cester, induced Whethamsted to resign, and this he did, though contrary to the persuasions of all his monastic brethren.

The next Abbot was John Stoke, of whom little is recorded, but that he held the privileges of the Abbey with a feeble hand, and suffered its possessions to be wasted by the inferior inmates. In his time, the Duke of Glocester died, not without strong suspicions of violence, and was interred in the Abbey Church, in the vault where a few of his bones may yet be seen by the curious visitant. On the death of Stoke, in 1451, Whethamsted was again made Abbot, and continued to govern the Monastery with exemplary discretion till the year 1462, when he also experienced the common fate of all mankind. The period of his second rule was that eventful era, which of every other, perhaps, that occurred during the disastrous struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, was most deeply shaded with human blood. Two battles were fought in this town by the rival partizans, and both of them were extremely sanguinary.

The first battle of St. Alban's was fought on the twenty-third of May, 1455: the King himself, the meek-spirited Henry the Sixth, being present. This ill-fated Prince, who, from the recesses of his heart, could exclaim, that he had fallen upon evil days,' had set out from the Metropolis with about 2000 men, apparently with the design of impeding the progress of the Duke of York, who was marching from the north, accompanied by the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, and a body of about 3000 hardy soldiers. The Duke, who had not yet advanced his claim to the Throne, encamped on the east side of the town, in Key-field; while the King occupied the town itself, and fixed his standard at a spot called Goselow, in St. Peter's Street. The avowed purpose of the Yorkists, was to seize, and bring to trial, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who had been impeached of treason by the House of Commons, and committed to the Tower, but was afterwards

* Chauncy has erroneously assigned the date 1445, for the year in which this battle was fought; see Hist. of Herts, p. 446: he has also made various errors in the times of the accession, &c. of the Abbots.

afterwards released in despite of the impeachment, by the influence of the Queen, Margaret of Anjou.

When the King, as appears from Hollinshed, heard of the Duke's approach, he sent the Duke of Buckingham, with some other noblemen, to inquire the reason of his coming in that hostile manner. The Duke answered that, he and his army were the King's faithful liege subjects, and intended no harm to his Majesty; but only desired that he would deliver up the Duke of Somerset, who had lost Normandy, taken no care to preserve Gascoigne, and had brought the realm into its present miserable condition: they would then return to their countries, without trouble or breach of peace; otherwise they would rather die in the field, than suffer a continuance of this grievance.'

As the Duke of Somerset was then with the King, and was himself at the head of the Royal councils, this demand was not acceded to; and both parties prepared to try their strength in battle. The barriers of the town were well defended by the Royalists; and the assault made on the side next St. Peter's Street, by the Duke of York, proved unsuccessful; till the Earl of Warwick, with a chosen band, forced an entrance on the garden side, in Holywell Street; and, by the terror of his name, his soldiers shouting, A Warwick! a Warwick! and the vigor of his onset, obliged his opponents to give way. Thus aided, the Duke was enabled to overpower the force opposed to him at the barriers; and, after a short, but sanguinary, conflict in the streets of the town, the Royal army was defeated. The King himself, being entirely deserted, and wounded in the neck with an arrow, took refuge in a small house, or cottage, where he was afterwards discovered by the Duke of York, and by him conducted to the Abbey. The slain on the King's part amounted to about 800: among them were the Duke of Somerset, the Earls of Stafford and Northumberland, John Lord Clifford, Sir Robert Vere, Sir Bertin Entwysel, Sir William Chamberlain, Sir Richard Fortescue, and Sir Ralph Ferrers, Knts. besides many esquires and gentlemen. About 600 of the Yorkists were killed: not any person of distinction, however, is recorded to have fallen on this side. The bodies of

the

the slain were mostly interred at St. Peter's; but those of the principal nobles were, at the intercession of Whethampstead, received into the Abbey Church; and, after their obsequies had been solemnly performed, they were interred in the Chapel of the Virgin. That the King had not at first sought refuge in the Abbey, was considered as a fortunate occurrence, as in that case it was supposed it would have been plundered, as the town was, by the victorious party.

