ST. MICHAEL'S, VERULAM.
[A] This word means expiate.
HATFIELD HOUSE.
A short distance east of St. Albans is Hatfield, and in a fine park in the suburbs stands the magnificent mansion of the Marquis of Salisbury—Hatfield House. The place is ancient, though the house is completely modern. The manor was given by King Edgar to the monastery at Ely, and, as in course of time the abbot became a bishop, the manor afterwards became known as Bishops Hatfield, a name that it still bears. The oldest portion of the present buildings was erected in the reign of Henry VII., and in the time of his successor it passed into possession of the Crown. Here lived young Edward VI., and he was escorted by the Earl of Hertford and a cavalcade of noblemen from Hatfield to London for his coronation. The youthful king granted Hatfield to his sister Elizabeth, and here she was kept in Queen Mary's reign after her release from the Tower. She was under the guardianship of Sir Thomas Pope when, in November, 1558, Queen Mary died, and Sir William Cecil sent messengers from London to apprise Elizabeth that the crown awaited her. We are told that when they arrived the princess was found in the park, sitting under a spreading oak—a noble tree then, but time has since made sad havoc with it, though the remains are carefully preserved as one of the most precious memorials at Hatfield. The family of Cecil, thus introduced to Hatfield, was destined to continue associated with its fortunes. Sir William came to the manor on the next day, and then peers and courtiers of all ilks flocked thither to worship the rising sun. On the following day the queen gave her first reception in the hall and received the fealty of the leading men of every party; but she did not forget Cecil, for her earliest act was to appoint him her chief secretary, lord treasurer, and adviser—a tie that continued for forty years and was only sundered by death. Cecil was afterwards made Lord Burghley, and the confidence thus first reposed in him within the hall that was afterwards to become the home of his descendants was most remarkable. "No arts," writes Lord Macaulay, "could shake the confidence which she reposed in her old and trusty servant. The courtly graces of Leicester, the brilliant talents and accomplishments of Essex, touched the fancy, perhaps the heart, of the woman, but no rival could deprive the treasurer of the place which he possessed in the favor of the queen. She sometimes chid him sharply, but he was the man whom she delighted to honor. For Burghley she forgot her usual parsimony, both of wealth and dignities; for Burghley she relaxed that severe etiquette to which she was unreasonably attached. Every other person to whom she addressed her speech, or on whom the glance of her eagle eye fell, instantly sank on his knee. For Burghley alone a chair was set in her presence, and there the old minister, by birth only a plain Lincolnshire esquire, took his ease, while the haughty heirs of the Fitzalans and De Veres humbled themselves to the dust around him. At length, having survived all his early coadjutors and rivals, he died, full of years and honors."
HATFIELD HOUSE.
