[VIADUCT OVER THE RIVER COLNE: ill3.jpg]
Near King's Langley we pass the Booksellers' Provident Retreat, erected on
ground given by Mr. Dickenson, the great paper maker, who has seven mills on
the neighbouring streams, and reach Boxmoor, only noticeable as the first
station opened on the line.
[LOOKING FROM THE HILL ABOVE BOX MOOR STATION TOWARDS BERKHAMSTED: ill4.jpg]
The next station is Berkhamsted. Cowper the poet was born here, his father
was rector of the parish. Berkhamsted Castle is part of the hereditary
property of the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. At this castle William
the Conqueror, after the battle of Hastings, met the Abbot of St. Albans with
a party of chiefs and prelates, who had prepared to oppose the Norman, and
disarmed their hostility by swearing to rule according to the ancient laws
and customs of the country. Having, of course, broken his oath, he bestowed
the castle on his half-brother, Robert Moreton, Earl of Cornwall. King John
strengthened the castle, which was afterwards besieged by the Dauphin of
France. When Edward III. created the Black Prince Duke of Cornwall, the
castle and manor of Berkhamsted were bestowed upon him "to hold to him, and
the heirs of him, and the eldest sons of the kings of England, and the dukes
of the said place;" and under these words through civil wars and revolutions,
and changes from Plantagenet to Tudor, from Tudor to Stuart, with the
interregnum of a republic, an abdication, and the installation of the
Brunswick dynasty.
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