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HERTFORD-SHIRE. CHAPTER XX.
* 1.1HERTFORD-SHIRE is border∣ed upon the North with Bed∣ford and Cambridge-shires; upon the East, is altogether bounded by Essex; upon the South, is confined with Middlesex; and her West butteth upon Bucking∣ham and Bedfordshires.
* 1.2(2) The forme thereof is somewhat circular, with many indents to fetch in those Towns that are dispersedly stragled into her next Shire: whereof Ro••ston and Totteridge are the two extremes from North to South, betwixt whom in a strait drawne line are twenty seven English miles,* 1.3 and from Putnam Westward, to Cheston Nunnery in the East, are twenty eight; the whole circumference, about an hundred and thirty miles.
* 1.4(3) The ayre is temperate, sweet, and healthfull, as seated in a Climate neither too hot, nor too cold: the soyle is rich, plenteous, and delightfull, yeelding abundance of Corn,* 1.5 Cattle, Wood & Grasse, destitute of nothing that ministreth profit or pleasures for life, which are more augmented by the many Rivers that arise and run thorow this Shire, watering her owne and others, till they emptie themselves into the Sea.
* 1.6(4) Her ancient Inhabitants in the time of the Romans were the Cattieuchlanians, or Cassiians, and the Trinobantes, as their Writers declare, and in the Heptarchy was possessed by the East-Saxōs,* 1.7 excepting some small portion thereof that the Mercian Kings enjoyed. The Danes also in their over-runnings, sought to stay themselves in this Shire, and at Ware (then Weare) pitched downe their rest and hope:* 1.8 for passing the Lea in their light Pinnaces and Shallops, raised therein a Fort,* 1.9 which maugre the English they kept, until•• that by the wise policie of King Elfred, that River was parted into more running streames, whereby their Ships perished, and they intercepted both of provision and further supplie.
* 1.10(5) The Romans before them had made Verolami∣um in this Shire their greatest for account, which in Neroes time was a Municipiall,* 1.11 as Ninius in his Cata∣logue of Cities doth call it, or as Tacitus, a Free Town; sacked by Bodua that ever eternized Queene of the Icenians, when seventy thousand of the Romans and Confederates by her revenging sword perished: the site and circuit whereof, in this Card we have set ac∣cording to our view and measure there taken: whose magnificence for Port and stately Architecture, were found by her large and arched Vaults in the daies of King Edgar, which were digged into and cast down by Elred and Edmer, Abbots of S. Albanes, for that they were the receptacles and lurking-holes of Whores and Theeves: the ruines of which have raised the beauty of her surviving and faire Saint Albanes, where Offa the great Mercian in great devotion built a most stately Monastery, whose Church yet standing, retaineth the ashes of many Nobles, there slaine in the quarrell of Yorke and Lancaster; and a Font of so∣lid brasse brought out of Scotland by Sir Richard Lea, from the siege of Leeth.
(6) Many other Townes,* 1.12 both for commerce, stately buildings, and of ancient Record, this Shire affoordeth, whereof Hertford, though the Shire-Towne, is not the richest; the passage thorow Ware hath left her waies so untrodden: to prevent which, in former times that River at Ware was whained up, and the Bailiffes of Hertford had the custodie of the Key:* 1.13 which howsoever they have lost, yet hath the Towne gotten her Governour to be preferred from the name of a Bailiffe, unto a Maior, assisted with nine Burgesses, a Recorder, and two Sergeants their Atten∣dants. Herein a Castle, for situation pleasant, for Trench, Walles, and River, sufficiently fenced, was lately seen; but marked to destinie, as the Towne to decay, hath found the hand of Fortune to overmatch her strength, and to ruinate the Priorie, S. Nicholas, and S. Maries Churches, besides a Cell of S. Albanes Monkes, that therein were seated. The like fate fals unto Hemsted,* 1.14 and her faire Castle, wherein Richard King of the Romans left his life.* 1.15 Yet Langley is graced both in the birth of Prince Edmund the fifth son to King Edward the third, and the buriall of Richard the second that unfortunate King, who in the Cell of Fryers Preachers was there first buried▪ but af∣terwards removed and enshrined at Westminster. And in another Langley, neer and East from thence, was borne that Pontificall Break-Speare, Bishop of Rome, knowne by the name of Hadrian the fourth, (and famous for his stirrup-holding by Frederick the Emperour) whose breath was lastly stopped by a Flie that flew into his mouth.
(7) The civill Battles that in this Shire have been fought,* 1.16 in the Map it selfe are inserted, and therefore here omitted, but the more ancient remembred un∣to us by Oister hill neer S. Albans, whom the judici∣ous Cambden supposeth to have been the Campe of Ostorius the second Lieutenant, and subduer of great Caractacus; as also seven small round Hilles betwixt Stevennedge and Knebworth, in which are supposed some Roman Souldiers to lie buried.
(8) Religious Houses built and suppressed,* 1.17 the chiefest for account in this S••ire, were S. Albans, Ro••∣ston, Ware, Spowell, Langley, besides them at Hertford, whom Beda cals Herudford: which Cities graduation is distant and removed from the Equator,* 1.18 52. degrees, 5. minutes of Latitude, and set from the first point of the West, according to Mercator, in the 20. degree 29. minutes of Longitude.* 1.19 The Earledomes whereof, were enjoyed onely by those two honourable Families, whose atchievements we have also therein ex∣pressed.
(9) This Counties division is into eight Hundreds,* 1.20 wherein are seated eighteene Market Towns, and one hundred and twenty Parish-Churches, as in the Table inserted by their Alphabet are easily to be found.