hat single loss, it
must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity." From the same
authority we learn that although he was ever anxious for peace, yet he
was the bravest of the brave. At the battle of Newbury he put himself in
the first rank of Lord Byron's regiment, when he met his end through a
musket shot. "Thus," says Clarendon, "fell that incomparable young man,
in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the
true business of life that the eldest rarely attain to that immense
knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more
innocency."

When it is remembered that Falkland was not a soldier at all, but a
learned scholar, whose natural proclivities were literature and the arts
of peace, his self-sacrifice and bravery cannot fail to call forth
admiration for the man, and we cannot but regret his untimely end.

King Charles was several times at Burford, for it was the scene of much
fighting in the Civil Wars.

It was in the year 1636 that Speaker Lenthall purchased Burford Priory.
He was a man of note in those troublous times, and even Cromwell seems
to have respected him; for, although the latter came down to the House
one day with a troop of musketeers, with the express intention of
turning the gallant Speaker out of his chair, and effected his object
amid the proverbial cries of "Make way for honester men!" yet we find
that within twelve months the crafty old gentleman had once more got
back again into the chair, and remained Speaker during the Protectorate
of Richard Cromwell. He declared on his deathbed that, although, like
Saul, he held the clothes of the murderers, yet that he never consented
to the death of the king, but was deceived by Cromwell and his agents.

The priory remained in the Lenthall family up to the year 1821. At the
present time it belongs to the Hurst family.

We have now briefly traced the history of the manor from the time of the
Conquest, and, doubtless, all the men whose names occur have spent a
good deal of time on this beautiful spot.

Alas that the garden should be but a wilderness! The carriage drive
consists of rich green turf. In a summer-house in the grounds John
Prior, Speaker Lenthall's faithful servant, was murdered in the year
1697. The Earl of Abercorn was accused of the murder, but was acquitted.

In addition to King Charles I., many other royal personages have visited
this place. Queen Elizabeth once visited the town, and cam