The larger towns, the city, and the two boroughs have Education Committees of their own; but for the rest of the county a Committee of this nature is appointed by the County Council.
Hertfordshire has four parliamentary divisions, namely, Hertford, Hitchin, St Albans, and Watford, each of which returns one member to the House of Commons. The county is thus represented only by four members, as against fifteen for Kent.
[21. The Roll of Honour of the County.]
Hertfordshire cannot hope to rival such counties as Norfolk or Kent in its roll of distinguished names, but it can show a fairly long list of persons connected with the county who have been famous.
Since reference has already been made in several of the foregoing sections to the visits of English sovereigns to the county, or to their residence within its borders, very brief mention of the connection between royalty and the county will suffice in this place. Neither here nor elsewhere in these pages is any attempt made to give a complete list of such visits.
The names of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, and of Offa, king of Mercia, who had his palace at Offley, dying there in 796, will always be specially connected with Hertfordshire. In a somewhat less degree the same may be said of William the Conqueror, to whom, as already mentioned, the crown of this realm was offered at Berkhampstead. Edward II and Edward III frequently resided at Langley Palace, where Edmund de Langley, the founder of the White Rose faction, was born in 1341; and the same residence was also used by Richard II. Henry I and his consort Matilda were present at the dedication of St Albans’ Abbey on its completion by Abbot Paul; and Henry VI was at the first battle of St Albans, where he was wounded. Henry VIII, as mentioned on page 82, was still more intimately connected with Hertfordshire, and the manor of Hitchin was conferred by him in turn on Anne Boleyn and her successors. Reference has already been made to the residence of Queen Mary, in her youth, at Ashridge, and of Queen Elizabeth (before her ascent to the throne) both there and at Hatfield; while, as sovereign, Elizabeth also visited St Albans on two or three occasions as the guest of Sir Nicholas Bacon at Gorhambury, and also went to other great houses in the county. James I, as mentioned on the same page, spent much time at Royston, and died at Theobalds. The Rye House plot, so called from the meeting-place of the conspirators at Broxbourne, as stated in an earlier section, was devised for the purpose of assassinating Charles II while on his way through the county.
In connection with personages of royal blood, mention may be made of Humphry, Duke of Gloucester, whose name is so intimately associated with St Albans’ Abbey, to the monastery of which he was admitted a member in 1423; and also of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who was born at Sandridge in the eighteenth century, and built and endowed the almshouses bearing her name in St Albans.
Among great statesmen connected with the county a prominent place must be assigned to Queen Elizabeth’s councillors and favourites, Lord Burleigh and the Earl of Essex. To her reign likewise belongs Sir Nicholas Bacon, Keeper of the Great Seal, and owner of Gorhambury, where he died in 1578. Nearly a century later (1652), Gorhambury came into the possession of Sir Harbottle Grimston, well known as Speaker of the House of Commons.
