he Danes. He was a
prince famed for piety and religion, and, according to the zeal of these
times, was esteemed as a martyr, because, venturing his life against the
Danes, who were heathens, he died fighting for his religion and his
country. The inscription upon his grave is preserved, and has been
carefully repaired, so as to be easily read, and is as follows:--

"In hoc loco quiescit Corpus S. Etheldredi, Regis West Saxonum,
Martyris, qui Anno Dom. DCCCLXXII., xxiii Aprilis, per Manos Danorum
Paganorum Occubuit."

In English thus:--

"Here rests the Body of Holy Etheldred, King of the West Saxons, and
Martyr, who fell by the Hands of the Pagan Danes in the Year of our
Lord 872, the 23rd of April."

Here are also the monuments of the great Marchioness of Exeter, mother of
Edward Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, and last of the family of Courtneys
who enjoyed that honour; as also of John de Beaufort, Duke of Somerset,
and his wife, grandmother of King Henry VII., by her daughter Margaret,
Countess of Richmond.

This last lady I mention because she was foundress of a very fine free
school, which has since been enlarged and had a new benefactress in Queen
Elizabeth, who has enlarged the stipend and annexed it to the foundation.
The famous Cardinal Pole was Dean of this church before his exaltation.

Having said this of the church, I have said all that is worth naming of
the town; except that the inhabitants, who are many and poor, are chiefly
maintained by the manufacture of knitting stockings, which employs great
part indeed of the county of Dorset, of which this is the first town
eastward.

South of this town, over a sandy, wild, and barren country, we came to
Poole, a considerable seaport, and indeed the most considerable in all
this part of England; for here I found some ships, some merchants, and
some trade; especially, here were a good number of ships fitted out every
year to the Newfoundland fishing, in which the Poole men were said to
have been particularly successful for many years past.

The town sits in the bottom of a great bay or inlet of the sea, which,
entering at one narrow mouth, opens to a very great breadth within the
entrance, and comes up to the very shore of this town; it runs also west
up almost to the town of Wareham, a little below which it receives the
rivers Frome and Piddle, the two principal rivers of the county.

This place is famous for the best and biggest oysters