The famous Lady Godiva who rode nude on her horse through Coventry (www site: Directory of royal genealogical data).
Godiva, Lady (1040?-1080?), Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, known to have persuaded her husband to found monasteries at Coventry and Stow. According to legend, she obtained a reduction in the excessive taxes levied by her husband on the people of Coventry by consenting to ride naked through the town on a white horse. Only one person disobeyed her orders to remain indoors behind closed shutters; this man, a tailor known afterward as Peeping Tom, peered through a window and immediately became blind. The oldest form of the 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.
("Godiva, Lady," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved).