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Cheshire

by Charles E. Kelsey · English · Gutenberg #42887 · 379,436 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cheshire

Author: Charles E. Kelsey


        
Release date: June 6, 2013 [eBook #42887]

Language: English

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Produced by floofles, sp1nd and the Online Distributed
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produced from images generously made available by The
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  [Illustration: CHESHIRE. ROADS]




  OXFORD COUNTY HISTORIES

  CHESHIRE

  BY CHARLES E. KELSEY, M.A.


  WITH TEN MAPS AND FORTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS


  OXFORD
  AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
  1911


  HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
  PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
  LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
  TORONTO AND MELBOURNE




PREFACE


The aim of the present volume in the Oxford Series of County Histories
for Schools is to assist the study of the progress of the English people
by an examination of local antiquities, visits to ancient sites and
buildings, and suggestions of big national movements from local
incident. An attempt is made to foster the powers of observation in
children by showing them how to connect various styles of architecture,
for instance, with successive stages in the story of their county, and
to construct from familiar objects the broad outlines of national
history. Thus it is hoped that sooner or later the teaching of history
may become, to some extent, an _out-of-school_ subject and take its
place side by side with outdoor Nature-study and Practical Geography in
the curriculum of our schools.

In rural districts this end is obviously more easily attainable than in
large industrial centres. In the latter the expense of moving classes of
children from their schools to visit a site some miles distant would be
no doubt considerable; but is it too visionary to hope that before long
a motor-bus, capable of carrying a class of thirty or forty boys and
girls, will be deemed by Educational Committees a necessary part of
their 'apparatus'?

Apart from the educative value of such work there would, as the children
grow up, arise a body of public opinion which could give valuable help
in saving historic sites and buildings from loss or destruction, and
preventing the removal of antiquities from their natural home. Cheshire
has suffered perhaps more than her share of both these evils, and looks
with sorrowful eyes at many of her treasures housed in the museums of
towns beyond her borders.

All students of Cheshire history owe much to Ormerod's great work. But
his history is largely genealogical, and personally I wish to
acknowledge a greater debt to the labours and transactions of local
societies, particularly the Chester Archaeological Society and the
Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. Many learned members of
these two bodies have made most important contributions to our knowledge
of ancient and mediaeval Cheshire within the most recent years. Among
other works consulted I may mention the _Palatine Note Book_, _Cheshire
Notes and Queries_, and Morris's _Diocesan History of Chester_. I have
received kindly assistance from several Cheshire clergymen, and to all
who have given me permission to take photographs within their churches I
express my thanks.

The maps, drawings, and photographs are original, with few exceptions. I
am indebted to the Council of the Chester Archaeological Society, and
the Grosvenor Museum for the loan of the block of a Roman tombstone from
a photograph by Mr. R. Newstead, and to Mr. Alfred Newstead, Curator of
the Museum, for photographs of the Runic stone and Roman altar.

The Rev. J. F. Tristram, of the Hulme Grammar School, read the two
geological chapters and made valuable suggestions. To the Clarendon
Press I am grateful for much kind help and criticism.

  THE HULME GRAMMAR SCHOOL,
    MANCHESTER,
    _July, 1911_.




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                                       PAGE
      I. POSITION AND NATURAL FEATURES OF CHESHIRE               9
     II. THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE (1)                             16
    III. THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE (_continued_) (2)               21
     IV. EARLY INHABITANTS OF CHESHIRE                          25
      V. THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE (1)                             29
     VI. THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE (2)                             36
    VII. SAXONS AND ANGLES COME TO CHESHIRE                     43
   VIII. THE CROSS IN CHESHIRE                                  47
     IX. THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN                             51
      X. THE NORMANS COME TO CHESHIRE                           58
     XI. THE NORMAN ABBEYS AND CHURCHES OF CHESHIRE             64
    XII. THE EARLS OF THE COUNTY PALATINE                       74
   XIII. THE CHURCHES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY                 81
    XIV. GROWTH OF TOWNS IN CHESHIRE                            87
     XV. EDWARD THE FIRST AND CHESHIRE                          92
    XVI. THE COMING OF THE FRIARS                               99
   XVII. A DEPOSED KING                                        107
  XVIII. THE RIVAL ROSES                                       114
    XIX. CHURCHES OF THE MIDDLE AGES                           118
     XX. THE REFORMATION AND THE GREAT AWAKENING               128
    XXI. ELIZABETHAN CHESHIRE (1)                              134
   XXII. ELIZABETHAN CHESHIRE (2)                              143
  XXIII. THE RULE OF THE STUARTS                               150
   XXIV. CIVIL WAR: (1) THE BATTLES OF MIDDLEWICH AND NANTWICH 153
    XXV. CIVIL WAR: (2) A MEMORABLE SIEGE                      158
   XXVI. CIVIL WAR: (3) THE PROTECTORATE AND THE RESTORATION   163
  XXVII. THE FALL OF THE STUARTS                               167
 XXVIII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1)                            173
   XXIX. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (2)                            180
    XXX. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (1)                         183
   XXXI. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (2)                         188
  XXXII. THE RAILWAYS OF CHESHIRE                              192
 XXXIII. PROGRESS AND REFORM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY         198
  XXXIV. THE REIGN OF A GREAT QUEEN                            204
   XXXV. FAMOUS MEN AND WOMEN OF CHESHIRE                      211
  XXXVI. CONCLUSION                                            216

  INDEX                                                        220




CHAPTER I

POSITION AND NATURAL FEATURES OF CHESHIRE


Few English counties owe more of their history to their geographical
position and surroundings, and to the character of their natural
features, than Cheshire. Not only in the past have the rocks and rivers
of Cheshire helped to make history, but even to-day they have a very
direct bearing upon the fortunes of Cheshire men and women. How many of
us reflect, as our eyes travel over the plain to the distant hills, that
on the wise and orderly arrangement of mountain and valley, forest and
winding stream, our very existence and means of livelihood depend? Truly
Nature has other work to do than merely create picturesque landscapes.

Cheshire is situated in the north-west of England, washed partly by the
Irish Sea, and guarded as it were on its eastern and western sides by
two great ramparts of hill country, that on the east formed by the
southern spurs of the Pennine Chain, while the Welsh hills of Flint and
Denbigh are the natural frontier on the west.

The western boundary, however, which has been frequently changed, now
follows roughly the Valley of the Dee. A semicircle of hills of lesser
height fringes the county on the south, and the river Mersey divides it
from its northern neighbour, Lancashire.

In the north-west of the county a rectangular stretch of country known
as Wirral is washed by two great estuaries and by the Irish Sea, and a
wedge of moorland in the north-east penetrates into the heart of the
Pennines. Here the hills reach their greatest height, Black Hill the
highest point in Cheshire being just under 2,000 feet above sea-level.
The low-lying lands enclosed by this amphitheatre of hills form the
Cheshire Plain, broken only by ridges or terraces of low sandstone
hills running north and south.

A glance at a map of the British Isles will show you that Cheshire lies
in the very heart of the three kingdoms. Its geographical position has
thus made it a meeting-place of nations, and you will see in later
chapters that all the peoples that have helped to make our national
history have in turn realized the importance of its position, and have
fought desperately for its possession. Briton and Roman, Angle and Saxon
and Dane, Welsh and Norman have all left some mark of their presence in
the county, and from these many elements is derived the blood that flows
in the veins of nearly all Cheshire boys and girls of to-day.

Now look at the map opposite. The shaded portions represent land over
300, 600, or 1,000 feet above sea-level. In the south, the eastern and
western uplands slope gradually down towards the bit of white which
touches the centre of the bottom of the map and forms what is known as
the Cheshire Gap. Through this gap the Midlands lie open to the
north-west and to the Cheshire Plain, and over these lower heights
naturally passed the great highway from London to the Irish Sea.
Chester, built on a rocky plateau at the head of the tidal waters of the
Dee and protected on its western side by a natural bend of the same
river, was clearly a position of great importance for guarding alike the
coast road into North Wales and the roads to the north of England; and
there is no doubt that it was held as a fortified post long before the
Romans built the Roman city of Deva.

For many centuries this stronghold was one of the chief military
outposts and frontier towns of England, not often free from war's
alarms, and the sentinels on her walls and watch-towers ever on the
look-out for the approach of some new enemy. Chester became the 'base'
or head-quarters from which all military campaigns in the north-west, in
Wales or in Ireland were carried out, united with the metropolis by the
great road that passed through the heart of England, along which armies
could march without any difficult hills to cross and hardly a river of
any great size to bridge. In later and more peaceful times, for the
same geographical reasons, the London and North-Western Railway, the
lineal descendant of the ancient 'Watling Street', laid its lines on
nearly the same ground as the old highway, and is thus the easiest as
well as the most direct of all routes from London to the north-west.

  [Illustration: CHESHIRE CONTOUR MAP]

With the exception of the Dee, which rises near Lake Bala in Wales, the
rivers of Cheshire have their sources in the eastern or southern
uplands. For eight months of the year moisture-laden winds blow from the
sea across the Cheshire Plain and deposit their rains upon the hills. In
the hilly country of the north-east, where the rainfall is greatest, the
water is gathered and stored in a number of reservoirs in Longdendale;
and the moist climate is the chief reason why this district is the seat
of the cotton industry, for cotton threads become brittle in a dry
atmosphere. In the valleys of the Tame and Goyt the abundance of fresh
running water from the hills formerly caused many mills for the
bleaching, dyeing and printing of calicoes to be erected on or near the
streams. Nowadays, however, owing to the greater supply of water brought
by pipes from a distance, mills are erected principally on the outskirts
of the great towns and nearer the centres of population. Hence in the
villages of the Goyt it is no uncommon sight to see the tottering walls
of mills that have been abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin and
decay.

The combined waters of the Etherow, Tame, and Goyt form the Mersey at
Stockport. Only the left bank of this river is in Cheshire. Moreover,
for a large part of its course it has been 'canalized', so that it no
longer flows between its natural banks, but down the artificial channel
of the Manchester Ship Canal. The estuary of the Mersey, which is three
to four miles across at its widest point, narrows at Birkenhead to a
width of barely three-quarters of a mile. At this point the river is
kept open to the largest vessels afloat by constant dredging. Here in
the docks you may see ships of all nations, and generally one or more of
our huge ocean greyhounds riding at anchor in mid-river or awaiting
but the turn of the tide to take out their cargoes of human lives to
distant lands.

  [Illustration: SOURCES OF RIVERS IN E. CHESHIRE]

The Weaver, on the other hand, is wholly a Cheshire river, rising in the
Peckforton Hills in the south-west of the county. The Mersey and the
Weaver receive a number of tributaries, of which the Bollin and the Dane
are the most important, from the eastern highlands,

                      the high-crowned Shutlingslawe
  ... with those proud hills whence rove
  The lovely sister brooks the silvery Dane and Dove,
  Clear Dove that makes to Trent, the other to the West.

At Northwich the Weaver becomes navigable as far as the Mersey.

The rivers flow mainly in a westerly or north-westerly direction.
Spreading evenly over the plain in almost parallel lines, they serve to
drain and fertilize the land, which thus affords the finest pasturage
for cattle. Dairy-farming and stock-raising have therefore become the
principal occupation of the inhabitants of the Cheshire midlands; and on
market days the piles of the famous Cheshire cheese are generally the
first thing we notice in the open market-places of our country towns.

The most noticeable feature of the county are the two estuaries of the
Dee and the Mersey. The tract enclosed between them is for the most part
flat, Heswall Hill, the highest point, being little more than 300 feet
in height, and the lowest parts have to be protected from the inroads of
the sea by long embankments. Several portions were in fact, at one time
separated from the mainland, like Hilbre Isle at the present day, as is
shown by the names Wallasey, 'isle of the Welsh or strangers,' and Ince
'an island'. In the Middle Ages, owing to the importance of Chester, the
Dee was the principal outlet for the trade of the north-west, as Bristol
was for the south-west of England. In those days Liverpool was but an
insignificant town, and the Mersey was known as the 'Creek of Chester'.
But in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the shipping trade of the
Dee declined owing to the great accumulation of sand and silt in the
channel. When vessels could no longer unload or ship their merchandise
under the walls of Chester a quay was formed at Shotwick, some six miles
along the northern shore of the estuary. In this neighbourhood over two
thousand acres of land have been recovered from the sea that once flowed
over them. Navigation was partially restored as far as Chester for small
vessels by a new artificial channel, but since the rise of the cotton
and other great industries in South Lancashire Liverpool and Birkenhead
have replaced Chester and become the second port in the kingdom.

Cheshire also possesses a miniature 'Lake District'. Between the Bollin
and the Weaver are scattered many lakelets or 'meres'. They are
particularly numerous in the salt districts, where they are due to the
pumping of brine which has been going on for ages, and caused the
sinking down of the overlying rocks. In the neighbourhood of Northwich
the sheets of water thus formed are called 'flashes'.

The county still contains much 'forest', that is, uncultivated land. The
hilly country of the east consists mostly of bleak and barren moorland,
affording but poor pasturage for sheep and used mainly for the
preservation of game. Such names as Wildboarclough, Wolf's Edge, Cat's
Tor, Eagle's Crag, and many others, show clearly the wild and desolate
character of this district. Extensive woods are found in the valleys and
'cloughs' of the Etherow and Goyt. Delamere was once a deer forest
extending as far as Nantwich, but in the last hundred years the greater
part of it has been cultivated. Many towns and villages still retain
their 'common' land, often bright with patches of broom and gorse, while
the numerous and extensive parks of the great landowners are justly
noted for their fine forest trees.

To many of you the natural features described in this chapter must be a
familiar sight. Some of you have perhaps stood by the beacon on Alderley
Edge or by the sham ruins on the summit of Mow Cop, and viewed wide
stretches of the Cheshire Plain. Others have looked down from the
Frodsham Hills upon the estuary of the Mersey mapped out at their feet,
or from the walls of Chester have gazed upon the purple hills of Wales.
But the surface of the county suffered many changes before it assumed
its present aspect, and we must now see what story the stones have to
tell us of bygone ages when Cheshire was yet in the making.




CHAPTER II

THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE. I

THE NEWER ROCKS

  There rolls the deep where grew the tree:
    O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
    There, where the long street roars, hath been
  The stillness of the central sea.


Nearly every Cheshire boy has visited at some time or another a quarry
in the neighbourhood of the town or village where he dwells. He will
probably have noticed that beneath the two or three feet of soil at the
top of the quarry the rocks are arranged in beds or 'strata' piled one
upon another in horizontal rows, or sometimes sloping in parallel lines
towards the bottom of the quarry. When and how were these beds of rock
formed and laid down?

If our quarry is in the central or western parts of Cheshire we shall
find that the rocks are of a reddish colour, generally hard and gritty,
but sometimes so soft that pieces may be crushed into fragments with the
fingers. These rocks are known as the New Red sandstones, and are
largely used for building purposes. Chester Cathedral and a great number
of Cheshire churches have been built of this material; and the hillsides
where the rocks crop out above the soil often glow with a rich warm red
in the evening sunlight. You may see them best perhaps in the railway
cuttings in the neighbourhood of Frodsham and Chester, or in the great
quarries at Storeton-in-Wirral and Runcorn.

  [Illustration: GEOLOGICAL MAP]

These beds of sandstone are really wide stretches of the sandy shores of
an ancient sea, which have been pressed into a solid substance by the
weight of other layers of rock deposited over them in later ages. Thus
they belong to a group of what are called 'water-laid' rocks. We know
that seas once flowed over them because some of the beds show the
ripple-marks that we see so often in the sands when walking by the
sea-shore. A fearful looking monster, with the equally terrible name of
labyrinthodont, in appearance rather like a gigantic frog, has left his
'footprints in the sands' in the rocks near Lymm and Weston. You will
probably not be able to find these footprints, but in the museums at
Manchester and Warrington you may see them on large slabs of sandstone
rock. How would you like to meet one of these reptiles to-day, wallowing
in the mud on the shores of some Cheshire mere? On the same slabs you
will see suncracks which tell us of the baking of sand and mud in the
sun's rays when the tide has gone down.

The lower layers of the New Red Sandstone are of a paler colour, light
brown or almost white. To these the name of 'Bunter' has been given to
distinguish them from the upper and therefore later deposits known as
'Keuper' sandstone. The Bunter beds are found chiefly in the west of the
county, and in Wirral, where you may see the Keuper rocks of Storeton
Hill sticking up above the layers of Bunter stone that surround and
underlie them.

The greater part of the surface of Cheshire consists of these rocks.
Alderley Edge and Helsby Hill, the hills of Delamere and Peckforton are
composed of it, and it crops out often in our village streets. The steps
of the village cross at Lymm are cut out of a piece of rock which sticks
out in the middle of the road.

In the sandstone beds at Northwich, Winsford, and Middlewich are layers
of rock salt from which we obtain our salt for food and other domestic
uses. The salt was formed at a time when the sea was gradually
disappearing from the surface of Cheshire leaving inland salt lakes,
which, becoming dried up, deposited beds of salt crystals. These, like
the sandstone, became pressed into a solid condition by the weight of
other layers. Where the salt has been taken out of the earth the upper
layers have sunk from time to time. At Northwich the land is continually
sinking, and you may see houses and chimneys cracked and twisted out of
their proper shape as if they had been visited by an earthquake. Often
the hollows where the land has sunk have become filled with water and
produced the numerous meres or small lakes dotted about the county. In
the valley of the Weaver they are locally known as 'flashes'.

  [Illustration: STRIATED BOULDER (ERRATIC): HIGH LEGH]

When, in the course of time, the red sandstone formed the dry land of
Cheshire, it became covered by a great ice-sheet which extended over
Britain even as far south as the Thames valley. Beneath this covering of
ice the rocks were crushed and ground to atoms by the movement of the
ice-sheet over them. This formed beds of a substance called
boulder-clay, containing lumps of rock which must have been brought by
the ice great distances, for they are of a kind found only in the north
of England or in Scotland. Some of these 'boulders' are of great size.
Several have been placed in Vernon Park, Stockport, and in the West
Park, Macclesfield, you may see one that was dug up in the neighbourhood
of the town. It weighs about thirty tons. On Eddisbury Hill is a mass of
rock, ten feet long, of a kind found only on Skiddaw in the Lake
District, and in the narrow lane behind the 'Wizard' Inn on Alderley
Edge is a lump of granite from Eskdale, so that these rocks have been
brought by the ice a distance of a hundred miles. Such blocks and
boulders are called 'erratics', because they have wandered so far from
their original home. Another proof of the existence of the ice-sheet may
be seen in the scratchings and marks (called 'striae') on pebbles and
rocks found in these beds. In the lane outside the church at High Legh
are a number of large boulders which still show the lines of furrows and
scratchings made on their surface by the movement of the ice over them.

The boulder-clay has been worn away by the action of water and weather
from a great part of Cheshire, but in the west of the county large
patches may be seen in the low-lying districts. You may observe the beds
most clearly in the cliffs of boulder-clay on the estuary of the Dee
between Heswall and West Kirby. In the neighbourhood of Chester, many of
the villages--Tarvin, Christleton, Aldford, Saighton, and Barrow, for
instance--are built on sandstone knolls and ridges which stick up
through the boulder-clay, for the sandstone is drier and healthier than
the clay to live upon, and the wells, especially those in the Bunter
beds, provide the purest water.

As the ice-sheet melted and the glaciers or ice-rivers retreated
northwards when the climate became warmer, beds of sand, gravel, and
stones were spread over the Cheshire plain. These are called drift beds.
The stones and pebbles are rounded by the streams of melted ice and
snow which flowed from the mouths of the ice-rivers. Upon the beds of
drift lies the surface soil in which grow the crops and grass, the
herbage and the woods of to-day; and it is in the drift, as you will see
in a later chapter, that traces of the earliest inhabitants of Cheshire
are to be found.




CHAPTER III

THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE (_cont._). II

THE OLDER ROCKS


Let us now visit some quarries in East Cheshire. We shall find
considerable difficulty in reaching some of them. It will be necessary
to get permission from the owners of the quarries, put on a special suit
of clothes, enter an iron cage, and descend many hundred feet perhaps
into the depths of the earth's surface until we find ourselves--in a
coal-mine!

  [Illustration: SECTION OF ROCKS FROM KNUTSFORD TO BUXTON]

Unlike the New Red Sandstones, which are found for the most part in flat
horizontal beds, the coal beds slope downwards from east to west. This
is due to the uplifting of the East Cheshire hills, which we shall
presently explain. When this uplift took place, the coal beds, which
were originally flat, became raised in the east and equally lowered in
the west. When the sea flowed over them they became covered by sandy
deposits of such a thickness that in the greater part of Cheshire the
coal cannot be reached. The earliest sands laid down formed what are
called the Permian rocks, and the later layers the New Red Sandstone
series mentioned in the last chapter. The Permian rocks may be well seen
at Stockport, in the river beds of the Tame and the Goyt which have cut
their way through them. In the strip of country between Stockport and
Macclesfield, and again on the south-eastern borders of Cheshire, the
upturned edges of the coal beds have been left exposed so that the coal
is near the surface and can be easily extracted.

Coal consists of the vegetable remains of forest trees and their
undergrowth. If you look at a lump of coal you will see that it has been
pressed down into thin layers like the leaves of a book. When these
layers are split apart there are often found the fossil remains of
leaves and roots of trees, fronds of ferns, seed-cones and stems of
plants which grew in the forests. Some of these, particularly the ferns,
are often of great beauty. You may see a number of these 'coal pictures'
in the Vernon Park Museum at Stockport. Here too you will find portions
of the actual trunks of trees that have been dug up just where they
stood when the seas flowed over them.

You may learn even to distinguish different varieties of these forest
trees, just as you are able to distinguish the oak and the beech and the
elm of to-day. Latin names such as Sigillaria, Lepidodendron, and
Salisburia have been given to them. The most beautiful of all is a
Maidenhair Tree-fern. The Calamites was a huge 'Horse-tail' plant of
which you may find small varieties to-day on banks and in hedgerows.

On the coast of Wirral, between Meols and New Brighton, are the remains
of a forest which has only in very recent years been covered by the sea.
Boys who live in this neighbourhood may have heard their parents tell of
the stumps of tree-trunks sticking out through the sands when the tide
was low. This shows that the land is continually undergoing changes, at
one time being raised above the seas, at another time sinking beneath
the waves.

The beds or 'seams' of coal vary in thickness from a thin film to
several yards, and are separated from one another by layers of hard
clays and flagstones. From the flagstone beds are obtained the square
slabs with which the pavements of our towns and cities are laid. In many
of the quarries near the Cheshire coal-field you may watch the workmen
cutting and shaping these stones.

The beds of clays and seams of coal make up what are called the 'Coal
Measures'. These in their turn rest upon a foundation of hard rock,
harder than any we have yet examined, called Millstone Grit or
Gritstone. Boys who live in the hilly parts of East Cheshire are very
familiar with it, for very probably the houses in which they live and
the churches and chapels where they worship have been built of this
stone. It is composed of coarse sand and grit, and, like the red
sandstone, is a waterlaid deposit several thousand feet in thickness.
The Pennine Hills, on the borderland of Cheshire and Derbyshire, are
covered with Millstone Grit, which has been thrust upwards by the
crumpling and arching of the rocks beneath it.

Below the Gritstone are still older rocks of a different character
called the Limestone series. The uppermost beds contain layers of a
sandy substance called Yoredale sandstones. Mixed with them are layers
of shale, a dark bluish grey clay that crumbles into thin fragments when
crushed with the hand, and thin seams of limestone and, occasionally, of
coal. These are the oldest rocks that are found anywhere in Cheshire.
You may see them in the hills east of Macclesfield and Congleton and the
higher parts of Longdendale. Below these beds is a mass of Mountain
Limestone which has been forced upwards into an arch by tremendous
pressure of rocks from either side, and has lifted up the Gritstone
above to a height of nearly two thousand feet. In this way the
highlands of East Cheshire, and indeed the whole of the Pennine Chain,
have been formed. The Mountain Limestone, which consists almost entirely
of animal remains, especially shells and corals, extends right under the
highest hills of Cheshire, and comes to light in the cliffs of the
beautiful dales of Derbyshire. Only at one spot, a quarry near Astbury,
does it appear at the surface in Cheshire.

The Coal Measures, Millstone Grit, Yoredale sandstones, and Mountain
Limestone make up what geologists call the Carboniferous or Coal-bearing
series, so called because in England our chief supplies of coal are
obtained from this group of rocks.

But we should have to dig deeper even than the Mountain Limestone before
we could reach the original surface of the earth in Cheshire. Long ages
ago, ages so distant that not even the most learned men of science can
reckon them, our earth was a globe of fiery molten rock. As the surface
gradually cooled it became wrinkled, as a baked apple will when taken
from an oven. Water collected in the hollows into which fragments of
rock were washed down from the ridges, and thus the waters were raised
and formed into seas and lakes. But we shall not find any of these rocks
in Cheshire, though you may see them in great masses in the mountains of
Cumberland and Wales, where they have been forced upwards by the violent
movements always at work in the interior of the earth. It is of these
molten rocks that the mass of stone which was brought by the ice from
Cumberland and left on Eddisbury Hill is composed.




