Thrale history
Historic Sandridge. The story of a Hertfordshire parish (1952).
The first substantial chronicle of Thrale history, written by R.W. Thrale (1931-2007) & E. Giles. Reproduced in full with consent of the author.
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Subdued discontent burst out into open rebellion with the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Wat Tyler had died in London at the hands of its Mayor. The Hertfordshire rebels, assembling in what are now the grounds of St Albans School, attacked the abbey and threatened to burn the manor of Kingsbury and the grange of St. Peter. They obtained from Thomas de la Mare, the thirtieth abbot, a charter granting a common of pasture, rights of way, fishing and hunting, and the right to grind their own corn on their own hand mills, and the rights of self government without the interference of the abbey bailiffs.8 In Sandridge there was a sequel to the revolt, and to this movement towards personal freedom. The records of the abbey tell how certain persons who alleged that they were relations of John Biker, recently hanged in the insurrection at St Albans for his manifest crimes, coming by night to the farm in Sandridge, erected before the gate a certain banner, rather like the one the insurgents erected while they were raving; and they appended a pyx by a cord of flax and a certain letter with tax of £21 to be paid at Canterbury on a certain day. And if they were not paid what they asked they threatened to seize goods on the manors of Astone and Wyncelowe. They hung up in various places small flaxen garments half burnt, and they scattered in the neighbourhood of the manor of Sandridge balls made of the stalks of flax, as a sign they would burn the farm if the abbot did not satisfy them. The abbot and his council were amazed at the presumption of the men; and especially since neither the abbot nor any of his household had had any quarrel with John Biker, who had been hanged by the King’s Court.
At the next council it was decided that money ought not to be sent to Canterbury on account of these threats, for if it was done it was certain similar threats would be made in future. It was therefore decreed to wait in silence and see what the enemies would do. For a time the monastery property received no injury; it was on St. Alban’s Day, early in the morning, however, when the household were occupied at St Albans, that these devilish men came and set light to the building where the pigs were kept, and owing to its age, it was soon burnt to the ground. Then the fire spread to the great barn, which had recently been rebuilt and was almost full of corn, barley and oats a large part of the building was consumed, and wheat laid waste. But certain neighbours running to the spot, were the cause of the greater part of the house being saved from the flames, The sacrilegious incendiaries got away and lay hidden; it was impossible to know who perpetrated so great an evil.9 Thus ran the monks’ account of the encounter, and thus is illustrated the gradual development of personal liberty. More and more people were gaining a form of independence during the following decades, but the number was still trivial. A few of these fortunate folk are mentioned in the abbey records:
14th May 1486. The lord abbot liberates makes free from every yoke of service, villeinage or bondage, William Nasshe and Robert Nasshe, recently natives of the demesne of Sandrugge, with all their descendants whether born before this, or to be born hereafter.10
26th Nov 1483. The lord abbot, under his seal and under the seal of the abbey liberates and frees from every yoke of service villeinage and bondage and makes free Philip Nassh with all his descendants already born or to be born hereafter.11
The above records may be compared with the attempt of William Merun to free himself two hundred years earlier. The slow struggle for liberty was beginning.
Another form of violence, only on a far greater scale, was to plunge the inhabitants of Sandridge into the very centre of the most hateful type of strife, That of civil war.
The quarrel between the two noble families of Lancaster and York came to a climax in 1455 with the Wars of the Roses. The first battle of St Albans was the beginning of this War, but the only concern here is not with the national events, but with the second battle of St Albans six years later. The record of the battle is so different from the wars of our own time that it is almost refreshing to recall it. In February 1461 "King Harry, a prisoner with his lords, went out of London and came with their people to the town of St Albans, not knowing that the people of the north were so nigh. When the king heard of their proximity, he went out and took his field beside Sandridge, in a place called No Mans Land."12
Such a move gave Warwick four days in which to prepare his defences against the Queen, who was coming south by Watling Street. He drew up his forces in three bodies facing north west; the left wing occupied Bernard’s Heath, the centre Sandridge valley, and the right was placed upon Nomansland.13 A strong body of archers was stationed on the west-side of St Albans. The countryside was full of woods and hedges affording shelter for the archers, while the sunken rood through Sandridge was a formidable obstacle for the attacking forces. In addition to trenches and other earthworks, Warwick used defences, which had not been used in Britain before; cord nets of ninety-six square feet were designed to stop infantry attacks but to allow the passage of arrows. All the defences were useless however, for owing to inferior scouting,14 the whole force was outflanked.Footnotes
- Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani 793 - 1411. 3. 330. Compiled by Thomas Walshingham. Three volumes.↩︎
- Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani 793 - 1411. 3. 361-363. Compiled by Thomas Walshingham. Three volumes.↩︎
- Registrum Abbatiae, Willelmi Alban 1465-1472. 55.↩︎
- Registrum Abbatiae, Willelmi Alban 1465-1472. 263.↩︎
- English Chronicle, edited by J.S.Davies, p.107.↩︎
- C.H. Ashdown, Battles and Battlefields of St Albans, p.15. But Colonel Burne in a recent work, The Battlefields of England, p.95, places Warwick’s left wing in Beech Bottom till it withdrew to Bernard’s Heath to meet the outflanking movement.↩︎
- W.Gregory, Chronicle, p.213.↩︎
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