50 BERB REGIS. 



" byr," the same as the Icelandic " boer," a farm, which still 

 survives in the " cow byres" of Scotland and the northern 

 counties of England, and I suppose connected with " borough," 

 " bury," and Danish " by." 



The last edition of Hutchins' Dorset derives it from a word 

 denoting low, scrubby wood, such as once covered the whole 

 district, and of which we have a remnant in that lovely bit of 

 wood and the old boundary oak by which your secretary proposes 

 to take you to his own parish of Bloxworth. I only wish that one 

 venerable member of this Field Club (Rev. W. Barnes) were pre- 

 sent to-day to support this view, which I believe is his. Eegis : 

 " Under what king V Bere is said to touch national history at three 

 periods Saxon, Norman, Tudor and in the touch we approach to 

 Royalty. True, our Royal connections are not very reputable, 

 but still it is not every parish that can boast a Royal connection. 

 The earliest recorded instance of Royal presence is when Elfrida, 

 the murderess of Edward the Martyr, fled from Corfe Gate, the 

 scene of the murder, to this Royal residence, where she could 

 remain in retirement and avoid suspicion. Here we may place the 

 scene of that beating of the young King, her ten year old boy, 

 Ethelred, with big wax candles, there being no stick at hand, 

 when the poor boy wept for the death of his brother who had 

 given him the throne. Wherefore, writes the chronicler, 

 " Ethelred ever hated wax candles, and would have none burnt 

 before him all the days of his life." 



Our next Royal resident is less mythical but scarcely less 

 repulsive ; no less than 15 visits are recorded of King John. 

 After having landed at Studland on the abandonment of the 

 proposed invasion of Normandy in 1205, he came on to Bere, 

 where, in a letter dated May 25th, in a very unusual fit of piety, 

 he ordered his bailiff to cause a fair crucifix to be set up " in our 

 chapel at Bere." The kitchen which he had erected for his 

 service at Bere in 1207 is perhaps more consistent with his 

 character, and still more the exaction of the thirteenth on all 

 movables, from laymen and clergymen alike, which was to be 