CHAPTER IV

EARLY INHABITANTS OF CHESHIRE


A few years ago some workmen digging on the high ground of Alderley Edge
came across a number of flint stones, which from their shape and the
marks of chipping upon them had clearly been fashioned by the hand of
man. Some of the flints were shaped like a knife blade with a sharp edge
on their entire length, and others of a more or less oval shape had a
keen edge on one of their curves. The former were the knives with which
the earliest men of Cheshire cut the flesh of animals for food; the
latter were the scrapers with which they removed the flesh from the
bones or from the hides that provided them with clothing.

Flints, however, are not naturally found in any of the Cheshire rocks;
they must be sought for in the districts where chalk hills abound.
Clearly therefore these men must have brought their tools and weapons
with them when they first came into Cheshire from the east or from the
south. Afterwards, no doubt, they bargained for them, giving skins and
furs in exchange.

Men first made their homes in Cheshire when the glaciers of the Great
Ice Age retreated northwards and the climate became more suitable for
human habitation. A flint arrow-head found during some excavations at
Clulow Cross near Wincle, tells us that men lived then by hunting,
depending for their food on the flesh of wild beasts. They lived in
caves or in holes dug in the ground. The roughly-chipped stone axe in
the Grosvenor Museum was made by these men.

The Flint men, or men of the Old Stone Age, probably came originally
from the mainland of Europe to which Britain at that time was joined,
the North Sea and English Channel being then dry land. The reindeer,
the mammoth, the wild ox, and packs of hungry wolves and hyenas roamed
over Cheshire in those days.

These Flint men were succeeded by other races of New Stone men who found
that they could manufacture their necessary tools out of the boulders
embedded in the drift and boulder-clay. The men who dug up the knives
and scrapers of Alderley found near Mottram Common a heap of small
boulders carefully placed in a pit dug in the ground and clearly
selected for some useful purpose. For out of these stones were to be cut
and shaped stone hammer-heads with which they learned to crush copper
ore and axe-heads to cut down trees. Some of the hammer-heads themselves
have been found in this locality, and they are made of a stone similar
to that of the unbroken boulders. The stone 'celt' or axe-head in Vernon
Park Museum shows that they were improving in their skill and
workmanship, for their tools were no longer chipped into their required
shape but ground with hard mill-stones and afterwards smoothed and
polished. Afterwards, as you may see from the specimen in the Grosvenor
Museum, which has a hole cut through it, the New Stone men learned how
to fit handles to their axe-heads.

In the course of time these primitive dwellers learned to tame and train
animals for their service and use. They were protected from attack by
wild beasts by circles of piled stones or raised earth covered with
turf. Traces of these circles have in recent years been found at
Alderley Edge, but they have been mostly levelled for agricultural
purposes.

They also taught themselves the art of pottery, making rough jars and
urns of sun-dried clay and sand, jars wherein to store their water, and
urns in which to place the remains of their dead. One of these urns, dug
up at Stretton, may be seen in the Warrington Museum.

The Stone men were succeeded by tribes of an entirely different race
called Celts. The Celts drove out the earlier inhabitants from their
Cheshire homes, compelling them to seek refuge in Wales and Ireland.
They came not all at once but in successive waves, the earliest arrivals
being the Goidelic or Gaelic Celts, who in their turn were ousted by
the Brythonic Celts, from whom the name of Briton is derived. These are
the ancestors of the Welsh nation.

The Brythons, or Britons as we may now call them, were a more
intelligent and civilized race than any that had hitherto dwelt in the
land. They were a pastoral people, and brought with them great herds of
cattle, as well as horses and dogs. They could spin and sew, making
their spindles and needles of bone or horn, and grew corn, which they
ground with hand-mills.

But the Britons must have been continually fighting against fresh
incoming tribes, for on some of the hill-tops of Cheshire you may see
the camps and earthworks which they made for their defence and refuge in
time of war. Suitable positions were chosen, with one side guarded by
precipitous cliffs if possible, the whole being enclosed except on the
steep side by a raised rampart of earth and a ditch. These earthworks
are circular or oval with gaps on either side for entrances. At Bucton
Castle, high above Mossley and the Tame Valley, at Kelsborrow Castle in
Delamere Forest, and Maiden Castle in the Broxton Hills, British
encampments may still be seen.

The Britons were very particular about the burial of their dead. Over
the graves of their chiefs they erected great round 'barrows'. Many of
these barrows, or, to give them their Latin name, 'tumuli,' may be seen
to-day, and several of them have been opened and examined. In a field
near Oakmere, not far from the high-road that passes through Delamere
Forest, is a cluster of barrows called the 'Seven Lows' which clearly
mark an early settlement of considerable importance. They vary in size
from fifteen to thirty yards in diameter. One of them, when opened, was
found to contain an urn with charred human remains within it. The urn
was inverted, the better to support the weight of soil above it, and was
set in the middle of a floored space over which was a thin layer of
charcoal. This seems to show that a funeral pyre was erected on which
the body was first burnt, the remains being then gathered and placed in
the urn. The barrow was erected over the urn by piling stones and
covering them with soil and turf. Burial urns have been found at Castle
Hill Cob and Glead Hill Cob in Delamere Forest, and at Twemlow where
there is a group of five tumuli.

In the hilly district of East Cheshire, where rocks are plentiful, the
burial grounds were marked by circles of upright stones. There are some
remains of such circles on the moorland near Clulow Cross. Among the
burnt bones in a barrow at this spot were found a flint[1] knife and
arrow-head, for it was believed that the dead man would require his
tools and weapons after death just as in his lifetime. For the same
reason often the wives and slaves of a chief were sacrificed or cremated
at his death to serve and wait upon him in another world. The barrows
were also used by the tribes as a place of assembly for their religious
rites, when prayers and human victims were offered to their gods and to
the spirits of their dead leaders, who, as they believed, would continue
to watch over them and help them in battle.

  [1] Flint weapons no doubt continued to be used, especially in
  remote and hilly districts, even after the arrival of the Celts.

The Brythonic Celts came to Britain between 1,000 B.C. and 500 B.C., and
were acquainted with the use and manufacture of bronze implements. Hence
the period during which they arrived and lived in Britain is called the
Bronze Age. The bronze 'celt' in the Grosvenor Museum was found in the
camp at Kelsborrow, and when the railway was cut at Wilmslow an urn
containing bones and a bronze dagger was dug up. The urn and dagger are
now in the museum at Peel Park, Salford.

The river valleys and the lowlands of Cheshire were in those days swampy
and unhealthy, so the Britons lived as much as possible in the higher
parts, which were also more suitable for agricultural pursuits. On the
crests or slopes of hills were tracks or ridgeways for pack-horses,
leading from one settlement to another. On Werneth Low, Eddisbury Hill,
and Alderley Edge, these ancient ridgeways may still be traced. When men
went down to the rivers to fish they carried on their backs light
coracles of plaited reeds covered with skin, such as the fishermen
still use on the Dee between Farndon and Bangor where the water is too
rapid or shallow for boats.

Roman writers have left us descriptions of the Britons who lived in the
centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ; from them we learn
that, although the British tribes were mainly occupied in fighting
against one another, a certain amount of trade was carried on with
travellers and merchants from other lands, and that they dwelt in
'towns' or collections of wattled huts surrounded by a stockade and
ditch. From the numerous fragments of British pottery that have been
unearthed in the neighbourhood of Chester, we gather that there was a
British town of considerable importance on the site of the later city,
and traders from the Mediterranean, who visited this country, may well
have moored their vessels in the tidal waters of the Dee.




CHAPTER V

THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE. I


In the previous chapters all that we know of Cheshire and its people has
been learned from unwritten records, 'stories in stones', and from such
scanty remains as have been brought to light by excavation and careful
examination of the soil. From this time onwards our knowledge will be
much more extensive and sure, for we shall have _written_ records left
by men who lived in the times of which they wrote.

Fifty-four years before the birth of Christ the British inhabitants of
Cheshire must have heard of the landing on the southern shores of
Britain of the drilled and disciplined soldiers of one of the greatest
generals that ever lived. Julius Caesar, who first led the Roman eagles
into Britain, has given us in his 'Commentaries' a description of the
Britain of his day and of its inhabitants. Some of the fierce hill-men
of East Cheshire may possibly have fought against him, for he tells us
that the British tribes ceased making war on one another, and united
themselves under a single leader called Cassivellaunus to resist the
invaders. After a decisive victory--at least, according to his own
account--Caesar returned with his legions to the Continent, and ninety
years passed by before the Romans came again, this time to make a long
stay of nearly four hundred years.

About the year A.D. 50 the Roman axe might be heard hewing a road
through the dense forests which in those days almost surrounded the city
of Chester. A Roman governor, Ostorius Scapula, was busy in the
neighbouring county of Shropshire making war on the sturdy Welsh-Britons
of the borderland of Wales, and fortifying the city which he built under
the shadow of the Wrekin. From this point, slowly but surely, the Roman
soldiers made their way through forest and foe to Chester, or Deva as it
was then called. This was the chief town of a tribe called the Cornavii,
a pastoral people occupying the present county of Cheshire, except the
hilly districts of the north-east, where the Brigantes, a more warlike
tribe than the Cornavii, had their homes.

The Romans did not, however, capture Chester without a struggle. The
city was well protected on its western and southern sides by the river
Dee, whose waters spread over the Roodee right up to where the walls of
the city now stand. Only from the east could the place be attacked, and
the highest points of Delamere Forest and the Peckforton Hills are still
marked by the British encampments and earthworks where the Britons made
their last stand, and by green earth-mounds or 'tumuli' where the dead
bodies of their leaders were buried.

If you take up an Ordnance Map you will often find a length of road
running quite straight for some miles. Such roads will nearly always
prove to have been the work of the Romans, for the Romans made their
roads direct from point to point, like modern railways, their chief
object being to enable troops to march rapidly from one military station
to another. Two straight pieces of Roman road enter the city of Chester,
one on the south and the other on the east.

  [Illustration: ROMAN ROADS IN CHESHIRE]

The Romans were skilful engineers and did their work very thoroughly,
clearing the forest land as they advanced, and draining marshes or
laying stone causeways across them. Bridges were built, though not every
bridge now called Roman was the work of the Romans. The 'Roman bridge'
near Marple was not built until many centuries after the last Romans had
left Cheshire, but it may well mark the spot where, according to
tradition, a Roman bridge had once stood.

More often, where the roads crossed rivers, fords were marked by stakes,
and the bed of the river carefully laid with stones. In the Museum at
Vernon Park is a paving-stone taken from the Mersey at Stockport where
probably the Roman road crossed the river. The Roman roads were paved
throughout, except where they were hewn out of the solid rock.

The road through Delamere Forest was part of the 'Watling Street' which
went in an almost straight line from Deva to Manchester, called by the
Romans Mancunium. Stretford is the place where the Roman 'street'
crossed the Mersey. The modern high-road from Chester to Manchester for
nearly its entire length keeps very close to the line of the ancient
Watling Street, only departing from the older road to avoid hills. At
such points the straight track of the Roman road can still be traced in
the fields and woodland. Often in the neighbourhood of Tarvin and
Kelsall has the pickaxe or the spade of the labourer struck against the
Roman paving-stones.

When an excavation was made at Organsdale, midway between the villages
of Kelsall and Delamere, a portion of the Roman Watling Street, cut in
the solid sandstone, was discovered, still showing the wheel-ruts worn
on the surface by Roman and British carts. In other parts of the forest,
when the crops are in, you may see lines of raised earth and gravel
where the ancient road was laid along an embankment.

At Northwich, which the Romans called Salinae or the 'saltworks', a
second road, which entered Cheshire at Wilderspool near Warrington,
crossed Watling Street at right angles and ran in a perfectly straight
line to Middlewich or 'Condate'. This road was called by the Saxons Kind
or King Street, and was continued southwards to Nantwich.

  [Illustration: TOMBSTONE TO CAECILIUS AVITUS (GROSVENOR MUSEUM)]

The Grosvenor Museum at Chester contains a large collection of stones
with figures and inscriptions carved upon them, and other objects from
which we may learn a great deal about the Roman conquerors. The
inscriptions, which are of course in Latin, the language of the Romans,
show that Chester was an important garrison town, and the head-quarters
of the Twentieth Legion. A legion, or division, of the Roman army
contained about five thousand men.

