, what punishment falls on the one townsman who watches her ride past?

He is struck blind in the version most people know, though some tellings have him fall dead instead. The punishment is sometimes heavenly and sometimes the work of angry neighbours.

In British rhyming slang, a Lady Godiva is a banknote of which value, because of the note's nickname?

Five pounds is a fiver, and Lady Godiva rhymes with it. True to rhyming-slang habit, the phrase is sometimes clipped to just a Lady.

Which earl, founder of a monastery at Coventry in 1043, was the husband Lady Godiva defied in the legend?

Leofric died in 1057 and was buried in the Coventry monastery he had founded. His widow outlived him by nine years or more, long enough to see the Normans arrive.

Lady Godiva's husband ruled which Anglo-Saxon earldom, a former kingdom covering the English Midlands?

Mercia stretched across the Midlands, with Coventry inside it. Its ruling family stayed prominent: two of her husband's grandsons, Edwin and Morcar, were earls when the Normans invaded.

In the Coventry legend, what was the trade of the lone man who could not resist watching Lady Godiva ride by?

A tailor is the culprit in Coventry lore. A travel account of 1782 says curiosity overcame his fear, and by 1826 a wooden figure of him was shown at the city's yearly fair.

Before her legendary ride through Coventry, what did Lady Godiva's proclamation order all the townspeople to do?

Stay indoors with the windows shut was the order, and in the legend nearly everyone obeyed. The oldest telling is different: she crosses a crowded market escorted by two knights.

Which Victorian Poet Laureate wrote the 1842 poem Godiva, later carved on the plinth of Coventry's Lady Godiva statue?

Alfred Tennyson wrote it in 1840 on his way home from a visit to Coventry. The poem opens with the poet waiting for his train there and gazing at the city's three spires.

Which future Dynasty star made her film debut as a beauty contestant in the 1951 comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again?

Joan Collins was an uncredited extra after testing for the lead, which went to newcomer Pauline Stroud. Audrey Hepburn reportedly tested too and was judged too thin.

Coventry's Godiva Festival, a summer event named after Lady Godiva, is mainly a celebration of what?

Live music fills the bill, and Kasabian and Biffy Clyro are among the acts that have played it. It began as a one-day event in 1997 and was free to enter until 2019.

Lady Godiva's husband rose to become a powerful earl under which king, famous for the tale of the tide?

Cnut ruled England, Denmark and Norway, and the earl kept his power under the kings who followed. The tide story was first written down about a century after the king's death.

Ealdgyth, a granddaughter of Lady Godiva's husband, became queen by marrying which last Anglo-Saxon king of England?

Harold Godwinson was her second husband. Her first was the Welsh king Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, which made her queen of Wales and then of England.

Which Irish star of The Quiet Man played the title role in the 1955 Hollywood film Lady Godiva of Coventry?

Maureen O'Hara made the film at Universal under a one-picture-a-year contract. Director Arthur Lubin took the job only to avoid suspension and later called it a bad picture.

Lady Godiva's name is a Latin form of an Old English name that carried what meaning?

Gift of God was a popular name in her day, so other women called Godgifu turn up in the records. That makes some documents hard to pin on the famous one.

Monks of which religious order filled the Coventry monastery endowed by Lady Godiva and her husband in 1043?

Benedictine monks, an abbot and 24 brothers, moved in on the site of a nunnery wrecked by invaders in 1016. A chronicler wrote that no monastery in England held so much gold, silver and gems.

Gems Lady Godiva left in her will are among the earliest records of which Christian devotional aid?

Prayer beads were the purpose of the cord: she fingered the stones one by one to count her devotions exactly. Her will asked that they be placed on a statue of the Virgin Mary.

When Coventry held its first Godiva Procession in 1678, who took the part of Lady Godiva?

A boy from the household of James Swinnerton played Godiva that first year. The procession was held only at intervals, and later Godivas were usually hired actresses or dancers.

In a 1974 play at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, a naked Lady Godiva appeared on stage riding what?

