THE modern traveller from London to St. Albans will conveniently, if unwittingly, follow the footsteps of a personage of whom it may safely be said that while few in England are so ignorant that they do not know her name, still fewer are so wise that they know anything more. The semi-fabulous deeds of Boadicea begin and end with a battle at St. Pancras and a massacre at Verulam. The name of Verulam is now lost in the modern name of St. Albans, if anything so ancient can even comparatively be called modem; and the fame of Battle Bridge is obscured in Pentonville-road and King's-cross, although this last appellation has been taken by some to refer to a victory of King Alfred himself.

But an equally convenient route is by Euston and the North-Western Railway through Watford. By this line the visitor will find himself deposited at the foot of the hill on which the Abbey stands, and within a few hundred yards of the most prominent relic of the Roman city. He will probably make for the Abbey at once, postponing his visit to the older if

Passing through an archway which leads from the south side to the north between the sanctuary on the left and the Lady-chapel on the right-a modern arrangement similar to that by which Wolsey's Chapel is divided from the choir at St. George's at Windsor- a lane which leads back to the street will be reached, and a fine view obtained of the most remarkable feature of the Abbey; for almost without end toward the west stretches, arch after arch, bay after bay- first Norman then Early English-the long-drawn perspective of the nave. The north closely resembles the south transept, both being mainly of Norman construction, and both having an immense Perpendicular window at the end. A good view of the same side may be obtained by entering an archway adjoining a baker's shop in George-street, on the left hand, after leaving the market-place, into which the visitor will have emerged from the passage. An ancient tower formerly stood opposite the street entrance to this passage, and marked the site of the royal palace of Kingsbury; but the clock tower itself has been utterly restored within the last few years, and presents nothing but its name to interest the archaeologist. In order to walk round the Abbey

Passing between the churchyard of the Abbey on the left, and a triangular piece of ground-also a cemetery-on the right, the road leads through the only portion of the Abbey buildings which remains. It is an Early English gateway, surmounted by a Perpendicular building which for centuries had been used as a prison, but is now the site of King Edward the Sixth's Grammar-school, removed from the Lady- chapel, which it had long desecrated-a good thing in the wrong place. The bibliographical visitor will perhaps stop here to see the Caxtons unearthed in an old cupboard in the chapel by Mr. Blades in ; otherwise he will pursue his way towards the east, along a narrow path between the grassy mounds which mark the site of the cloisters, the chapter-house, the refectory, the dormitories, and all the other buildings of a great monastery, of which now not a vestige remains. Dr. Stukeley tells of their destruction in , and a drawing or two at the British Museum and the Society of Antiquaries testify to their greatness. The marks of the roofing of the cloisters remain in the south wall of the nave, and the rest of the buildings which were as usual placed around them. From the top of the great tower, and especially in dry weather, their plan may

Once within the Abbey a feeling of despair comes over the visitor. The impossibility of noticing everything worthy of notice, the vastness of the edifice, the seemingly puny efforts of modem art to rival or even to sustain the wonders of old time, the memories which crowd upon the brain, and the mere physical fatigue induced by traversing the long aisles and ascending the almost inaccessible tower, -all these produce a confusion of mind from which it takes some time to rally. The present building or collection of buildings began to be made in the days of Eadmer, the ninth Abbot, towards the close of the tenth century. He collected materials for rebuilding the church of Offa; and he seems to have set the example, so extensively followed in later times, of using the materials of the Roman Verulam for the construction of the English abbey. But it was

The Abbey of St. Albans is itself so closely wound up with our national history, that any detailed account of it would be a mere cento from the chronicles. Yet, viewed from various points, it will be found a curious and instructive commentary. A series of scenes, more or less real, more or less authentic, more or less connected one with the other, are presented successively, whilst, like the hero of an old romance, the proto-martyr of Britain-or, as the monks seem usually to have called him, in defiance of history, the proto-martyr of England-comes into prominence over and over again, living or dying, dead, buried, or dug up again, until, by the mere force of reiteration, the story becomes true, if it wanted truth before, and the effects of the legend are greater than the subject of the legend itself. Tradition is a weak staff to lean upon; yet it was the tradition of five centuries upon which Offa II. was content to found his Abbey and establish his colony of Benedictines. Alban suffered in the fourth century, when, according to the St. Albans Chronicle, in MS. at , quoted by Dr. Nicholson,

was gret persecution of Christen pepell by the tyrant Diocletian.

