The relics of St. Alban had an eventful history. First they were carried off by pirates to Denmark, but were afterwards restored. Then, in expectation of another Danish raid, they were sent for safety to Ely. When the Danes had gone, the monks of Ely, being desirous to keep the precious bones in their possession, palmed on the monks of St. Alban’s some suppositious relics. Whereupon the monks of St. Alban’s asserted that neither had they sent to Ely the genuine relics, but only sham ones, to draw attention away from the fact that they had hidden the authentic bones of the martyr in a hole in the wall of their own church! “_Credat Judæus Apelles._” Towards the end of the eleventh century Nicholas Breakspear was born at Abbots Langley, in Hertfordshire. He applied to the abbey of St. Alban to be admitted a monk, but was scornfully rejected, and rebuked for his impudence, being, as he was, son of one of the menials of the convent. This same man became Pope in 1154—the only Englishman who ever became Pope. And when he became Pope, under the title of Adrian IV., he forgot not the monks of St. Alban’s, but forgave them, and made their monastery free of episcopal jurisdiction for ever, and subject only to the see of Rome. And to the abbot he gave precedence over all other English abbots; which precedency, after much dispute with Westminster, St. Alban’s retained till the Dissolution. In 1455 was fought the first battle of St. Albans, when Henry VI. was wounded in the neck by an arrow, and made prisoner by the Yorkists under the Earl of Warwick. The forces met in Holywell Street (where we entered the town), between the Key and the Chequer. In the second battle, 1461, the Earl of Warwick was defeated by Queen Margaret. St. Alban’s was an exceedingly wealthy abbey; it had estates in almost every county in England, and at the present value of money its income would amount to at least a million. Its conventual buildings must have been immense. One of the guest-halls, in addition to parlours and bedrooms, had stables for three hundred horses. Of all these vast structures nothing remains but one of the gatehouses, built in 1380. In it were detained the French prisoners in the Napoleonic wars; afterwards it became a common gaol, now it houses the Grammar School. [Illustration: NAVE, NORTH SIDE.]