It is unlike any other place, this quaint old Burford, a right pleasing place when the sun is pouring its beams upon the fantastic creations of the builders of long ago, and when the moon is full there is no place in England which surpasses it in picturesqueness.  It is very quiet and still now, but there was a time when Burford cloth, Burford wool, Burford stone, Burford malt, and Burford saddles were renowned throughout the land.  Did not the townsfolk present two of its famous saddles to “Dutch William” when he came to Burford with the view of ingratiating himself into the affections of his subjects 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 them in the church, wherein carved roughly on the font with a dagger you can see this touching memorial of one of these poor men:—­

   ANTHONY SEDLEY PRISNER 1649.

[Illustration:  Inscription on Font, Parish Church, Burford, Oxon]

Three of the leaders were shot in the churchyard on the following morning in view of the other prisoners, who were placed on the leaden roof of the church, and you can still see the bullet-holes in the old wall against which the unhappy men were placed.  The following entries in the books of the church tell the sad story tersely:—­