sub cespite diu absconditum,

The story of the relics of St. Alban is a typical example of what may be called the irony of history. According to one account, the body of the martyr was early transferred to Rome. According to a second, and equally good authority, it was removed to Cologne. According to a third, it was preserved at Ely. According to a fourth, it never left the scene of the martyrdom. All these accounts cannot be true, nor can all the minor legends which crop up here and there in the medieval books. A correspondence which took place in the Guardian in , threw some light on the subject, and from it I venture to epitomise the following notes on the shrine and relics.

We find then that, to take the earliest story first, the tomb of St. Alban was known at Verulam 125 years after his martyrdom, when it was visited by St. Germanus, who, it will be remembered, held a council at Verulam in to combat the opinions of Pelagius. St. Germanus was presented with a portion of the relics as a token of gratitude for his exertions in healing the wounds of the British Church. These relics, according to Constantius, consisted only of a lump of earth saturated with the blood of the martyr. According to Molanus ("Martyrologia Usuardi," Antwerp, ), they consisted of St. Alban's head and the upper portion of his body. Constantius is very minute in his description of a sod,

in qua apparebat, cruore servato rubere, martyrum caedem, persecutore pallente.

St. Germanus transported the relic, whatever it was, to Ravenna, where he died in , when it was removed to Rome. There is next a mention in by Bede of the thaumaturgic powers of the martyr's tomb at Verulam,

to this very day.

Hoc est caput Sancti Albani Anglorum proto martyris.

according to the venerable traditions of the St. Pantaleon's Order, the relics which are enshrined in the above-mentioned magnificent shrine were no doubt always considered and adored as the earthly remains of that martyr St. Alban who had obtained the palm of martyrdom, as the first martyr and Christian hero of the faith on English soil at Verula, in England, Hardfordshire (Hertfordshire),

at the time of the Emperor Diocletian, about the year

303

.

In the tenth century, according to Matthew Paris, St. Albans was visited by the Danes and the relics carried to Denmark, where they were for some time venerated in an abbey of Black Monks, till, by a special intervention of the saint himself, they were restored to the country

where he shed his blood for Christ.

the relics of St. Alban were, it was asserted, removed to Ely for greater security. The

Liber Eliensis

declares that they were never restored, and that they always formed one of the treasures of Ely. Matthew Paris asserts that the Abbot of St. Albans concealed the true relics in the wall of his own church (whence they were removed and enshrined when the country had become safer), and substituted for them some ordinary bones, which were sent in all honour to Ely.

At the later translation, in the reign of Henry III., the bones of the martyr were carefully numbered, and, with the exception of one small relic which was known to be in Spain, were found perfect. This was done because

quoddam Collegium in Dacia

-no doubt the Benedictine monastery to which the Danish plunderers had carried the relics -and also the monastery of Ely,

mendaciter asserebant

that they were in possession of the

true remains (Matthew Paris,

Vitæ Abbatum

, p. 1010).

Next, we read in the St. Albans Chronicle the relics were carried round the town in , together with the shrines of two other saints,

when the weather, which had been cloudy and dark, became bright and clear as soon as the reliquary was borne forth, though the day following was marked by a hailstorm.

In

1850

the Rev. Dr. Nicholson, rector of the Abbey, read a paper [afterwards printed] before the Architectural and Archaeological Society of St. Alban, in which he said that the above statement had raised in him a desire to pursue some inquiry into the subject, and he proceeded to narrate how, after consulting many ponderous folios for histories of the saint, he had lately remained a day at Cologne, and had been permitted to see in St. Mary's Church that shrine whose roof, gables, and sides he describes as having upon them numerous figures, &c., in silver-gilt, and also thirty-three Latin verses, two of them being those quoted by Mr. Thompson.

Mr. R. J. King has thus summed up the questions at issue:

All that can be said is, that the remains sent to Cologne by the Empress Theophania were probably as genuine as those so long reverenced in their magnificent shrine at St. Albans. It is possible that Offa, digging in the neighbourhood of Verulamium, may have lighted on an ancient sepulchre containing human remains. The belief that any relics so discovered were those of St. Alban rests on evidence altogether

supra historicam

.

Messrs. Buckler, in their account of St. Albans, assert that the relics contained in the shrine were carried to Rome after the dissolution; and that they are still preserved there.

So that if the real relics are anywhere they are at St. Albans; the relics found by Offa perhaps at Rome; those carried away by Germanus at Ravenna; those presented to Theophania at Cologne.

Fragments of the shrine itself have been found during the progress of the work of restoration, built into various modern walls, and have been replaced where they formerly stood.

I return to the history of the Abbey itself. Many remarkable events of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries took place at St. Albans.

It was here in , and afterwards, that the Black Prince lodged his royal captive, during the incumbency of Abbot de la Mare; and the story of the concealment of treasure by Sir John de Molins,

But it is chiefly for its services to literature that St. Albans deserves well of the men of this generation. It was early a seat of learning; and retained its reputation until after the invention of printing. Abbot Ælfric, in the reign of King Edgar, translated parts of the Old Testament into the vernacular, and left among other writings a Latin and Saxon Glossary. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in , and died in . A long succession of names represent the men who in after ages sustained the honour of the genius loci which he had evoked. Such were another Ælfric, the eleventh Abbot; Robert de Gorham, who is said to have refused admission

Attempts have been made to trace the fate of the great library which must have accumulated here before the dissolution. Many of the books have been identified. In the British Museum, in the Bodleian, in private collections, these old treasures are now scattered about to tell both of the industry and of the taste of the St. Albans Scriptorium. Of all these books there are few more interesting than a folio volume in the National Library, part of the famous Cottonian collection. Like the rest of Sir Robert Cotton's books it is classified by the name of one of the Twelve Caesars, and is best known to antiquarians under the title of Nero D. 7. It contains a catalogue of benefactors to the Abbey who had been admitted to the fraternity of St. Alban before the year , together with their portraits, painted in a rough but effective style. The greater part of the book was compiled by Thomas Walsingham in , but there are additions which bring it down a hundred years later. In a list of the

Since he did nothing memorable in his life we shall place nothing respecting him in the present page; but we warn the reader that he be converted to works of piety, and pour forth prayers to the Omnipotent for his soul.

It is curious to note, regarding this picture, that though it was painted so many centuries ago, we know the name of the painter, and several other circumstances relating to the history of the bock. In a list of the monks at that time in the abbey we are told of Thomas de Walsingham that he

compiled this book and procured from John de Bedingham and Christiana his wife seven marks of

money for the work of the new gate.

Alan Strayler worked much upon the painting of this book, and gave three shillings and four pence, which was owed to him for colours.

The monastery, notwithstanding the mollifying influence of the arts, oppressed the town with an iron hand. Twice during the eighteen years of Eversden's incumbency was the Abbey besieged by the burghers. They gained by the King's special interference some alleviation of their bondage, but even the strong rule of Edward III. was unable to prevent Wallingford from resuming the charter, and forbidding the town even to send its representatives

utter contempt of religion.

The history of the Abbey after the dissolution offers few features of interest. The general absence of seventeenth-century tombs and of eighteenth-century tablets is worthy of remark. A few flat stones commemorate parochial officers; but the monuments, after the brasses, or their marks on so many graves, have been examined, leave hardly anything of note. Of the later inscriptions which occur perhaps the most remarkable is that of John Jones, Master of the Grammar-school, which was as follows:--[5] 

Here lies John Jones, a Welshman, Master of the School of St. Albans, a most learned man, who when this church was repaired in

1684

at the public expense, carved for himself also a monument

for that he wrote ' The Fane of St. Alban,' a poem in heroic verse, which will last longer than this slab, than even this building or the very age itself.

