Hertfordshire

by Richard Lydekker

To the two British tribes who inhabited this part of England previous to the Roman invasion, reference has been made in an earlier section. The first landing of Julius Caesar took place (in Kent) in 55 B.C., and the second and more successful in 54 B.C.; while a third Roman invasion took place under Claudius in 43 A.D., from which date the Roman legions held possession of the whole country till about the year 410 A.D. Whether Caesar himself ever visited Verulam does not appear to be definitely ascertained, but it was early in the history of that great city that the encounter between the British Queen Boadicea and the Romans took place. During the Roman period Hertfordshire, which then appears to have been a well-populated and wealthy district, formed a part of the province of Flavia Caesariensis.

The Monastery Gateway, St Albans

The next great event was the Saxon Conquest, which in Kent was ushered in by the landing of a force in the year 449 A.D. During this part of its history the western, or larger portion of our county was included, as already mentioned, in the kingdom of Mercia, while the eastern and smaller section belonged to that of Essex. Of the numerous Mercian kings, the most renowned and most powerful was Offa, whose name survives in Offley, where he had a palace, and where he died about the year 796, while still engaged in building the Monastery and Abbey of St Alban. Mercia at this time made a bid for the supremacy of the petty kingdoms of this part of England, but was eventually beaten by Wessex under the able rule of Egbert.

It was in the reign of the last-mentioned sovereign that invaders of another nationality—namely the Danes—began to make their presence seriously felt in the south; but it was not till the time of his son and successor Aethelwulf that they landed on the east coast. Early in his reign a council of Mercians and West Saxons was held at Kingsbury, near St Albans, to devise means for repelling the invaders; while a second assembly was called for the same purpose at Bennington in the year 850. Neither seems to have resulted in effectual measures, for in 851 we find a large Danish fleet which had sailed up the Thames beating off one of the Saxon kings, who had marched to stop its progress; and after this event the county was harried and raided time after time, till it was eventually divided about the year 880 by a treaty executed at Wedmore between the Saxon sovereign Alfred and Guthrum the Dane by a boundary line running from the mouth of the Lea to its source, and thence straight across country to Bedford. A few years later, however, namely in 894, the Danish fleet sailed up the Lea to Hertford, where Alfred crippled it by cutting into the banks of the river, so that by loss of water the vessels became stranded, and the Danish force had to fight its way to the west of England. After numerous skirmishes and fights, and the building of forts at Hertford and on a small island near Bishop’s Stortford, the Danish invasion was practically crushed by King Edward, who died in 925. Much, however, still remained to be done by his son Aethelstan, who stoutly attacked the invaders after they had made a raid on St Albans in 930. A memorial of the Danish sojourn still exists in Dacorum, the name of the western hundred in which Tring is situated; there is also evidence to the same effect in the records of gifts to St Albans Abbey by Danes who had settled in the neighbourhood. The Mercian shire-system, which was probably instituted as an aid against the Danes, is known to have come into force by 957; but in place of Hertfordshire having a sheriff of its own, it shared one with Essex; an arrangement which remained in force till the reign of Elizabeth. This was in Edgar’s reign (957–975); but even then we do not reach the end of the Danish trouble, which did not cease till after Sweyn’s invasions between the years 1011 and 1014, which were worse than their predecessors, and included the pillage of Canterbury. About this time occurs the first mention of “Heorotford” as the name of the county.

Scarcely had the country recovered, in greater or less degree, from the Danish raids than it was conquered by the Normans under William I, who soon after the battle of Hastings marched through the country south of the Thames till he reached Berkhampstead in this county, where he built the castle whose foundations and earthworks remain to this day. By relentless severity against all who stood in his way on the march, William had succeeded in instilling a wholesome fear into the Saxon (or, as we now say, English) inhabitants of the country; and, although he is reported to have been successfully opposed by Frederic, Abbot of St Albans, he was finally tendered the submission of the people and the English crown at Berkhampstead.

To follow in detail the events of the troublous times which succeeded the conquest is here impossible; and it must suffice to state that at Christmas, 1116, Henry I paid a visit to St Albans for the purpose apparently of quelling trouble among the turbulent Norman barons who had now become the paramount lords. Stephen also held a court at St Albans in 1143 in connection with other troubles. With the bare mention that several Hertfordshire barons accompanied Richard I in his crusade to the Holy Land, we may pass on to the quarrel between King John and his barons, which has a very intimate connection with our county; among the opposing noblemen being Robert Fitzwalter, their leader, and the Earls of Essex and of Hertford. The barons advanced from Northampton to Bedford, while the main body of their army marched to Ware and thence to London. The signing of Magna Charta produced temporary peace; but this was soon succeeded by fiercer fighting than ever in this county. At the commencement of 1215 John himself was in St Albans, and also had possession of Hertford and Berkhampstead castles. In May of the same year Louis landed from France, and in due course besieged Hertford and Berkhampstead till they surrendered, and then proceeded to St Albans, where he was for some time defied by the abbot. At the departure of Louis the castles were restored to the king.

The next event is the looting of St Albans by Fulke de Breauté and his band in 1217.

The trouble with the barons continued into the reign of Henry III; and in the year 1261 the autumn parliament was held at St Albans. Up to 1295 the shires alone sent representatives to parliament but in the session held at St Albans in that year the cities, boroughs, and chief towns were each permitted to elect two parliamentary burgesses. During the reign of Edward II the county was considerably involved in the affairs of Sir Piers de Gaveston, who spent much of his time at King’s Langley, where Edward had a palace, and where Gaveston was buried after his execution in 1312. During that year the papal envoy met the barons at St Albans with a view to the settlement of their differences with the king; and in July, 1321, the barons marched through that city on their way to London. During the fourteenth century the county suffered severely from plague; but in spite of this Edward III spent much time at Langley; and in 1361 the king and queen came to Berkhampstead to take leave of the Black Prince (to whom the castle had been given) previous to his departure for Aquitaine.

In 1381, owing to exactions on the part of the king and the abbot of St Albans, there broke out the peasants’ revolt, in which Hertfordshire men took a large share. Indeed after the execution of Wat Tyler the king proposed to go himself to St Albans to punish the insurgents, but was persuaded to send a commission in his stead; although a short time later, after another riot, his majesty appeared in person in that city at the head of an armed force.