A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



amount of trade was beginning to creep along the great roads and along 

 the rivers again, and the ancient commercial privileges of the borough 

 were worth reviving. 



Hertford had possessed the monopoly of the passage of the Lea from Ware 

 to Hatfield,' and had also certain rights of passage at St. Albans and at Barnet. 

 These last are hard to understand and probably refer back to a date when 

 Hertford as the administrative and military centre of the county was the only 

 town in which trade was permitted."* But at Hatfield and Thele the burghal 

 privilege probably amounted to a literal locking up of the ford, so that all 

 traffic should pass through Hertford. At Ware the bridge end was barred, 

 unless the king's bailiff came to unfasten the padlock." Thus Hertford had 

 a highly artificial monopoly of the passage of the Lea, and the king received 

 large sums taken as tolls. 



It is unknown when this monopoly was broken down at Hatfield and 

 Thele, but in 1247 the men of Ware were accused by the burgesses of Hertford 

 of passing freely with carts and on foot as well over the bridge of Ware as 

 through the ford ; and the beginning of the abuse was referred to the end of 

 the civil war in 12 16-17." But as late as the early years of Edward I the 

 bailiff of Hertford was still taking toll of goods passing over the bridge 

 at Thele." 



The natural position of Ware, on the line from Royston to London, is 

 better for trading purposes than that of Hertford, and the royal borough 

 seems in the end to have lost its control over its neighbour.'* As early as 

 1247 ^he men of Ware began to forestall the market at Hertford by 

 holding unlawful markets on the same days (Wednesday and Saturday), as 

 well as their legitimate one on Tuesdays." Not content with this encroach- 

 ment on the rights of Hertford, in 1275 they made weirs in the Lea, so that 

 ships could not come to the borough, and at the same time diverted the king's 

 highway which used to go from Ware to Hertford.'" 



Ware, which showed such vitality after the reign of John and the 

 eclipse of Hertford, had received even earlier an impulse towards burghal 

 organization from the 12th-century charter" of Robert Earl of Leicester. 

 Other Hertfordshire mesne boroughs date from the same period or a little 

 later. Stortford was from its position bound to become a trading centre, 

 and its privileges were fostered by the Bishop of London. Baldock, a borough 

 of the Templars, dates from the last years of the 12th century. Standon, 

 Hemel Hempstead and Sawbridgeworth may have acquired the burghal 

 status with their markets. Watford is designated a borough even in the 

 Quindecima Roll'* of 19 Edward I, and its trade was probably of long 

 standing, since it lay on the water-way from Staines to St. Albans where the 

 road from Aylesbury and the Midlands crosses the Colne. 



Hitchin was originally a manor of the ancient demesne, but in 1268, 

 besides other rents, there was due to the lord 8^ marks ' of the farm of the 

 borough.' " The borough had evidently an element of agricultural service, 



' Assize R. 2 1 8, m. 6 d. ; Pipe R. 2 5 Edw. I, m. 2 3 ; see under Hertford Borough. 

 10 See account of Hertford, F.C.H. Herts, iii, 490-51 1. n Assize R. 318, m. 6 d. 12 Ibid. 



" Ibid. 328, m. 13. " See under Hertford Borough. '' Assize R 218 m 6d 



" Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 1943. i' Ca/. Pat. 1446-52, p. 51. ' ' ' * 



1' Lay Subs. R. bdle. 120, no. 2. >' Chan. Inq. p.m. 53 Hen. Ill, no. 43. 



