Christopher Hatton, by which the inhabitants were invested with the same
liberties as those of the Cinque Ports; besides being favoured with
various other privileges. This charter was afterwards confirmed by James
the First and Charles the Second. The government of the town is vested in
a mayor and eight barons--the barons are those who have borne the office
of mayor. The first return to, parliament was made in the 14th of
Elizabeth. The right of election is possessed by all persons within the
borough who are "seized in fee, in possession, or reversion, of any
messuage, or tenement, or corporal hereditament; and in such as are
tenants for life, or lives; and in want of such freehold, in tenants for
years, determinable on any life, or lives, paying scot and lot."[1] The
number of voters is between forty and fifty.

[1] Hutchins's Dorset, vol. i, p. 279, 2nd edit.

Corfe Castle "stands a little north of the town, opposite to the church,
on a very steep rocky hill, mingled with hard rubble chalk stone, in the
opening of those ranges of hills that inclose the east part of the Isle.
Its situation between the ends of those hills deprives it much of its
natural and artificial strength, being so commanded by them, that they
overlook the tops of the highest towers; yet its structure is so strong,
the ascent of the hill on all sides but the south so steep, and the walls
so massy and thick, that it must have been one of the most impregnable
fortresses in the kingdom before the invention of artillery. It was of
great importance in respect to its command over the whole Isle: whence,
our Saxon ancestors justly styled it Corf Gate, as being the pass and
avenue into the best part of the Isle."

The Castle is separated from the town by a strong bridge of four very
high, narrow, semi-circular arches, crossing a moat of considerable depth,