(_To the Editor._)
I should be glad to be informed by your correspondent, _James Silvester,
Sen._, on what authority he grounds his assertion (contained in No. 484.)
that it was in the fortress of _Corfe Castle_ that the unfortunate Edward
II. was so inhumanly murdered. I have always, considered it an undisputed
fact that the scene of this atrocity was at Berkeley Castle, in
Gloucestershire. Hume states, that while in the custody of Lord Berkeley,
the murderers, Mautravers and Gournay, "taking advantage of Berkeley's
sickness, _in whose custody he then was, came to Berkeley Castle_, threw
him on a bed," &c. &c. giving the particulars of the cruel deed. An
abridged history, the only other authority I have at hand to refer to,
says, "After these transactions, he was treated with the greatest
indignities, and at last inhumanly murdered _in Berkeley Castle_, and his
body buried in a private manner in the Abbey Church, at Gloucester." The
lines of Gray, in his celebrated poem of "_The Bard_," are familiar to
most school-boys, where he alludes to the cries of the suffering monarch
"Through _Berkeley's roofs_ that ring
Shrieks of an agonized king!"
Yet as your correspondent, _J.S._ seems of the intelligent kind, he may be
in possession of some authority to which he can refer, and thereby prove
it is not merely an assertion inadvertently given, to increase the
interest of his _Visit to Corfe Castle_. Knowing your wish that the pages
of your entertaining _Mirror_ should reflect the truth, the insertion of
this will oblige your Constant Reader,