A motorcycle replaced the horse in The Only True Story of Lady Godiva. For years, rumours had swirled before each city procession that its Godiva would really appear nude.

In the famous 1897 painting of Lady Godiva that hangs in Coventry, what is the only thing she is wearing?

A wedding ring on her left hand, the one holding the reins, is her sole accessory. The model was Mab Paul, a West End actress whom the artist also painted as herself.

Lady Godiva was the name of an unshielded pulsed nuclear reactor at which American weapons laboratory?

Los Alamos used the bare uranium assembly to fire bursts of neutrons at test samples. Accidents in 1954 and 1957 damaged it beyond repair, and Godiva II took over.

The theme song of which 1970s Bea Arthur sitcom salutes Lady Godiva alongside Betsy Ross and Isadora Duncan?

Maude, a spin-off of All in the Family, starred Arthur as an outspoken liberal in suburban New York. Its theme, sung by Donny Hathaway, sets her in a line of history-making women.

Who, later the last woman to be hanged in Britain, plays an uncredited beauty queen in Lady Godiva Rides Again?

Ruth Ellis was pregnant during the 1951 shoot. Diana Dors, also in the cast, later played a condemned woman in the 1956 film Yield to the Night, which was not based on the Ellis case.

In the picture book The Seven Lady Godivas, the sisters' father is killed by his horse while leaving for which battle?

Hastings is where Lord Godiva was headed in 1066 when his horse flung him off inside the castle walls. His seven daughters then vow not to marry until each has learned a truth about horses.

Which British pop duo took the novelty single Lady Godiva to number six on the American chart in 1966?

Peter and Gordon sold over a million copies of it, though Peter Asher had not wanted to record the song at all. It was first released earlier that year by Paul Jones.

Which band recorded Lady Godiva's Operation for the 1968 album White Light/White Heat, with Lou Reed sharing vocals?

The Velvet Underground gave the first half of the song to the lady of legend and the second to a botched operation. Guitarist Sterling Morrison played bass on it, an instrument he disliked.

Lady Godiva is a mascot for students of which profession, who toast her in a drinking song called Godiva's Hymn?

Engineering schools across North America adopted her, and the song is sung at MIT among others. In Toronto, a student band named in her memory spells itself Bnad on purpose.

Which outlaw hero of the resistance to William the Conqueror has been claimed, without evidence, as Lady Godiva's son?

Hereward the Wake held out against the Normans from the Isle of Ely. The earliest account of his life names quite different parents, and nothing ties him to the earl's family.

Which English artist painted Lady Godiva in 1897 as a young woman on a white horse, a canvas now in Coventry?

John Collier's picture was left in a will to Hampstead, with Coventry named as second choice in case of refusal. It now hangs in the city's Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.

Which monk of St Albans, who died in 1236, wrote down the earliest surviving version of Lady Godiva's ride?

Roger of Wendover told it in his chronicle Flores Historiarum, well over a century after she died. In his version she crosses a crowded market escorted by two knights.

The wooden effigy long shown in Coventry as the man who spied on Lady Godiva was probably carved as which holy figure?

St George fits because the figure is a man in armour, not a townsman. It looked out from a hotel on Hertford Street from 1812 until the Second World War.

Which composer of Cavalleria rusticana retold the Lady Godiva legend in his 1911 opera Isabeau?

Pietro Mascagni conducted the premiere himself in Buenos Aires. In the opera a princess is forced to ride naked by her father the king, and the falconer who sees her is killed by a mob.

Coventry Godiva Harriers, a club founded in 1879 and named after Lady Godiva, compete in which sport?

Athletics is the club's sport, and harriers is an old name for cross-country runners. It sent three marathon men to the Olympics in the 1960s, Basil Heatley among them.

One theory holds that Lady Godiva really rode through Coventry as a penitent, dressed only in what?

A plain shift, a sleeveless white slip, counted as underwear in her day. A noblewoman seen in public like that, barefoot and without her jewels, may have grown into the tale of a naked ride.