King’s Langley is located on the western side of the River Gade, about two miles north-northwest of Watford. The manor became a royal possession in the late thirteenth century, and was held by Eleanor, queen of King Edward I until her death in 1290. A royal palace and park had been established there by 1299, and the palace was frequently visited by Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II. The dowager Queen Isabella had the manor from her son, Edward III, in 1327, and a century later it was the dowager Queen Joan of Navarre who lived there following the death of her husband, Henry IV. Much of the palace was destroyed in 1431 by the fire described in the record—which blames the fire on a sleepy and careless minstrel or actor. Although it was restored enough for the abbot of St Albans, William Wallingford, to hold a banquet there in 1476, the palace seems to have fallen into disuse, and was a ruin by the end of the sixteenth century. Little trace remains of the Dominican priory built next to the palace in 1312 by Edward II. The parish church of All Saints houses the tomb of Edmund Langley, Duke of York and son of Edward III.
“Parishes: King’s Langley.” A History of the County of Hertford: Volume 2. Ed. William Page. London: Victoria County History, 1908. 234-245. British History Online. Web. 14 October 2019. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/herts/vol2/pp234-245.
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