A number of these relics are tombstones of the legionary soldiers who
were stationed here. You may distinguish them by the opening words DIS
MANIBUS, or shortly D.M., which practically means in English, 'To the
memory of.' The inscriptions then give the name of the soldier and his
native place, his age, and the name of the 'century' or company to which
he belonged. Women accompanied the legion, as you may see from a
tombstone of a centurion and his wife. Another stone of which a picture
is given, shows the ordinary dress, the tunic and belt of a Roman
soldier. In most of the inscriptions on these stones are the letters VV,
which are the initials of the words 'Valeria Victrix', the victorious
Valerian, by which name the Twentieth Legion was known. The badge of the
legion was a boar, and this also appears on many of the stones and tiles
of the buildings put up by the soldiers of this legion.

These tombstones were discovered in the year 1883 inside the base of the
north wall of the city of Chester while the wall was being repaired. It
is probable therefore that there had been a cemetery outside the city
wall at this point, from which the stones were taken during its
construction.

The bodies of the Romans were burnt after death, and the ashes placed in
urns of earthenware not unlike those of the Britons. Roman burial urns
have been discovered on Winnington Hill near Northwich and at Boughton.
You may see them in the Chester Museum.

Here also are a number of Roman altars dedicated, as their inscriptions
show, to the Roman gods Jupiter, Mars, Minerva, &c. On one of them you
can easily make out the words DEO MARTI CONSERV, which mean 'To the god
Mars the Preserver'. The lower portion, which has been broken off,
contained the name of the soldier who dedicated it. Another altar is
dedicated to the 'Genius', or guardian spirit, of the century. On the
sides of the altars are rough carvings of the axe and the knife, the jug
and the dish, used in sacrificial ceremonies.

  [Illustration: ALTAR: GENIO (GROSVENOR MUSEUM)]

A third group of stones are called centurial stones. These, like our
modern foundation or memorial stones, were built into a portion of wall
or building and gave the name of the 'century' of soldiers by whom the
work was constructed.

At first the Romans were hard taskmasters. Heavy tribute was demanded
from the conquered Britons, who complained loudly of the miseries of
bondage, and of the insults and injuries put upon them. Gangs of British
slaves were forced to work in cornfield and quarry under the whips of
their Roman rulers, or compelled to fight with one another or with wild
beasts 'to make a Roman holiday'. Rebellions were frequent, and were put
down by the Roman officers with great cruelty; and for many years it
was only the superior arms and military science of the Roman legions
that made it possible to keep in subjection a discontented people.




CHAPTER VI

THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE. II

A piece of leaden water-piping discovered in Eastgate Street, Chester,
bears the name of Julius Agricola. Agricola was made Governor of Britain
in A.D. 78. Tacitus, a Roman historian, who married Agricola's daughter,
wrote a life of his father-in-law and a narrative of his work in
Britain. From his writings we learn that Agricola first turned his
attention to the fierce tribe of the Brigantes who inhabited the hilly
districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and North-East Cheshire.

Agricola made the preparations for his expedition at Chester, which
became his head-quarters, and built the fortified outposts of Mancunium
on the Irwell and Melandra on the Derbyshire bank of the River Etherow,
connecting them with one another with new roads. Both Mancunium and
Melandra have been excavated in recent years, and at the latter you may
see the foundations of portions of the wall laid bare, and the base of
one of the principal gateways leading into the fort.

A Roman camp was usually square, with the corners slightly rounded, as
has been proved by the excavations at Melandra and by the piece of Roman
wall lately discovered at Chester, which shows a distinct curve towards
the Pepper Gate. Roads crossed the camp at right angles. The wall or
'vallum' was protected when necessary by a fosse or ditch, but Agricola
chose his positions with such care that one side at least was usually
already guarded by the waters of some stream. Watch-towers were placed
at the corners and on either side of the gateways.

Chester still preserves the shape and plan of the Roman fortress. Its
four main streets, which are hewn out of the sandstone on which the
city is built, cross each other at right angles. The Welsh called it
Caer Lleon or Lleon Vawr--the 'Camp of the Legion'. The present walls
are not, however, the work of the Romans, though here and there they
have been proved to have been built on the foundations of the Roman
walls. The lowest courses of the North Wall near the Deanery Field, when
excavated, were found to be faced with massive stones of Roman masonry,
with a Roman 'plinth' running along the base. The stones fit very
closely together and no mortar was used. The inside of the wall was
filled with rubble.

From time to time portions of Roman wall have been found in other parts
of the city. One big piece is in the cellars of Dickson's seed
warehouse. When the foundations of the offices of the National Telephone
Company in John Street were being excavated a year or two ago, a fine
piece of Roman wall was unearthed. The builders have left it standing
where they found it, and you may now see it in the basement of the
building, protected from future harm by an iron grid.

On the Roodee is a portion of Roman masonry of finely jointed stones
which is thought to have been the quay of the Roman city.

In the middle of a Roman fortress was the Praetorium or general's
quarters. Traces of such a building are to be seen in the camp at
Melandra, and at Chester the foundations of a large edifice discovered
in Northgate Street may possibly be a portion of a similar building.

Inscriptions show us that another legion, called the Legio Secunda, was
stationed at Chester for several years. When Britain was more or less
pacified and required fewer troops this legion was recalled and sent to
the Roman provinces on the Danube.

Tacitus tells us that Agricola spread civilization among the Britons,
sent the sons of chieftains to Rome to be educated, and even in time
taught the Britons to adopt Roman habits and dress and to speak the
Latin tongue. But he would not at first let them join the Roman legions
in Britain; those who wished to fight for the Roman emperors were sent
abroad to the Roman provinces on the Rhine or the Danube.

The soldiers of subject races were not for many years after their
conquest allowed by the Romans to fight in their own country. The
tombstones mentioned in the previous chapter prove this, for not one of
them bears the name of any British soldier. A bronze tablet dug up at
Malpas, on which is engraved a decree of the Emperor Trajan, shows that
the soldiers who fought in the Roman army in Britain were not all
Romans, or even Italians, for it speaks of Thracians, Dalmatians,
Spaniards, and men of other nations conquered by Rome.

For seven years Agricola was a wise and a humane ruler. He removed many
of the burdens put upon the Britons by previous governors, and it was
chiefly due to him that the Romans were able to make their rule
acceptable to the Britons. In time Britons became proud of the name of
Roman citizens.

We have seen from the character of the remains that Chester was
peculiarly a military city. Thus it differed greatly from many of the
Roman cities of southern Britain, which lost their military character as
the tide of war rolled northwards and westwards. These cities soon
became busy centres of trade and civic life, with all the conveniences
and luxuries of Italian towns. They had their temples and their basilica
or town hall, theatres and public baths, palaces and colonnades of
shops, and handsome villas of Roman officials. But life at Chester, with
the continual arrival and departure of troops and stores, must have been
hard and monotonous, with the din of warfare probably never far distant.
The Welsh were never really subdued by the Romans.

Yet even at Chester there were buildings of importance, as we can see
from the broken fragments of pillars in the little garden by the Water
Tower, and in the basements of Vernon's Toy Bazaar and other shops in
Chester.

These pillars were made to support the porches and colonnades with which
the fronts and sometimes the sides also of Roman buildings were adorned.
No doubt you have noticed them in pictures you have seen of ancient
Rome. In a later chapter you will learn that the Englishmen of the
eighteenth century copied the Roman or Italian style of architecture in
their churches, town halls, and other public buildings, and from the
buildings then made you can get some idea of those of a Roman town.

The pillars were of three different patterns or 'orders', and by
observing carefully their differences you will be able to tell at a
glance to which particular order a modern building belongs. The capitals
of the Doric and Ionic pillars are much simpler in design than those of
the Corinthian, which were often of a very ornamental nature.

  [Illustration: ROMAN CAPITALS: DORIC, IONIC, AND CORINTHIAN]

The Romans felt the cold and damp of the British climate, so different
from that of their own warm and sunny land. Many of their houses and
public buildings were warmed by 'hypocausts' or heating chambers, and
every city had its public baths with rooms heated by hot air. In Bridge
Street is a hypocaust remaining just where the Romans left it. The
pillars which you see in the illustration are those of another hypocaust
found many years ago in Bridge Street.

The pillars were set up in rows on a solid foundation, being fixed in
their places by cement. On the top of these a second floor of cement and
bricks, several inches thick, was laid. The space between the two floors
was heated by hot air, introduced through an opening in the side wall
communicating with a furnace or oven. In their own country the bath was
an important event in the everyday life of the Romans.

  [Illustration: REMAINS OF HYPOCAUST, CHESTER]

The floors of Roman buildings were paved with tiny blocks of brick
called 'tesserae', three to four inches long and one inch wide. A piece
of flooring in the Grosvenor Museum shows that the bricks were laid on a
bed of cement or concrete in 'herring-bone' pattern, that is, with the
bricks at right angles to one another. A large number of tiles used in
roofing have been found all over the city; on many of these you will
see the stamp LEG XX VV of the Twentieth Legion. There was a tile
factory at Holt on the Dee where also many of these tiles bearing the
same stamp have recently been found.

The Romans taught the Britons many useful trades. 'Veratinum' or
Wilderspool became under the Romans quite a busy manufacturing town, the
forerunner of a modern Warrington or Wigan. The site of the ancient
Roman town has been carefully dug over. Traces have been found of many
pits, hearths, furnaces, and ovens for the manufacture of glass and
pottery, a bronze foundry, and an iron smelting furnace, and an
enameller's workshop. In the museums at Warrington and at Stockport are
many fragments of pottery found here. Most of it is of a rough brown-red
ware, called 'rough-cast', of which the commoner utensils, water-jugs
and bowls and funeral urns, were made. A more ornamental kind is called
'Samian', and is of a darker colour, highly glazed and decorated with
embossed figures of men and animals. Many articles of iron, knives,
padlocks, keys, nails, found on the same spot show that Veratinum was
the Birmingham of the Roman occupation.

Roman coins have been dug up in large numbers at Chester and other sites
along the Roman roads. Many of them are to be seen in Chester Town Hall
and in our museums. Nearly all the emperors of the first four centuries
are represented upon them. Several emperors came to Britain, and we may
be sure that in their tours of inspection they paid visits to the
important garrison city of the 'great legion'.

Some of these coins bear the name of Constantine, the first Christian
emperor, who was born at York, and whose mother was perhaps a lady of
British birth. There is unfortunately nothing to show that there was any
Christian church in Roman Cheshire, though many of the Roman soldiers
must have been familiar with the Christian faith. Romans who became
Christians were allowed to worship in the basilica, which in after days,
as we shall see, became the model upon which Christian churches were
built.

On a house near the East Gate of Chester are carved these words: 'The
fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.' This is the translation of an
inscription on a Roman coin found when the workmen were digging the
foundations of the building. The coins of the Emperor Magnentius show
the monogram of the first two letters of Christ.

The Roman rule lasted for 370 years. During this period they had
transformed a desolate and barren land, inhabited by a people that were
almost savages, into a fertile and prosperous province; Britannia Felix
the Romans themselves called it. Large tracts of forest land were
cleared and brought under cultivation. Britain became one of the chief
granaries of Rome. In the museums you may see the Roman querns or
handmills with which they ground their corn.

The Romans worked the copper mines on Alderley Edge; stone hammer-heads
with which the Britons crushed the ore for their Roman masters have been
found there. A 'pig' of lead weighing over a hundredweight, dug up in
the Roodee, shows that lead mines were extensively worked. The lead was
brought to Chester from the mines of Denbighshire and was part of the
tribute paid by the Britons to the Roman emperors. Salt, a scarce
commodity in many countries, was obtained, as at the present day, from
the salt beds of Northwich.

At the end of the fourth century the Roman empire was overrun by hordes
of barbarians from Northern Europe. The Romans, weakened by luxury and
wealth, were unable to beat back the ruthless invaders. Legion after
legion was summoned from the distant parts of the empire for the defence
of the imperial city itself. About the year A.D. 380 the 'Conquering
Legion' marched out for the last time through the city gates of Chester,
and by 410 no Roman soldiers were left in Britain.

With sorrow and despair the Britons watched the last soldiers depart.
Their own fighting-men were far away in distant lands, and they knew
that without the protection of the Roman legions on whom they had so
long relied, they were left a defenceless prey of the foes that were
threatening them on all sides.




CHAPTER VII

SAXONS AND ANGLES COME TO CHESHIRE


As the Romans retreated southwards, tribes of Picts, a fierce race
inhabiting the northern parts of Britain followed in their wake
plundering and destroying the cities built by the Romans, and everywhere
falling upon the defenceless Britons. We know little of the doings of
this terrible time, for with the departure of the Romans there descended
upon Britain a veil of darkness that was not to be lifted for 150 years.

In the latter part of the fifth century the tide of Pictish invasion was
rolled back by other races who landed on our southern and eastern
coasts. These were the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, the rude forefathers
of the English people, who left their homes in Northern Germany to make
new settlements and found kingdoms in our country. You will read
elsewhere of the long and gradual conquest of England by these barbarian
invaders. 'Field by field, town by town, forest by forest, the land was
won' from the British inhabitants.

