arish!"

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
murderers' den; and doubtless many a deed of slaughter has been committed
in them, which has never come to light, under tyrannical power, which has
never come to the knowledge of men or blotted the page of history.

The vast masses of the castle ruins which lie scattered about and in the
vale below, form a scene of havoc and devastation, at once magnificent and
impressive. The towers were blasted with gunpowder, and many

"Which do slope
Their heads to their foundations,"

appear as if they were yet staggering from the blast of the mine which
sprung them from their beds; they lean as if ready to tumble down the
steep sides of the hill, and appear as if a child's finger would roll them
headlong. The ruins are in the possession of the family of Bankes.

In a meadow in the vale on the west side, which leads, by the by, to
Orchard Farm, is to be seen a curious earthwork, apparently ancient
British, which, from its structure, might have been a place of druidical
judicature, or for pastimes. This relic has, we believe, escaped the
notice of the intellige