were lighted, 'Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!' His words have indeed come true; and we should all gratefully recollect those holy martyrs who died for our English Bible, though now three hundred years ago. A beautiful memorial has been erected to the memory of Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer, close to Baliol College, Oxford, in grateful commemoration.

'The night was full of terror, But the morn is full of gladness; When the cross becomes our harbour,

And we triumph after sadness.'

CHAPTER IV.

CORFE CASTLE,

AND THE STORY OF ITS DEFENCE BY LADY BANKES.

HIS ancient fortress is in Dorsetshire, on the island of Purbeck, a small penin

sula in the British Channel.

There is a town also of the same name, which boasts of a market, and which is situated on a river between two hills. On one of those hills stands the castle, built, it is believed, by King Alfred in the ninth century, to secure that part of the coast from Danish invaders, after he had suffered from one of their numerous irruptions, which, though repulsed successfully by him and his army at Peveril Point, showed him the necessity of fortifying himself in case of the return of such troublesome foes.

The island of Purbeck, in our own more peaceful century, boasts of fine stone quarries, chiefly in its

eastern extremity, near Swanage, whence the stone is sent to all parts of England; the finer kind, a sort of marble, being used for chimney-pieces, hearths, and such purposes, and the coarser sorts for paving streets.

It is a rough and healthy tract, eighteen miles from Dorchester, and a hundred and sixteen from London.

That beautiful Wedgwood cup near you, on that marble slab, may probably have been moulded out of the clay that is dug up in several parts of the island of Purbeck; and I believe the finest kind is got near Corfe Castle. It is peculiarly valuable in the Staffordshire potteries, from its extreme whiteness when burned; and it is the basis of that beautiful cream-coloured biscuit-ware that is so much sought after.

This evening I shall endeavour to interest you in the history of Corfe Castle, and then in its defence by Lady Bankes, in the reign of Charles the First.

It was built, so it is said, by King Alfred, whom, as you well know, first taught the English the art of constructing their dwellings of

brick and stone, though it was not till several centuries later that that custom became a general

one.

Up to Alfred's reign, the houses of the English nobility were built only of timber. Though the wisest of our Saxon kings had introduced the use of stone and brick, as more suitable for dwellingplaces than perishable wood, it was not till the following century that native artisans became at all conversant with building with those materials.

The Romans had, long before Alfred's time, found out that the English made good builders. They had them taught by foreign workmen; and in King Edgar's reign, they were universally acknowledged to be good masons. This monarch added to Corfe Castle, and, aided by Italian workmen, embellished the edifice in a manner peculiar to that period, and traces of which still remain.

When I use the word 'embellish,' do not imagine that the castle in those days would have come up to our modern ideas of magnificence.

Probably, in an age before glass was invented or known, the windows were either covered with cloth

to keep out the wind, or else with lattice-work, which is thus described by an old English historian :—' Of old time, our country houses instead of glasse did use much lattise, and that made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak in checkerwise. I read also that some of the better sort, in and before the time of the Saxons, did make panels of horne instead of glasse, and fix them in wooden calures (casements).'

Edgar, surnamed the Peaceable, after a reign of seventeen years free from wars and tumults, died in the year 975, leaving Corfe Castle as a dowry house to his widow, the wicked Queen Elfrida, and it was at Corfe Castle that she committed the crime of murdering her stepson, Edward the Martyr.

She was ambitious of placing her younger son on the throne; but St. Dunstan had placed the

Edward had reigned four

crown on Edward's head. years, greatly beloved by his subjects, when, in 978, whilst hunting near the castle, he met with his death at the gate of the fortress so much embellished by his father's magnificence. It was in March, and his attendants having lost him in the woods, he found himself alone. The young king, recollecting