According to the story usually told, though I am obliged to admit that
we have very strong evidence for it, it was not until the year 584 A.D.
that any of them reached the part of the country that is now Cheshire.
By that time the West Saxons, one of the most powerful of these tribes,
had fought their way from the English Channel to the River Severn and
Shropshire, where they destroyed the great Roman city of Uriconium.
Under their leader Ceawlin they appear to have made an attempt to reach
Chester, but were met near Nantwich at a spot called Fethanleagh, now
probably the modern village of Faddiley, by Brocmael, Prince of Powys or
mid-Wales. The Saxons were routed and retired quickly to the South.
Chester was saved for a time and became the capital of the Welsh kingdom
of Gwynedd.

Thirty years later, however, a greater than Ceawlin appeared before the
walls of the Roman city. The Angles, who had founded on our
north-eastern shores the powerful kingdom of Northumbria, crossed the
Pennine Hills under their leader and king Aethelfrith, and descended
upon Cheshire. Once more Brocmael put himself at the head of the Britons
and Welsh. We are told by Bede, the earliest of our English historians,
who wrote in the succeeding century, that 1,200 monks from a great
monastery at Bangor-Iscoed on the Dee accompanied Brocmael after a fast
of three days to the battlefield to offer up prayers for victory.
Aethelfrith watched the wild gestures of the monks and bade his
followers slay them first of all. 'Bear they arms or no,' he said, 'they
fight against us when they cry against us to their God.' Brocmael left
them to their fate and fled from the battle, which ended in the utter
defeat of the Britons.

The victory of Aethelfrith was followed by the capture of Chester, and
Cheshire became a portion of a kingdom that stretched from the Tweed to
the Dee. But the most important result of the 'Battle of Chester' was
that the northern Welsh Britons or 'Cumbrian' Welsh were now completely
cut off from their kinsmen in Wales. Everywhere the conquered Britons
were driven northwards and westwards to the mountains of Cumberland or
Wales, and the Britons as a united nation ceased to exist.

For forty years Cheshire was ruled by Northumbrian kings, but during the
latter part of this period another kingdom was gathering strength in the
Midlands of England. This was the kingdom of Mercia or the Marchland.
The Mercian Penda defeated the Northumbrian king and added Cheshire to
the lands over which he ruled. Mercia and Cheshire were frequently
raided by the Welsh, and it was to keep them out that Offa, greatest of
the Mercian kings, built his famous 'Dyke' from Chester to South Wales,
many portions of which you may trace to this day.

Mercia in turn was conquered by the kings of Wessex, one of whom,
Ecberght, is usually styled the first king of all England. Ecberght and
his West Saxons overran Cheshire and captured the city of Chester in
the year 828. Thus did three kingdoms strive for the possession of
Cheshire, which from its central position must have been the scene of
many an unrecorded fight.

Numbers of Cheshire villages show by their names their Anglo-Saxon
origin. Davenham, Frodsham, and Warmingham speak to us of the 'hams' or
homesteads that the Saxons made for themselves in their newly won lands.
Bebington, Bollington, and Congleton take their names from the 'tun',
the enclosure or hedge of a farm or village; Prestbury, Marbury, and
Astbury from the 'burh' or fortified house of the headman of a tribe.

  [Illustration: RUNIC STONE, UPTON]

Goostree is perhaps the 'God's tree' where the land was parcelled out
among the villagers and punishment meted to wrong-doers; Thurstaston, or
the tun of Thor's stone, the place of sacrifice to their heathen god
Thor.

The ash tree gives its name to several Cheshire villages, Ashton,
Ashley, Astbury, for instance. This fact tells us that the tree was held
in great veneration by the Angles and Saxons. Even to this day the tree
is thought to possess the power of bringing good or evil. A
superstitious Cheshire labourer will not, if he can help it, cut down an
ash tree for fear it should bring him misfortune, and churn staves made
of ash are used by farmers' wives to prevent the butter from being
bewitched.

It is in fact from the Angles and Saxons that we have inherited the
priceless possession of our English tongue. The oldest traces of our
language in a written form in Cheshire may be seen in the Grosvenor
Museum at Chester. Here on a plaster cast is an inscription written in
strange letters, 'Runes' or 'mysteries' as they are called. This cast is
a copy of an inscribed stone discovered at Upton-in-Wirral when the old
church was pulled down. The stones of this building had previously been
taken from the ancient ruined church at Overchurch. Learned scholars
examined the stone carefully and made out these words: FOLCAE AREARDON
BEC[UN]. [GI]BIDDATH FOR ATHELMUND. The meaning is 'Folk reared tomb,
bid (i.e. pray) for Athelmund'. You can see that the words are English,
though their form has changed considerably during the 1,200 years or
more that have gone by since the runes were carved.

Fierce and bloodthirsty were these early ancestors of ours, 'hateful
alike to God and men,' as Gildas, a Welsh monk, described them. Yet even
they were taught in time to abandon their strange gods and turn to the
worship of Christ, and through the land in town and village uprose a
cross of wood or stone, the outward symbol of a new and better faith.




CHAPTER VIII

THE CROSS IN CHESHIRE


During the latter years of the Roman occupation there must have been
many among the Roman soldiers stationed in Cheshire who had heard the
message of the Gospel, and, following the example of their emperors,
professed the faith of Christ. But, as we have before stated, there is
no proof that a Christian church existed in Cheshire in those days,
though tradition says that where the cathedral church of Chester now
stands there was a church dedicated to S. Peter and S. Paul, which had
previously been a temple of Apollo.

In Wales and Ireland the Church flourished greatly through the troublous
period of the Anglo-Saxon invasions. We are told that Kentigern, the
first bishop of Glasgow, on his return to Wales landed in Wirral and
founded a church there. In the previous chapter we have seen that at
Bangor-Iscoed on the Dee there was a monastery of great importance,
which after the victory of Aethelfrith of Northumbria was razed to the
ground.

Yet it was from Northumbria that Christianity was destined to be brought
and preached to the Angles and Saxons of Cheshire. Oswald, the son of
the heathen Aethelfrith, had during his exile in Scotland been converted
by Celtic missionaries. During the reign of this 'most Christian king, a
man dearly beloved of God, and fenced with the faith of Christ',
missionaries from Scotland 'began with great and fervent devotion to
preach the word of faith to those provinces which King Oswald governed,
baptising all such as believed. Therefore churches were builded in
places convenient: the people rejoicing assembled together to hear the
word of God,' The ancient churches dedicated to S. Oswald at Chester,
Malpas, Brereton, Peover, Bidston, and Worleston, are proof of the great
part played by King Oswald in the conversion of Cheshire and of the
high repute in which he was held as a champion of Christianity.

The tiny hamlet of Chadkirk near Marple suggests to us a famous
missionary who lived at a time when Cheshire had become part of the
kingdom of Mercia. This was Ceadda or Chad, who was sent by the Irish
saint Colomba to preach the gospel to the people of Mercia, and became
in later times the patron saint of the bishopric of Mercia, founded by
King Offa. Chad, who like Oswald had received Christianity from the
Celtic missionaries of North Britain, continued the good work of the
Northumbrian missionaries. At the village of Over were formerly two
stone crosses which may well mark the spots where Chad preached to the
Saxons of Cheshire, baptizing the converts in the river Weaver that
flows hard by. The old church of Over is dedicated to him, as are also
the churches of Farndon and Wybunbury. It is worthy of note that all the
Cheshire churches named after him were built on the banks of streams,
which leads us to suppose that S. Chad, like S. John the Baptist by the
banks of Jordan, chose places where his preaching might be immediately
followed by the ceremony of baptism.

At Sandbach are two stone crosses which are thought to be closely
connected with the conversion of Cheshire. The story goes that Peada,
son of Penda the heathen king of Mercia, wished to marry the Christian
daughter of Oswiu of Northumbria. To win the maiden the young man
consented to forsake his old religion and become a Christian; whereupon
the crosses were set up to commemorate his conversion and marriage.

If you look carefully at the Sandbach crosses you will see that the
Angles of Mercia had reached a very high level of art in sculptured
stones. Carved upon them are several scenes in the life of our Lord, the
Nativity in the stable at Bethlehem with the ox and the ass kneeling
before the infant Christ, the Crucifixion with S. Mary and Apostles
below, Christ carrying the Cross, and Christ in glory with S. Peter on
His right hand bearing the keys of heaven.

Few crosses were, however, carved so elaborately as these Sandbach
crosses. The majority were doubtless of wood, set up in the middle of
the open space round which clustered the huts and wattled dwellings of
the inhabitants. Others consisted of a plain stone shaft set upright in
the ground or on a base of stone steps, sometimes rudely adorned with
scroll-work such as you may see on the fragments of a cross preserved in
the churchyard of Prestbury. Most of them have perished, broken into
fragments where they fell, or have been used for repairs to damaged
buildings. Many were wantonly destroyed in the seventeenth century
during the Civil War.

  [Illustration: ANGLIAN CROSSES AT SANDBACH]

Crosses were set up by the wayside at the junction of important highways
or in towns at the crossing of the principal streets, as at Chester.
Here in the open air the monks would gather round them bands of
listeners, and preach the Word of God. Afterwards close to the cross was
erected an edifice of wood or wattles in which the services of the
Church were held, and in still later times these wooden churches would
be replaced by stone buildings. Nowhere, however, in Cheshire are there
any churches or even portions of churches remaining which can be said to
have been built by our early Saxon forefathers.

The church of S. John's, Chester, is said to have been founded by King
Aethelred of Mercia in the year 689. An ancient legend states that
Aethelred 'was admonished to erect a church on the spot where he should
find a white hind'. In the church you may see fragments of an ancient
wall-painting or 'fresco' on one of the pillars of the nave which
illustrates this story. A church certainly did exist here in very early
times, for we read that in later days Leofric, Earl of Mercia,
_repaired_ and enriched the church of S. John's, which may mean that the
earlier wooden church had fallen into decay, and a more substantial
building of stone was erected in its place.

The house of the Mercian Penda produced yet another name closely
connected with the story of the Cross in Cheshire. Werburga, a
great-granddaughter of Penda, succeeded her mother as head of several
great abbeys. She died at Trentham in Staffordshire towards the end of
the seventh century, and two hundred years later, when the Danes (of
whom you will read more in the next chapter) were harrying the land, her
body was removed to Chester for safe keeping, and placed in the church
of S. Peter and S. Paul which had been re-dedicated to S. Werburga and
S. Oswald. For many centuries crowds of devout pilgrims made their way
to Chester to offer prayers and gifts at S. Werburga's shrine.




CHAPTER IX

THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN


With the capture of Chester (Chap. VII) Ecberght's conquest of Mercia
was complete. Northumbria, Kent, and East Anglia also submitted to him.
But neither Ecberght nor the kings that came after him were to be
allowed to enjoy the blessings of peace, for a new and terrible enemy
now appeared on our shores.

In the ninth century, the coasts of Britain were ravaged by the Northmen
or Vikings, those

                        Wild sea-wandering lords
  Who sailed in a snake-prowed galley with a terror of twenty swords.

The word Vikings or 'wickings' means creek-men, from a Scandinavian word
'wick', 'a creek'. These Scandinavian and Danish sea-pirates left their
homes in the bays and fiords of North-West Europe, and made raids upon
Britain and the neighbouring lands more at first from greed of plunder
than with any idea of conquest. Large numbers of Danes landed on our
eastern coasts and ravaged the midlands. Under their leader Hasting or
Hastein, they seized and occupied the city of Chester. We can imagine
the hasty flight of the monks, for the abbeys and churches were always
the first objects of attack by these heathen invaders. You will read
elsewhere how King Alfred finally saved the greater part of England
from the Danes and converted their leaders to Christianity.

The little village of Plemstall (or Plegmundstall), near Chester,
reminds us of Plegmund, a Saxon hermit, who took refuge here to escape
the Danes. Plegmund had been a friend and tutor of King Alfred. When
Alfred's work was done, and peace made with the Danes, he called
Plegmund from his lonely retreat in the marshes of the Gowy to be
Archbishop of Canterbury.

Meanwhile, the Scandinavians had sailed round the north and west coasts
of Scotland, plundering the rich monasteries that had been built by S.
Patrick and his followers, and making new homes for themselves in the
Isle of Man and in Ireland. Towards the end of the ninth century they
crossed into Wales and sailed up the Dee to the walls of Chester, drawn
thither perhaps by the report of the wealth of the great church that had
been built on the banks of the river. But they found only a deserted
city in ruins, and retired to the shores of Wirral, where they settled
and tilled the land, and devoted themselves to the more peaceful
pursuits of agriculture.

