ISLIP, a parish (formerly a market-town) in the hundred of PLOUGHLEY, county of OXFORD, 5 miles (N. by B.) from Oxford, containing 655 inhabitants. This place, now an insignificant village, is chiefly noted as the birthplace of Edward the Confessor, whose father, Ethelred II., had a palace here, of which Dr. Plot mentions some traces as existing in the latter part of the seventeenth century j and a building, supposed to have been the royal chapel, was then entire, and used as a barn, but has since been destroyed. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Oxford, rated in the king's books at £ 16. 13. 6., and in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. The church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, is a plain edifice, the chancel of which was rebuilt in 1618. Here is a school for educating, clothing, and supporting twenty-one poor boys, with a provision for apprenticing two of them annually, founded and endowed by the Rev. Dr. South, in 1712, with landed property vested in the minister and churchwardens, and subject to the visitation of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. Another charity school has been recently established, with a small endowment from a benefaction by William Auger, in 1668.