In memory of Thomas Sheppard, son of Thos. and Mary Sheppard, died Feb. ye 15th

1766

Aged xxx years.

Great was my Grief, I could not Rest,

God called me hence, He thought it best;

Unhappy marriage was my fate:

I did repent when it was too late.

Cor mundum in me crea Deus

Create a clean heart in me, O God,

Salva Redemptor plasma Tuum nobile, Signatum Sancto vultus Tui lumine, Nec lacerari sinas fraude daemonum Propter quos mortis exsolvisti pretium

;

Save, Lord, the work Thy hands have wrought,

The face illumined by Thy smiles;

Nor suffer those Thy blood has bought

To perish through the devil's wiles.

Hic quidem terra tegitur, peccati solvens debitum, Cui nomen non imponitur, in libro vitae sit conscriptum.

Hugh Lewis souldier in his Maies army taken prisoner at Ravensfield, Northampton- shire,

June 1645

.

The repairs contemplated, and in part already carried out, are of a very thorough kind. The great tower, 140 feet in height, and open to the church almost from roof to floor, was in a tottering condition. The Roman bricks of which it is built, or rather heaped up, have yielded to the weight of two thousand years, and a settlement at the southern side threatened its very existence. The fees for viewing the church go to increase the fund; but they are so moderate, and the number of visitors so small, that little appreciable influence is exerted on the total sum required. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the church has been covered with whitewash, and its removal, and the restoration of the ancient painted plaster work, is an expensive process. The walls of the south aisle lean perceptibly outward; and though something might be done by buttressing to remedy their inclination, yet the unity of the building would be seriously compromised, and Sir Gilbert Scott may have no choice but to pull down and rebuild the whole side. The chief repairs provided since the Abbey became a parish church have been of a temporary character. James I., it is true, took an interest in the place, but his exertions were of the vicarious kind which he usually employed. He took much credit to himself for the translation of the Bible, for which others had to pay; and at St. Albans, though he granted leave to his Queen and her maids to search in the ruins for treasure, his chief contribution

Much permanent benefit may be expected to result from the repairs, so far, carried out. But it is impossible not to regret that the look of antiquity should in any way be rubbed off. When we look at the delicate iridescence and rich hues with which the old bricks seem to be coloured, at the creeping lichens and many-toned weather-stains which lend a harmonious and subtle tinting to the venerable walls and crumbling stones, we feel a kind of trembling hope that the architect will deal tenderly with the ancient pile, and perhaps, for old times' sake,

Be to its faults a little blind,

And to its failings not unkind.

In the town of St. Albans the visitor will find little to interest him. The absence of ordinary sanitary arrangements will remind him of the state of many picturesque continental cities; but here it is the more unpleasant, from the want of the compensating attractions. Yet a walk should be taken through the market-place to St. Peter's Church, half of which, with the tombs of those who fell at Bernard's Heath and the Key Field, the knights and mighty men of old, was destroyed during the prevalence of an improving mania in the early years of the present century. A long street leads past Rome Land and the Abbey gate down to the river's edge and up the opposite slope to St. Michael's Church, whose

THE END.

[1] Several portions have been recovered since these lines were written.

[2] Riley's Chron. Mon. S. Alb., p. 36.

[3] Royal MS. 14. c. vii.

[4] Some further particulars regarding Abbot John of Berkhamsted will be found at p. 204.

[5] H. S. E. Iohannes Iones Wallus, Scholae S. Albanensis Hypodidscalus literatissimus, qui dum ecclia. hæc Ao. 1684 publicis impensis instauraretur exsculpsit sibi quoq. monumentum quod inscripsit " Fanum S. Albani" poema carmina heroico, hoc lapide, hâc etiam æde, ævoq. perennius omni. Obijt Ao. 1686.