before an important general election? It has been the scene of
battles. Not far off is Battle Edge, where the fierce kings of Wessex
and Mercia fought in 720 A.D. on Midsummer Eve, in commemoration of
which the good folks of Burford used to carry a dragon up and down the
streets, the great dragon of Wessex. Perhaps the origin of this
procession dates back to early pagan days before the battle was
fought, but tradition connects it with the fight. Memories cluster
thickly around one as you walk up the old street. It was the first
place in England to receive the privilege of a Merchant Guild. The
gaunt Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, owned the place, and
appropriated to himself the credit of erecting the almshouses, though
Henry Bird gave the money. You can still see the Earl's signature at
the foot of the document relating to this foundation--R.
Warrewych--the only signature known save one at Belvoir. You can see
the ruined Burford Priory. It is not the conventual building wherein
the monks lived in pre-Reformation days and served God in the grand
old church that is Burford's chief glory. Edmund Harman, the royal
barber-surgeon, received a grant of the Priory from Henry VIII for
curing him from a severe illness. Then Sir Laurence Tanfield, Chief
Baron of the Exchequer, owned it, who married a Burford lady,
Elizabeth Cobbe. An aged correspondent tells me that in the days of
her youth there was standing a house called Cobb Hall, evidently the
former residence of Lady Tanfield's family. He built a grand
Elizabethan mansion on the site of the old Priory, and here was born
Lucius Gary, Lord Falkland, who was slain in Newbury fight. That Civil
War brought stirring times to Burford. You have heard of the fame of
the Levellers, the discontented mutineers in Cromwell's army, the
followers of John Lilburne, who for a brief space threatened the
existence of the Parliamentary regime. Cromwell dealt with them with
an iron hand. He caught and surprised them at Burford and imprisoned