In the Wirral peninsula many of the names of the villages still show
their Scandinavian origin. Thus Shotwick means the south wick or creek.
This village stands at the edge of a strip of land that has been
recovered from the sea. In early times, boats could run along the creek
right up to the rising ground where now stands the village church.

An interesting name survives in the little hamlet of Thingwall, situated
almost in the centre of the Wirral. Thingwall is the field where the
'thing', that is the tribe, assembled to divide the land and to dispense
justice. You will recognize the same word in the town of Dingwall in the
North of Scotland, and at the present day 'thing' is the Norwegian and
Danish name for Parliament.

The ending '-by' in the villages Kirby, Irby, Raby, Frankby, and Helsby,
is the Danish name for a township, and we see the word in our modern
word 'by-laws', that is town laws. You will not find this ending in the
names of villages in any other parts of Cheshire.

  [Illustration: NORSE HOG-BACK, WEST KIRBY]

In the museum in the old school-house by the churchyard at West Kirby
you may see a stone, which, from its shape, antiquaries call a
'hog-back'. The hog-back was a tombstone or grave-slab that marked the
burial-place of some Scandinavian chief. The carved ornamentation as
well as its shape is like that of other similar stones that have been
found in the parts of Britain where the Northmen settled. The stone
gives you some idea of the homes from which these pirates came, for the
carved oval shapes represent little wooden tiles; and the interlaced
lines are the wattles or osiers of which their huts were made. The
heathen Scandinavian liked his place of burial to be as much like home
as possible, which may be taken as a proof that he did not think that
his soul would perish along with his body. In the same museum is another
stone with a head shaped like a wheel, which is also the work of the
Vikings.

We are, fortunately, able to tell almost the exact time at which the
settlements in the Wirral were made. We read in an old chronicle that in
the year 900 A.D. Alfred's daughter Ethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians,
granted lands in Wirral to one Ingimund who had been driven out of
Ireland. This lady, Ethelfleda, fortified Chester and rebuilt the walls
which had lain in ruins since the departure of the Romans. Perhaps
Ingimund and his followers had already become Christians during their
stay in Ireland. If they had not, we may be sure that Ethelfleda did as
her father had done in his treaty with the Danes, and insisted on their
becoming Christians in return for being allowed to settle in Cheshire.

It was in the reign of Alfred that many English counties or shires first
received their modern names. Cheshire or Chester-shire, like
Staffordshire and Warwickshire, took its name from the chief city or
fortress which dominated the district and protected it from the ravages
of the Danes.

Alfred also ordered an English history to be written, in which the chief
events of each year were recorded. This Old English Chronicle, as it is
called, was kept up in the reigns of the successors of Alfred, and is
the principal source of our knowledge of England under the Anglo-Saxon
kings.

The Chronicle tells us that, in order to prevent any fresh landing of
Danes, Ethelfleda built a castle or 'burh' at Runcorn at the head of the
estuary of the Mersey. The very site of her castle has now disappeared,
for 'Castle Rock', upon which it was built, was destroyed when the Ship
Canal was made.

Another fortress was erected by Ethelfleda on Eddisbury Hill, the
highest point of Delamere Forest, where, probably, there was a large
camp in British times. Her brother Edward, who succeeded Alfred as King
of England, also fortified Thelwall on the Mersey, as an inscription on
the gable of an inn at Thelwall tells us. For the next twenty years he
carried on a vigorous war against the Danes of the 'Five Boroughs',
Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, Stamford, and Lincoln. But in many parts
Saxon and Dane had already settled down side by side, the Danes
abandoned the worship of their heathen gods Odin and Thor, and received
the Gospel of Christ, and in the next century a Danish king was
destined to rule over all the land and to advance greatly the cause of
Christianity.

Edward's work was done when he received the homage of the chief kings of
Britain, and made the royal house of Wessex supreme. In the year 924, as
you may read in the English Chronicle, 'then chose him for father and
lord the King of Scots ... and all those who dwell in Northumbria
whether English or Danes, and also the King of the Strathclyde Welsh.'

Chester appears to have rapidly risen in importance, largely no doubt
owing to its central position, and to have become a great and populous
city. The walls were extended beyond the limits of the ancient Roman
city, and a new fortress built where the present 'Castle' of Chester now
stands, to guard the road over the river.

Henceforth, the city was kept in a state of defence by a custom which
bound every 'hide' in the shire to provide a man at the town-reeve's
call to keep its walls and bridge in repair. A considerable trade with
the seaports of Ireland followed, largely it is to be feared in
connexion with the slave traffic, and the city became a favourite resort
of the English kings. Coins were minted here in the reign of Athelstan.

Athelstan must often have been in Cheshire, for this favourite grandson
of King Alfred was brought up by the Lady of Mercia, and no doubt
learned from her the ways of a strong and wise ruler. When Athelstan
became king he was attacked by the King of the Scots and the Danes of
Ireland. A great battle was fought, perhaps on Cheshire soil, and the
English Chronicle breaks out into a wonderful song of victory.

          Athelstan King
          Lord among Earls,
          He with his brother,
          Gained a lifelong
          Glory in battle,
          Slew with the sword-edge,
          There by Brunanburh ...

          *   *   *   *   *

          Bow'd the spoiler,
          Bent the Scotsman,
          Fell the ship-crews
          Doom'd to the death.
  All the field with blood of the fighters
          Flow'd, from when first the great
          Sun-star of morningtide,
          Lamp of the Lord God
          Lord Everlasting
  Glode over earth till the glorious creature
          Sank to his setting.

Brunanburh has been thought by some writers of history to be the village
of Bromborough in Wirral. We cannot be sure of this, but some day
perhaps the land will give up its secret, when some labourer's spade
shall dig up the javelins and the war-knives of the defeated Northmen.

'Edgar's field' is supposed to mark the site of the palace of one of the
greatest of the Anglo-Saxon Kings of England. It is related that in the
year 973, Edgar the 'Peacewinner' visited Chester, and received there
the submission of many tributary kings. He assembled an imposing fleet
of ships on the Dee, and was rowed from his palace to the minster of S.
John's by six under-kings, the King of Scots, the King of Cumberland,
the King of Man, and three Welsh princes, he himself taking the helm as
being their head-king. 'Those who come after me', he said, 'may indeed
call themselves kings, since I have had such honour.'

Guided by his chief adviser, the good Archbishop Dunstan, Edgar also did
much to increase the power and influence of the Church. He gave a
charter in 958 to the church of S. Werburga, and endowed it richly with
lands. The English Chronicle thus speaks of him:

  He upreared God's glory
  and loved God's law
  and bettered the public peace
  more than the kings
  who were before him
  within man's memory.

  God also him helped
  that kings and earls
  gladly to him bowed
  and were submissive
  to all that he willed.

In Edgar's reign we first hear of the division of the shire into
'hundreds' for the trial and punishment of evildoers. Why this name was
chosen is not quite clear, but the Hundred probably denoted a collection
of a hundred homesteads or hamlets. The Hundred had its 'moot' or
assembly of freemen, held near some sacred spot or conspicuous landmark.
In Cheshire some of them, Bucklow for instance, took their names from
the ancient 'lows' or burial-places.

Early in the eleventh century fresh invasions of Danes took place, and
in 1016 Cnut Dane became King of England. Cheshire formed a portion of a
great earldom, embracing the whole of Mercia and governed by Earl
Leofric. Cnut, who during his reign visited Rome and had there learnt
much about church building, was a generous friend to the churches,
rebuilding those that had suffered in the wars and erecting many new
ones. The church of S. Olave or Olaf, in the south-eastern part of the
city of Chester, probably owes its foundation to him, for the name shows
that there was a Danish settlement in the city. The city itself was
governed at this time, like other Danish cities, by twelve 'lagmen' or
lawmen who presided over its law-courts.

Leofric, not to be outdone by his master Cnut, almost entirely rebuilt
the church of S. Werburga in 1057, and if we may judge from the
memorials of his work which he has left in other cities of his earldom,
much of the new church was probably built of stone. It is doubtful
whether he lived to see the completion of his work. In any case, before
many years had passed, the church was again enlarged on a still grander
scale and by a greater race of church builders than any that had gone
before them.




CHAPTER X

THE NORMANS COME TO CHESHIRE


In the early months of the year A.D. 1070 the Saxons of Cheshire fled
before the approach of an army of discontented and almost mutinous
troops who had cut their way through the deep snowdrifts of the Pennine
Hills. But neither the severity of the weather nor the hardships of the
march seemed to have any effect upon the stern and indomitable Norman
warrior at their head, who, like the Vikings whose blood flowed in his
veins, set an example of energy and endurance to his half-starved
fainting followers.

William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, had landed in England three and
a half years previously, and defeated the English King Harold at the
battle of Senlac. But the real 'conquest' was yet to come; and after
swift visits to the west and north of England William crossed the hills
that lay between York and Cheshire and made a dash upon Chester, the one
great city of free England that had not yet bowed to the might of the
Norman invader.

There were at this time in Chester many English, the wife of Harold
among them, who had fled thither after the defeat of Senlac, prepared on
William's approach to cross the seas to Ireland. In the next century
Gerald 'the Welshman' related the legend that Harold himself was not
killed at the battle of Senlac, but escaped, and, after many wanderings,
took refuge in a hermit's cell near the minster of S. John's, where he
remained until his death. The story was no doubt invented by those who
were unwilling to believe that an English king had been defeated by a
foreigner.

William captured the city and received the submission of Edric the
Forester and other Saxon leaders. Chester was put in charge of a Flemish
noble called Gherbod, who, however, in the following year returned to
his native land. Then, leaving a trail of fire and sword through
mid-Cheshire, William marched southwards to Salisbury Plain, where he
held a grand review of all his followers and distributed to them their
rewards. You will not see him again in Cheshire. No part of the country
ever needed a second visit from the 'Conqueror'.

The English who had borne arms against William were treated as rebels
and deprived of their lands and possessions, which were parcelled out
among the Normans. A parcel of land thus granted was called a manor. All
the landowners, including those English who were allowed to keep their
estates, were compelled to take the oath of fealty to King William in
person. In this way William broke up the great earldoms which had been
created by the Danish king Cnut.

Cheshire, however, in which the Saxon Earl Edwin, Harold's
brother-in-law, owned vast estates, was from the first treated in a very
special manner. Owing to its position on the border of Wales, William
saw that it was very necessary to place a strong military power in this
part of England to protect his newly-won kingdom from invasion from the
west. So he bestowed the county upon his own favourite nephew Hugh
d'Avranches, surnamed Lupus or 'the Wolf', and his heirs, giving him the
title of Earl of Chester. The earl's duty was to repel any attacks that
might be made by the Welsh, and permission was given him even to extend
his earldom, if possible, beyond the Welsh border. Royal rights were
granted to him over all land within the earldom, which was held by him
'as freely by the sword as the king held England by the Crown'. For this
reason Cheshire was called a County Palatine, that is, a county whose
ruler exercises all the powers of an independent prince, save only that
he owns allegiance to his overlord the king. And the sword, the 'sword
of dignity', as it was called, was no light one. You may see it if ever
you visit the British Museum, a mighty two-edged weapon four feet long,
with its inscription in Latin engraved beneath the hilt, 'Hugo comes
Cestriae,' Hugh Count of Chester.

In the quadrangle of Eaton Hall is an equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus,
an ancestor of the Dukes of Westminster, whose family derives its name
of Grosvenor from Robert the 'gros veneur' or great huntsman of the
Conqueror and nephew of 'the Wolf'.

An old engraving gives us a picture of the royal state with which Earl
Hugh was surrounded. He is represented sitting on a raised throne and
presiding over his council or parliament, which consisted of the four
chief abbots and the four greatest barons of Cheshire. Behind a barrier
at the lower end of the council-chamber a crowd of humble people are
gathered, bearing petitions or grievances for the earl's hearing and
consideration. For the earl possessed power of life or death over all
offenders, could pardon treason and murder within his own domain, and
give protection or 'sanctuary' to criminals, who, however, paid heavy
fines for this privilege. He also raised taxes, appointed all the judges
and justices of the peace in the earldom, and created his own barons,
who were themselves permitted to hold baronial courts for the trial and
punishment of evildoers. Gilbert de Venables, the Baron of Kinderton,
and his successors held courts at their castle near Middlewich until
late in the sixteenth century, when all these courts were swept away.

Ordericus Vitalis, a Norman monk who wrote in the early part of the
twelfth century, says that Earl Hugh 'was very prodigal, and carried not
so much a family as an army along with him. He daily wasted his estate,
and delighted more in falcons and huntsmen than in tillers of the soil.
He was much given to his appetite, whereby in time he grew so fat that
he could scarcely crawl.' He was also a lover of minstrelsy and romance,
and invited the best narrators of great deeds to live with him and spur
on to rivalry the young nobles whom he delighted to gather round him at
his court.