The second battle of St. Alban's was fought on Shrove Tuesday, the seventeenth of February, 1461. The Duke of York had been recently defeated and slain at Wakefield, in Yorkshire; but his claims to empire, which the Parliament had admitted, devolving on his son Edward, Earl of March, were now asserted with additional vehemence. The administration of government was still carried on in the name of Henry the Sixth; but as he was a mere instrument in the hands of the Yorkists, his high spirited Queen employed every means in her power to regain her lost authority, and to rescue her weak partner from bondage. Her success at the battle of Wakefield had inspired her with firm hopes of an eventual triumph; and she advanced towards the Metropolis, where the Earl of Warwick governed in the absence of the Earl of March, who was then recruiting his army in Wales. Warwick, having received intelligence of her advance, quitted London with a strong force, carrying the King with him. On arriving at St. Alban's, he found that the Queen's army had taken post on Bernard Heath, on the north-east side of the town; and his forces were quickly attacked by a strong party, which advancing to the market-place, was there repulsed, and driven back on the main body. The fight then became more general, and the Yorkists for some time maintained their advantage; but the van not being properly supported, either from want of skill, or treachery, on the part of an inferior officer, was at length obliged to give way; and the panic spreading through all the ranks, Margaret obtained a complete victory. Between two and three thousand of Warwick's army were slain; one of whom, Sir John Grey, of Groby, first husband to Elizabeth Widville, had been

knighted

knighted by the King, at Colney, the preceding day. Warwick fled to the Earl of March: the other noblemen, that fought on his side, dispersed in different directions, except the Lord Bonnville, and Sir Thomas Kyriell, who remained with the King on assurance of safety; but they were afterwards beheaded by the Queen's order.

"When the King was in a manner left alone, without any guard, Thomas Hoo, Esq. a man well learned in languages, and well read in the law, advised the King to send a messenger to the Northern Lords, and let them know, that he would gladly come to them; for he knew they were his friends, and met to serve him.' The King approving it, appointed him to carry the message, who first delivered it to the Earl of Northumberland, and returning back to the King, brought several Lords with him. They conveyed the King first to the Lord Clifford's tent, that stood next to the place where the King's army had encamped. They then brought the Queen, and her son, Prince Edward, to him, whom he joyfully received, embracing, and kissing them, and thanking God, who had restored his only son to his possession. The Queen caused him to dubb the Prince a Knight, with thirty other persons, which the day before had fought valiantly on her part: then they went to the Abbey, where the Abbot and Monks received them with hymns and songs, brought them to the high altar, then to the shrine, and thence conveyed them to the chamber in which the King was wont to lodge. The Abbot moved the King and Queen to restrain the northern men (of whom the Queen's army was chiefly composed) from spoiling the town; and proclamation was made to that effect; but it availed nothing; for the Queen had covenanted with them, that they should have the plunder and spoil of their enemies after they had passed the river Trent, and they spared not any thing that they found that was fit for them to carry away." The ravages thus committed, were the principal causes of the subsequent ill success of the Queen; for many who had been inclined to afford her assistance, now begun to waver, and

Chauncy's Hertfordshire, p. 447.

and held back, lest they should themselves contribute to the extension of the rapine which marked this period of the civil war with more than its accustomed calamities. The rapid approach of the Earl of March, and the evident disinclination of the Londoners to aid her progress, again induced her to retreat to the north; and she quitted St. Alban's a few days after the battle.

Early in the following month, the Earl of March was proclaimed King, by the style and title of Edward the Fourth. He had previously made an appeal to the people, whom he had caused to be assembled round him for the purpose in St. John's Fields; and the popular voice being confirmed by an assembly of the most distinguished personages then resident in London and its vicinity, he mounted the throne. The battle of Towton, however, was still to be fought; yet even here, the star of his fortune obtained the ascendancy, and he became fully possessed of sovereign power. In a subsequent parliament, a general bill of attainder was passed against the chiefs of the Lancastrians, their estates were seized, and their persons proscribed. Even the possessions of some of those who were now no more, but who, when living, had favored the Lancastrian interest, were adjudged to be forfeited to the Crown. Among the estates included by this ordinance, was “the Priory of Pembroke, with all its lands, rents, goods, and appurtenances," which had been given to the Abbey of St. Alban by Humphrey, Duke of Glocester. To prevent the resumption, Abbot Whethamsted had a bill brought into the Upper House, and by the influence of George Neville, Bishop of Exeter, who was then Chancellor, his claim was admitted; and on the twentysecond of December, in the same year, (1461,) the King confirmed, by his letters patent, the said Priory, and all its dependencies, to the Abbot and his successors for ever. This was not the only favor which the address of Whethamsted procured for his Monastery from the new Sovereign, to whom, in the ensuing year, he presented a petition on the impoverished state of the Abbey, the revenues of which had much decreased through the distractions of the times. The King, having taken the petition into consideration, granted a new charter of privileges, by which the civil power of

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the