CHAPTER X 
ISLIP. 
I SLIP, which was regarded by the family as their country 
home, lies on the high road between Worcester and 
London, seven miles from Oxford. Situated on what was 
formerly a great thoroughfare, it was once an active, 
bustling village, and is a place full of historical remini¬ 
scences. The first and most interesting of its associations 
with history is that it was the birthplace of Edward the 
Confessor, who endowed his newly founded Abbey at 
Westminster with his mother’s birthday gift. Mr. Parker, 
in his “ Early History of Oxford,” says :— 
“ Eadward c the Confessor,’ elected King, was probably 
in Normandy at the time, and the preparations were such 
that he was not crowned till Easter in 1043, an d then at 
Winchester. No traces in any charter or in any of the 
historians occur of his visiting Oxford. Yet one might 
have expected it, for it is but a few miles across the 
meadows on the north of Oxford to the place where he 
was born. This fact we do not obtain from any chronicler, 
but from the chance mention of it in a charter respecting 
a grant of land to this newly founded, or rather restored, 
abbey in Westminster. It runs as follows :— 
Eadward, King, greets Wlsy, Bishop, and Gyrth, Earl, 
and all my thanes in Oxnefordesyre kindly. And I would 
255 
