ST. ALBA^S 41 



round this iuteresting old town, the site of so many 

 events in our history. In the valley at the foot of the 

 Abbev orchard or ixrounds runs the little river Yer — now 

 but a trout steam, though it turns two or three valuable 

 silk and cotton mills ; but in the time of the Romans 

 navigable for their armed galleys and stately barges. 

 Crossing it by a plank you come to the walls of the 

 ancient Verulam, where the Roman brick is still visible, 

 and where all attempts to detach one whole have proved 

 futile. Here, too, did the masters of the world imder 

 Paulinus defeat and destroy the army under Boedicea, 

 and took ample vengeance for the massacre of their 

 countrymen. 



In the time of the heptarchy St. Albans became a con- 

 siderable town — that part of the community whom the 

 fury of the Saxons had s|)ared removing to a hill which 

 afterwards bore the same name — the Abbey being 

 founded and built there by Offa, King of Mercia, in the 

 ninth century — though the British proto-martyr, to 

 whom it was dedicated, was beheaded on the sj^ot some 

 600 years before. 



The court was frequently held here in the time of the 

 Plantagenets, and sometimes the ^^arliament of those days 

 sat here — the family residence of the mitred abbot, the 

 monastery, and the neighbouring nunnery of Sopwell, 

 affording amj^le accommodation. One of the most en- 

 lightened of our Princes, Hum^^hrey, Duke of Glo'ster, 

 who was much in advance of his age, was interred here, 

 having, it is supposed, been foully murdered at the insti- 

 gation of his uncle, the Cardinal Bishop of AYinchester. 

 Two battles were fought here in the "Wars of the Roses, in 



