This was originally a strong British town, which maintained its independence till the year 571, when it was reduced by the West Saxons. In the year 600, it became famous as the burial place of St. Osyth, who was born at Quarrendon, two miles distance, and beheaded in Essex by the Pagans. Her relics were interred in this church, and are said to have performed many miracles; a religious house was founded in honour of William the Conqueror, who parcelled it out under the singular tenure:--that the tenants should find litter or straw for the king's bedchamber three times a year, if he came that way so often, and provide him with three eels in winter, and three green geese in summer. In the reign of Henry VIII., the manor was sold by Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wilts, father of Queen Anne Boleyn, to Sir John Baldwin, whose daughter took it in marriage to Robert Pakington, who was murdered in the year 1537, on account of his zeal for the reformed religion. It continued in this family till the year 1801, when it was sold by Sir John Pakington, Bart., to the Marquis of Buckingham. How completely the manor and the town itself were in the possession of the Pakington family, will appear from the following remarkable letter preserved in the Chapel of the Rolls, among the returns of Parliament writs of the fourteenth of Queen Elizabeth:--"To all Christian people, to whom this present writing shall come: I, Dorothy Pakington, late wife of Sir John Pakington, lord and owner of the town of Aylesbury, send greeting. Know ye me, the said Dorothy Pakington, to have chosen, named, and appointed my trusty and well-beloved Thomas Litchfield, and George Burden, Esqrs., to be my burgesses of my said town of Aylesbury; and whatever the said Thomas and George, burgesses, shall do in the service of the Queen's Highness in the Parliament to be holden at Westminster on the 8th of May next ensuing the date hereof, I the same Dorothy Pakington do ratify and approve to be of my own act as fully and wholly as if I were witness or present there. In witness whereof, to these presents, I have set my seal, this 4th day of May, in the 14th year of the reign of my Sovereign Lady Elizabeth, by the grace of God, of England, France, and Ireland, Queen, &c." Aylesbury was made a borough town by a charter of Queen Mary, in 1554. The Reform Bill has made no alteration in the number of members. The electors are those of the old constituency, consisting of freeholders of the hundred, and house-keepers not receiving alms; the freeholders of the hundred are estimated at 838; and the ten pound householders at 314; total 1152. The limits of the borough are unaltered, and the returning officers are the constables of the borough. The town is also one of the polling places for this county, which now returns three members. The county gaol is still at Aylesbury, but the Summer Assizes were restored to Buckingham, through the exertions of Lord Cobham and the Grenville family in the year 1758. The only