The mass of the English people became dependent on their Norman masters.
The latter had learned the use of the lance and the longbow, and the
fame of their mailclad mounted knights had spread through all Europe.
They kept the English down by building strong castles in their midst. At
Aldford, Shocklach, Doddleston, and Malpas on the Welsh borderland,
where castles were naturally more numerous, little remains to be seen
at the present day but the green mounds on which were erected the keeps
or donjons of the Norman lords. Round the tree-clad hummock at
Aldford--'Blob's Hill' the village folk call it--the moat that
surrounded the Norman castle yet remains, now dry and carpeted in
springtime with primroses, whose waters must often have been dyed with
the blood of Norman, Saxon, and Welshman.

The Norman castles were of great strength, though not always built of
stone. Many were built on the sites of British encampments or Saxon
'burhs', in which case the old wooden stockade was doubtless allowed to
remain. The central fortress or keep, a square, or sometimes circular,
building with walls of immense thickness, was surrounded by an inner
ward or courtyard in which cattle and provisions could be gathered in
case of attack, and where, on a raised mound in the centre, the baron
held his court. Round this ward were grouped the domestic apartments,
the stables, and the quarters of servants and retainers. Beyond these
buildings was a second or outer ward, the whole being enclosed by walls
with projecting towers at intervals. The castles of the plain were
further protected, as at Aldford, by a deep ditch or moat crossed by a
drawbridge leading to the principal entrance. The keep was the last
place of refuge when the defenders were driven from the walls, and
frequently contained a well of water. In the keep at Beeston Castle is a
well over three hundred feet deep, to which water was perhaps at one
time drawn from Beeston Brook or some other neighbouring stream.

On the summit of Halton Hill you may still see a portion of the outer
wall of the castle built by Nigel, Baron of Halton and cousin of Earl
Hugh. He was the chief of all the Cheshire barons, was constable of the
city of Chester, and led the Cheshire army, when required, against the
Welsh. Thirty-seven manors, among them those of Congleton, Great Barrow,
Raby and Sale in the county of Cheshire, were included in his
possessions. Other barons created by the Earl of Chester were William of
Nantwich, Vernon of Shipbroke, Fitzhugh of Malpas, Venables of
Kinderton, Hamon Massi of Dunham, Nicholas of Stockport, and Robert of
Montalt or Mold. The last-named shows that the county of Flint was at
that time part of the earldom. The name of the Norman baron was often
added to that of the Saxon village where he dwelt, as in the case of
Dunham Massey, Minshull Vernon.

The earl himself resided at Chester, where large additions were made to
the stronghold of Ethelfleda, but probably his castle was built largely
of timber, for no stone of it remains, and a hundred and fifty years
later Henry the Third ordered the stockade with which the castle ward
was enclosed to be removed and replaced by a wall of stone. On the
eastern side of the castle was erected a great shire hall where the earl
held his parliament, and an exchequer court where the dues and taxes
were paid to him.

What these dues and taxes were we may learn from the Great Survey called
Domesday Book, which was made by King William's orders, and completed
about the year 1087. The chief object of the Survey was to find out what
the country was worth, and how much the people could afford to pay in
taxes. The book, which is carefully preserved at the British Museum, is
the most valuable record we possess of the state of England under its
first Norman king. Domesday Book was written in Latin, but translations
have been made by scholars, and may be seen in many of our free
libraries. In the 'Customs of Chester' we are told that the city paid in
rent forty-five pounds and three bundles of marten skins, a third of
which went to the earl and two-thirds to the king. The skins were
imported from Ireland, and show that the Irish pirates of former days
had given place to peaceful traders. The king also claimed two-thirds of
the produce of the brine pits at Nantwich, Northwich, and Middlewich,
the last-named being farmed 'for twenty-five shillings and two cartloads
of salt'. The value of every manor, with the number of 'hides' of arable
land, the extent of meadow land and of woodland, was faithfully
recorded. 'There was not one single yard of land, nor even one ox, one
cow, one swine that was left out.'

Some Saxon villages had little left to record after the Conqueror's
visit, so that you may learn from Domesday something of the severity
with which William's conquest had been accomplished. Prestbury and many
other Saxon villages are not even mentioned. When Earl Hugh received the
city of Chester it was worth only thirty pounds, 'for it had been
greatly wasted; there were two hundred and five houses less there than
there had been in the time of King Edward' (the Confessor).

From Domesday we can learn the names of the Saxon freemen who were
allowed to keep their lands. Marton was held by the Saxon Godfric,
probably in return for some service rendered to the invaders, or because
he had at least not taken arms against them; Butley was divided between
the Saxon Ulric and Robert, son of Hugh Lupus. The manor of Brereton was
retained by the Breretons, whose descendants play a great part in the
later history of Cheshire. But such cases are few and far between, and
by far the greater part of the county passed into new hands.

The story of Mobberley may be taken as a good example of what happened
in most cases to the old English landowners. The very name of the
village brings to our eyes scenes of old English life as the Normans
found it, for Motburlege, as the name is written in Domesday, is the
open space (lege) by the fortified house (burh) where the assembly of
the people was held (mote). 'The same Bigot' (thus Domesday runs)'
_holds_ Motburlege. Dot _held_ it and was a freeman.... The value in
King Edward's time was twelve shillings, now only five shillings.' Such
is the simple story, repeated again and again in the great survey. Dot
was a Saxon lord of sixteen villages, including Cholmondeley, Bickerton,
Shocklach, Grappenhall, Peover, and Dodcot, to the last of which he gave
his own name. Thus, even as Dot's own forefathers had driven out the
Celtic tribesmen who pastured their flocks on the neighbouring commons,
so now it was Dot's turn to be thrust from his ancestral home at
Mobberley and seek a refuge perhaps among the very people whom he had
displaced.

Bigot received more than one manor. Domesday tells us that he held
Sandbach also. Over the entrance of Sandbach Town Hall you may see his
statuette, placed there to remind you of the days when Cheshire lands
passed from the hands of the English to their Norman conquerors.




CHAPTER XI

THE NORMAN ABBEYS AND CHURCHES OF CHESHIRE


Among the friends of Earl Hugh who visited him at his castle at Chester
was Anselm the great churchman, who afterwards became Archbishop of
Canterbury. Anselm was at the time prior of the Abbey of Bec, which was
close to Avranches, the earl's own Norman home. Now if there was one
thing on which the Normans justly prided themselves, it was the founding
and building of churches, and the heart of Earl Hugh was set on building
in his own city of Chester a monastery that should rival in splendour
those of his native country. Perhaps, too, the Norman lords thought that
by devoting a portion of their wealth to the service of God they could
win salvation for their souls and atone for the shortcomings and
misdeeds of their stormy lives. So the Cheshire earl sent for his former
friend Anselm to come and aid him in his scheme, and the result of his
visit was that in 1093 the clergy of S. Werburgh's were turned out of
their homes, and the church itself pulled down, and in its place was
erected a monastery of Benedictine monks who were brought over from Bee,
Anselm's chaplain, Richard, being made the first abbot.

The monks were men who lived a life of prayer, fasting, and study apart
from the world. None might ever leave the precincts of the monastery
without permission. The Benedictines received their name from Saint
Benedict, who lived in the sixth century, and drew up rules for the
daily life and conduct of the monks of the Order. They all slept in the
same dormitory, and all took their meals together in a common room
called a refectory. In the refectory at Chester you may see a lector's
pulpit from which portions of the Scriptures were read aloud to the
monks as they sat at their meals. They gave all their private
possessions to the monastery, and had to obey their superior in all
matters. Every hour of the day and night had its allotted duties of
work, study, or religious services. High up in the wall in one of the
oldest parts of Chester Cathedral is a row of tiny arches, and behind
them a narrow passage, along which the monks went from their
sleeping-chamber to the early morning services in the abbey church.

To some of the monks was given the work of gardening, agriculture, and
even building. The name of Caleyards at Chester still speaks to us of
the kitchen-garden which the monks tended. Others made copies of
illuminated 'missals' or books of Church services, or wrote histories
and the annals of the abbey to which they were attached. The Chronicles
of S. Werburgh were kept and added to yearly by the monks of Chester;
though the original has been lost, a copy of it, made by a later scribe,
has happily been preserved.

The most important part of the monastery was of course the church. The
Norman churches were built of stone, and, as they took many years to
build, very few of the founders lived to see the completion of their
work. Probably only the foundations and portions of the walls of the
church of Earl Hugh Lupus were finished during his lifetime. The work of
the Norman builders may be recognized by the round-headed arches,
doorways and windows which they copied from the Roman buildings. The
Roman basilica or hall of justice, in which the earliest Christians were
permitted to worship, was taken as a model for Christian churches. The
capital of a Norman pillar in Frodsham Church proves that they had
studied the architecture of the Romans, for it has the Ionic 'volute' or
spiral scroll on each of its four faces. If you look for the round
arches in the Cathedral of Chester you will be able to make out the
portions which remain of the church built by Earl Hugh and by the
abbots who completed his plans after his death.

You will see from the Norman church of S. John's at Chester that the
churches were built in the form of a cross with four great semicircular
arches to support a central tower. Similar arches on massive circular
columns separate the nave from the two aisles. An examination of these
columns reveals the fact that the building of the nave was commenced
from both ends at once in order to make more rapid progress with the
work, for the mouldings of the capitals of the outer columns is the
same, but differ from those of the inner ones. Moreover, the masonry of
the latter is more finely jointed than that of the earlier end columns.
This shows that the Normans improved in the quality of their work as
they went on. In the north transept of Chester Cathedral, which is part
of the first Norman church, the stones in the lower parts have wider
joints and are less carefully fitted than those above them.

The choir and aisles generally ended in a semicircular 'apse'. A
semicircle of dark blue stones set in the floor of the north aisle in
the Cathedral of Chester marks the apse of an aisle of Earl Hugh's
church.

The village churches were of course not built on the same scale of
grandeur as the churches of S. John and S. Werburgh. Nearly everywhere
the Norman 'lords of the manor' rebuilt the rude and humble churches of
wood and stone that had served the needs of the Saxons before them. But
little remains in Cheshire of these Norman churches, save here and there
a doorway or a window or a capital, that has escaped destruction or the
ravages of time. The Norman architects and builders were few in number,
and must have employed many Saxon workmen in the task of rebuilding. The
latter, as you have already learned, were no mean masons and sculptors,
and the carving of the mouldings and capitals of the doorways of the
village churches was doubtless in many cases done by them. The 'chevron'
or zigzag moulding, and the spirals carved on the face of capitals could
easily be cut with an axe, for the Saxons were not yet acquainted with
the use of the Norman chisel. At Shotwick and Shocklach you may see
doorways, which, from the simplicity of their mouldings, are probably
the work of Saxons, performed under the eye of their Norman masters.

  [Illustration: NORMAN ARCHES, S. JOHN'S. CHESTER]

Towards the end of the eleventh century the clever Norman masons, who
loved to invent new patterns and vary their work, introduced other forms
of ornamentation such as the 'billet' and 'lozenge' and 'scollop' in
their mouldings, and adorned the capitals and even the pillars with rich
carving. Carved pillars may be seen in the Norman arcade in the
cloisters at Chester.

  [Illustration: CLOISTERS, CHESTER: PORTION OF FIRST NORMAN ABBEY OF S.
  WERBURGH]

The head of a Norman doorway is sometimes filled with a semicircular
stone called a tympanum, usually covered with a carved picture of some
scriptural subject. The tympanum over the door of the Norman chapel at
Prestbury represents Christ seated in glory.

  [Illustration: NORMAN DOORWAY WITH TYMPANUM, PRESTBURY]

The Norman windows, like the doorways, were round-headed. The tiny
window in the chancel at Woodchurch shows us that they were often mere
slits on the outer face of the wall, widening considerably towards the
inner face in order that the light entering through the narrow opening
might be diffused as much as possible. Very few Norman windows have been
allowed to remain in Cheshire, for nearly all have been replaced by
larger ones of a different style at a later date when more light was
needed.

  [Illustration: NORMAN WINDOW, WOODCHURCH, SHOWING WIDE SPLAY INSIDE]

The font is sometimes the sole remaining portion of the older Norman
church in which it once stood. In the modern church of Wallasey is an
ancient font, which by the arcade of semicircular arches carved upon it
is evidently the work of the Norman builders, and belonged to the Norman
church that formerly stood on the site of the present building. The font
of similar pattern at Grappenhall was dug up during a restoration three
feet below the floor of the present church, where it had lain for
centuries, and there are Norman fonts at Eastham, Bebington, and Burton.
In addition to those already spoken of, the churches of Bebington,
Bruera, Frodsham, Church Lawton, and Barthomley contain portions of
Norman work in some shape or form.

