Situated halfway between Wareham and Swanage, and easily reached from either place, are the ruins of Corfe Castle, all that is left of what was, until the building was demolished by order of the Parliament, one of the most powerful fortresses ever erected in Europe. Tradition associates Corfe Castle, or Corfe, with the murder of "Saynt Edward Kyng and Martyr"; but certain modern antiquaries are rather suspicious of the story, and it is very doubtful if any portion of the existing masonry is of an earlier date than the Conquest, although it is quite possible that so favourable a site would be chosen for its natural defensive properties long before the advent of the Normans. The _Saxon Chronicle_, recording the murder of Edward, does not mention a castle, but says the foul deed was done "at Corfes Geät", where stood the _domus Elfridæ_. It has not inaptly been termed the "Royal Prison of Purbeck", and the many famous personages incarcerated here include some French nobles whom King John starved to death early in the thirteenth century. Here also the same monarch imprisoned his niece Eleanor, together with two daughters of the Scottish King, William, sent as hostages. Edward II was confined here by Queen Isabella and her paramour, Roger Mortimer. After being held by various nobles, including George, Duke of Clarence, of Malmsey-wine celebrity, the castle was bought by Sir Christopher Hatton from Queen Elizabeth, and was eventually purchased by Sir John Bankes, to whose descendants it still belongs. On Sir John's joining Charles I at York, in 1642, Lady Bankes held Corfe for the King, and so successful was her heroic defence, that it was only through the treachery of Colonel Pitman, one of the garrison, that she was forced to capitulate in 1645, when the brave defenders were allowed to march out, bearing their arms and with their colours flying. The estates of this "Brave Dame Mary" escaped confiscation, but she was mulcted in heavy fines, while the fortress she had so gallantly held against overwhelming odds was reduced to a mass of picturesque ruins, where wall-flowers grow in the crannies, sweetbrier twists around the base of a bastion, and ivy and honeysuckle crown a detached fragment of a ruined gateway. On every side great masses of broken masonry lie in heaps on the grass, or are seen suspended as if by magic in mid-air, a testimony to the destructive power of gun-powder and to the excellence of the mortar used by the Norman builders. The ancient name of the place was Corvsgate, from _Ceorfan_ to cut, and referred to the natural cutting that surrounds the hill on the summit of which this magnificent fortress was erected.