IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF SAINT ALBAN 29 



when visiting St Albans with his friend Quin in 1765. Garrick, 

 it may be remarked, composed during his visit some facetious 

 lines anent the remains of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, whose 

 tomb at the Cathedral is the only royal monument it contains. 



The old Moot Hall is not far away, where, in 1581, the great 

 John Ball and other insurgents were tried before Chief-Justice 

 Tressilian. Henry VI. held a Council of War here upon the 

 opening day of the first battle of St Albans in 1455. Along 

 this thoroughfare William Bedhead did penance in 1427 as 

 punishment for promulgating the Lollard doctrine, and on our 

 left, a little farther up than the Moot Hall, is to be noted a fine 

 old Tudor dwelling with a wrought-iron balcony. In the reign 

 of Charles II. it was the residence of Lady Alicia Jennings, and 

 it was from this house that Queen Elizabeth was presented with- 

 an address of welcome, on her way to Gorhambury to visit Sir 

 Nicholas Bacon, father of the Philosopher. 



The Bull Ring, for bull-baiting, once occupied a site close by, 

 and the wide expanse of St Peter's Street, flanked with lime 

 trees on either side of the road, was, it is believed, a Roman 

 cursus, or racecourse, when Verulam flourished, and was also 

 the chief scene of the famous Wars of the Roses. 



As a boy I always used to very politely raise my hat to a dear 

 old lady, Miss Lydekker, who then lived at Hall Place, opposite 

 Pemberton's almshouses. The former has now been demolished. 

 It is stated that Henry VI. slept at Hall Place on the night of 

 the first battle on May 23, 1455. 



It is market day as I write, and the Market Place, and a part 

 of St Peter's Street, has still its complement of wooden stalls 

 with canvas awnings, a dying remnant of Old England. The 

 streets are crowded with pedestrians, the snorting motor-buses 

 are carrying living freights to and from the town, but few there 

 be who appear to have any interest in the historical associations 

 of the place. The Cathedral, of course, is the Mecca of many 

 visitors, and, in spite of its being rather out of the way, so is the 

 most excellent County Museum of natural and human exhibits ; 

 but, as I watch the devotee of the fragrant weed entering the 

 tobacconist's shop at the corner of Victoria Street, near the 

 very ugly Town Hall erected in 1829-30, I wonder whether he 

 realises that, in the first battle of St Albans, the Duke of Somerset 

 was slain upon the door-step of a previous building here known 

 as the Castle Inn ? It is said that Duke Somerset had been 

 warned by a wizard to " beware of a castle," and, in consequence, 



