HURSLEY, a parish in the hundred of BUDDLESGATE, Fawley division of the county of SOUTHAMPTON, 4 miles (S. W. by W.) from Winchester, containing 1302 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, with the perpetual curacy of Otterbourne, in the peculiar jurisdiction of the incumbent, rated in the king's books at £9, and in the patronage of Sir W. Heathcote, Bart. The church is dedicated to All Saints. Hursley is within the jurisdiction of the Cheyney Court held at Winchester every Thursday, for the recovery of debts" to any amount. At Merdon, in this parish, are some remains of a palace of the bishops of Winchester, which was erected by Bishop De Blois, and became ruinous so long ago as the fourteenth century. It was at this place, called by the ancient, chroniclers Merantune, that Kynewulph, King of the West Saxons, was murdered by Kyenard, brother to Sigebert, whom he had succeeded on the throne, but who had afterwards been driven into exile. Merdon belonged to the Protector, Richard Cromwell, in right of his wife Dorothy, eldest daughter of Richard Maijor, Esq., of Hursley. In the old mansion at Hursley park Richard resided during a great part of the time that his father held the Protec-, torate; hither, also, he retired for a short period prior to the Restoration and to his voluntary exile on the continent: on his death, in 1712, he was interred in th parish church. In pulling down the ancient manorhouse, in the early part of the last century, to erect the present mansion, the identical seal that Oliver took from the parliament was discovered in one of the walls.