entrance to the belted knight is now succeeded by a lank cobbler, who
watches for lounging strangers, and acts as "_Cicerone_," blending the
most absurd and ridiculous stories in order to eke another sixpence from
the purse of his auditor, and to add greater importance to himself; but he
had a most amusing method of answering any startling questions as to date,
by significantly observing in the purest Dorset dialect, "Why Lord love
ye, zur, it wur avore the memory of ony maun in the parish!"

Apropos to dates, the earliest mention of Corfe is A.D. 978, when the
Saxon annals narrate the murder of Edward, King of the West Saxons,
committed here by his mother-in-law, Elfrida.

It was in the gloomy dungeons of this castle that King John starved to
death twenty-two prisoners of war, many of whom were among the first
nobility of Poictu, victims to the cruelty of a barbarous sceptered
tyrant! Then again, we thought of the fate of Peter of Pontefract, the
imprudent prophet, who, if he had turned over a page in the book of fate,
should have folded down the leaf instead of incurring the monarch's
vengeance by meddling with state affairs.

It was in this fortress that the unfortunate Edward II. was murdered in
1372, by his cruel keepers, Sir John Maltravers, and Sir Thomas Gurney,
who having removed the dethroned monarch from castle to castle, subjecting
him to every hardship and indignity, hoping that ill-treatment might
shorten his days. At last they determined amidst the profound security
afforded by this impregnable castle, to effect his death in the most
horrible manner, in order to prevent marks of violence being seen on his
corpse, namely, by inserting a horn tube into his body, through which was
conveyed a red-hot iron! Well may the traveller shudder at these ruins as
they beetle over him in frowning ruggedness, for they have been the