England is in the grip of Civil War. Oliver Cromwell fights to bring down King Charles I and establish the supremacy of Parliament over the monarchy. Berkhamsted is a Royalist town, and a local parishioner who lives at Berkhamsted Place, Anne Murray, becomes embroiled in a plot to smuggle the young Duke of York (later King James II) out of the country for his own safety. Anne goes into exile herself to escape local hostilities. A 1649 memorial in St Peter’s commemorates Anne’s two brothers, James (d.1627) and John Murray (d.1634) who died young. The inscription describes them as “youths of the most winning disposition who lived and died at Berkhamsted Place”.
