a municipal and parliamentary borough and market-town of England, in the county of Suffolk, on the Lark, 23 miles N.W. of Ipswich, and 71 miles from London. It is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors, and returns two members to parliament. Pop. (1851) 15,900. Registered electors (1851-52) 741. The town is pleasantly situated on a gentle eminence, in a fertile and richly cultivated district, and is clean and well built. It is supposed to be the Villa Fasestina of the Romans, and numerous Roman remains have been dug up here. It was the Beodericsworth of the Saxons, and by them made a royal town of East Anglia. Its present name is derived from St Edmund, the king and martyr who was taken prisoner and put to death by the Danes in 780. In 1010 a monastery was founded there by Canute, which for magnificence and splendour surpassed every other establishment of the kind in Britain, with the exception of that of Glastonbury. It was 505 feet long and 212 wide, and contained 12 chapels. The abbot had a seat in parliament, with the power to inflict capital punishment, and judge in all civil causes within the liberty. The privilege of coining was granted to the abbot by Edward the Confessor, and both Edward I. and Edward II. had mints here. The "church" gate, one of the finest specimens of Saxon architecture in the kingdom, and the western gate, erected about the middle of the fourteenth century, with a small portion of the walls, are all that now remain of that magnificent structure. St Mary's church, a fine Gothic edifice, with a beautifully carved roof, was erected in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, and contains the tomb of Mary Tudor, Queen of France. St James's church is also a very fine building, containing several handsome monuments. The free grammar-school, founded by Edward VI., has two scholarships at Cambridge, and six exhibitions to either university. It has a shire-hall where assizes for the county and liberty are held, a guildhall, public library, news and assembly rooms, mechanics' institute, theatre, savings-bank, botanic gardens, county jail, bridewell, a general hospital, and about 100 almshouses. Market-days Wednesday and Saturday. About a mile below the town the river becomes navigable for barges to Lynn, whence coals and other commodities are brought. In the vicinity is Ickworth, the magnificent seat of the Marquis of Bristol. Sir Nicholas Bacon and Bishop Gardner were born here. It gives the title of Viscount to the Keppel family.