  [Illustration: NORMAN FONT AT WALLASEY]

The Norman style of architecture is rarely copied nowadays in the
building of churches, being considered too massive and sombre as well as
costly. Boys who live in Wirral should, however, walk to the village of
Thornton Heath, where they may see a new church built entirely in this
style, with every detail copied faithfully from famous old Norman
churches.

Other Norman barons were not slow to follow the example of their
overlord the Earl of Chester. In 1150 Hamon de Massey, Baron of Dunham
Massey, built a priory at Birkenhead for sixteen Benedictine monks. The
tolls from a ferry across the Mersey were granted to them for their
support, the charges being 'for a horseman two-pence, for a man on foot
one farthing, a halfpenny for a footman on market days, and a penny when
he had goods or produce with him'. The name of 'Monks Brow' still marks
the landing-place of the ferry on the Cheshire side of the estuary. The
monks were also freed from attendance at the 'Hundred' Court of the
Wirral. The manors of Tranmere, Bebington, Saughall Massey, and
Claughton were also given to the priory, and the priors sat in the
council or parliament of the Earls of Chester. The ruined refectory is
the only portion of the priory now remaining.

The Abbey of S. Werburgh received grants of land from Earl Hugh's barons
as well as a large number of churches and manors from the earl himself.
In the course of time one-fourth of the entire city of Chester became
the property of the abbey. The abbot also had the right of taking the
tolls at the annual fair held at Chester at the Feast of S. Werburgh.
The fair lasted for three days, during which time even criminals might
visit the city to make their purchases without danger of arrest.

  [Illustration: ARMS OF THE SEE OF CHESTER]

Chester had in fact rapidly become the chief seat of trade in the
north-west of England, and when the Conqueror ordered the sees of the
bishoprics to be removed from thinly populated centres to the large
towns, Peter, the first Norman bishop of Lichfield, left Lichfield 'a
sordid and desert place' and came to Chester, 'a city of renown,' making
the church of S. John his cathedral. Chester did not, however, keep this
honour long, for Peter's successor removed to the rich monastery of
Coventry. Hence it is that you find three mitres on the arms of the
bishopric of Chester.

Earl Hugh Lupus died in the second year of the reign of Henry the First.
Three days before his death he had put on the cowl and robe of a
Benedictine monk and entered his own monastery at Chester. He was buried
in the abbey cemetery, and his only son Richard, a boy of seven years of
age, inherited the earldom.

The Abbey of Combermere was founded for another brotherhood of monks
called Cistercians. Their 'rule' was even more strict than that of the
Benedictines. They wore neither boots nor cowl, and for a portion of the
year were allowed but one meal a day; nor were they permitted even to
speak to one another. In 1178, John, Baron of Halton, to secure the
safety of body and soul previous to making a pilgrimage to Palestine,
built a Cistercian abbey at Stanlaw, a dreary spot on the shore of the
Mersey estuary, and a third house of the same Order was founded at
Pulton on the Dee by Robert Pincerna, butler to Earl Randle II. Stanlaw
was almost wholly destroyed by a huge tidal wave which swept up the
Mersey, and the monks were removed to Whalley on the banks of the
Lancashire Calder. The monks, doubtless, were not sorry for the change,
for by the end of the twelfth century the majority of them had grown
tired of the simple life, and, becoming more luxurious in their way of
living, preferred to build their homes in delectable river valleys,
where they could fish the streams to their hearts' content.

Pulton Abbey was not more fortunate, and was much too near to the Welsh
to be a comfortable place to live in. The Welsh visits were so frequent
and unpleasant that the monastery was abandoned and the monks placed in
a fine new abbey at Dieulacresse in Staffordshire.

The monks who kept the abbey records were not always very particular
about the truth of the events they relate. They were very superstitious,
and ready to believe any story that would increase the fame of their
founders, or of their patron saints, to whom they ascribed the power of
performing miracles. The story is told that when Earl Richard was making
a pilgrimage to the holy well of S. Winifred in Flintshire he was
attacked by a band of Welsh insurgents and compelled to take refuge in
a neighbouring monastery. He prayed for aid to S. Werburgh, who is said
to have instantly parted the waters of the Dee by making new sandbanks,
over which the Constable of Chester marched troops to the relief of his
lord. These banks were long after known as the Constable's sands.




CHAPTER XII

THE EARLS OF THE COUNTY PALATINE


In the western porch beneath the tower of Prestbury Church are a number
of fragments of broken grave-slabs of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. On nearly all is carved a cross, the head of which is usually
enclosed within a circle, the ends of the limbs of the cross consisting
of a triple lily, the favourite emblem of the Norman sculptors. One only
of these fragments tells us over whose remains the slab was placed. An
inscription, in which the letters VIVYN D are clearly seen, tells us
that this fragment formed part of the tombstone of Vivian Davenport,
Chief Forester of the Forest of Macclesfield. Hunting was the favourite
sport of the Normans, and in Cheshire, as elsewhere, large tracts of
forest land were enclosed for the protection of deer and game, and the
amusement of the Norman knights. The Conqueror himself set the example
by making the New Forest in the south of England, and shortly afterwards
the Earl of Cheshire enclosed the Forests of Mara or Delamere in the
west and Macclesfield in the eastern part of the county.

The forest laws were very strict. William the Conqueror did not indeed
punish offenders with death, but he ordained that 'whoso slew hart or
hind man should blind him, that none should touch the harts or the
wild-boars, and he made the hare go free. So mightily did he love the
high deer as though he were their father. His rich men bewailed it and
the poor murmured at it, but he was so stark he recked not of them all.'
The forest laws of Rufus were far more severe, and caused fierce hatred
among his poorer subjects. The forests became the haunt of robbers and
outlaws, who clothed themselves in suits of 'Lincoln green', the better
to escape being seen in the greenwood. Foresters were appointed, whose
duty it was to hunt out these lawless and rebellious men, as well as to
preserve the game of the forest.

  [Illustration: Latin Cross, prob. c. 1180
  Norman Floriated Cross, c. 1200
  Double Floriated Cross on Grave-slab of Vivian Davenport, c. 1240

  GRAVE-SLABS AT PRESTBURY]

Hugh Lupus made John Done of Utkinton and his heirs Chief Bowbearer and
Forester of his Forest of Delamere. The Dones had the right to kill deer
and game, take swarms of wild bees, the fallen trees, and such small
game as 'foxes, hares, weasels, and other like vermin'; their badge of
office was a black bugle horn tipped with gold. Their hunting-seat or
'Chamber in the Forest' was served by ten keepers and two woodsmen. Some
of their descendants were buried at Tarporley, and on one of the tombs
you may see the badge of the bugle carved.

Earl Richard, the successor of 'the Wolf', married Matilda, niece of
King Henry I and a daughter of Stephen of Blois. He was drowned with his
wife on his return from France when the ill-fated White Ship went down
in 1119.

The next earl was Randle of Meschines. He was one of King Henry the
First's chief fighting-men, and led the van at the Battle of Tinchebrai
against the king's elder brother Robert.

His son, Randle the Second, played a great part in the civil war of King
Stephen's reign. Stephen was quite unable to curb his barons as his
predecessors had done, and the Earl of Chester was unruly and ambitious.
In addition to his Earldom of Cheshire, he had succeeded to vast estates
in Lincoln and the Midlands. His power and influence was so great that
he ruled over an extent of country hardly smaller than the ancient
Earldom of Mercia. Stephen refused to add the city of Carlisle to the
already numerous possessions of the earl, who in anger declared himself
on the side of Stephen's rival Matilda when she took up arms, and became
one of Stephen's most bitter and active enemies.

The king took Randle prisoner by a stratagem, and the monks of Pulton
Abbey were commanded to pray for the earl's safety. When at length he
was set free, the earl in a moment of gratitude gave the monks
permission to fish the waters of the Dee, and freed them from the toll
which they were accustomed to pay for grinding their corn in the Dee
Mills at Chester. Under the Norman rule the use of handmills, such as
the Saxons had used, was strictly forbidden, and everybody had to send
his corn to be ground in the mill belonging to his lord.

When the Welsh heard of the earl's captivity they took advantage of his
absence and ravaged the county of Cheshire, but were defeated in a
battle at Nantwich in 1146 by Robert of Montalt.

Randle died in the same year as King Stephen, and was succeeded by Hugh
Kyvelioc. This second Earl Hugh enclosed large stretches of forest-land
in East Cheshire, and gave the chief forestership to Richard Davenport.
It is Richard's grandson Vivian whose grave-slab we have seen in the
church at Prestbury.

To Vivian Davenport's office was also joined the office of Hereditary
Grand Serjeant of the Hundred of Macclesfield. The Grand Serjeant
received twelve pounds six shillings and eightpence a year, and a fee of
two shillings and a salmon for the capture of a master-robber, and one
shilling for a common thief. Human life was held cheap in those days.
The robbers when caught were beheaded, and their heads sent to Chester,
where they were publicly shown as a warning to others. Descendants of
the Davenports live now at Capesthorne, and their peculiar crest, a
robber's head with a rope round the neck, recalls the gruesome duties of
their ancestors.

A portion of the Forest was held by the Venables in return for providing
thirty-three huntsmen on hunting days. The Downes of Taxal held their
land more cheaply on the northern limits of the Forest, which is now
Lyme Park, 'by the blast of a horn on Midsummer Day and one pepper-corn
yearly.' Near Overton is a spot still called Gallows Yard, where the
Downes had power to execute robbers and criminals. In Lyme Park you may
see to this day the red deer that are descended from their wild
ancestors of Macclesfield Forest.

When Hugh Kyvelioc was Earl of Chester, Henry the Second ruled England
and the greater part of France. He also received at Chester the homage
of the King of Scotland. But in the later years of his reign he found
it hard to keep together the widely scattered parts of his empire.
Rebellions were frequent, and his wife, his sons, and his barons all
took up arms against him. Among his discontented barons none was more
unruly than Hugh Kyvelioc, who stirred up Brittany against Henry, but he
was captured in battle and brought to England. In the great rising of
1173 Geoffrey of Costantin, one of Henry's sons, held the castle of
Stockport against the king. Not a stone of this castle is to be seen
now, but it stood in the highest part of the town near the Parish
Church.

After Hugh Lupus, the greatest of the Earls of Chester was Randle the
Third, or Randle Blundeville. Like his predecessors, he was constantly
engaged in fighting against the Welsh, on one occasion being besieged in
Rhuddlan Castle until he was relieved by a rabble of vagabonds hastily
gathered from Chester Fair. This Randle was earl for over fifty years,
and was high in favour with three successive kings of England whom he
steadfastly supported. Henry the Second gave him in marriage his own
daughter-in-law, Constance, the widow of his son Geoffrey. The English
historian, Matthew Paris, says that the earl carried the crown at the
coronation of Richard the First, and he was present at the signing of
the Great Charter by King John, whose side he took in the quarrel with
the barons.

The earl ruled Cheshire wisely, favouring especially the towns in his
earldom. To Chester, Macclesfield, and Stockport he gave charters by
which these towns were freed from certain payments and duties, and were
permitted to govern themselves under a mayor of their own choosing. In
the new Town Hall of Stockport is a stained glass window commemorating
the earl's grant to his baron Sir Robert de Stokeport of the town's
first charter of freedom.

His gifts to the Church and the founding of abbeys won for him the title
of the 'Good' earl. He did not neglect the poor, for he built and
endowed the hospital of S. John, near the North Gate of Chester, for the
support of thirteen poor people, with three chaplains to minister to
their religious needs. At Boughton, outside the city walls, he founded a
hospital for lepers, whose terrible disease was brought to this country
by travellers returning from Eastern lands.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries men's minds were deeply stirred
by the hardships and cruelties put upon pilgrims to the Holy Land. Men
of every Christian land and race joined in the Crusades or Holy Wars to
win back Jerusalem, which had fallen into the hands of the Saracens,
enemies of the Christian faith. Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, came
to Chester and preached from the High Cross the duty of all Christian
men to rescue the Holy City and the Holy Sepulchre from the power of the
unbelievers. Crowds flocked to hear him, and he did not preach in vain.
Men of all classes dedicated their lives or their wealth to the service
of the Cross. King and baron, soldier and priest, rich and poor alike
put on the sign of the Cross, and sailed to the Holy Land, where they
vied with one another in deeds of chivalry and valour.

Randle Blundeville joined the Crusades in 1219, and set out with a
number of other English knights for Jerusalem. He distinguished himself
greatly in Egypt, and when he returned the fame of his brave deeds made
him a popular hero, and his adventures were recited or sung in many a
stirring ballad.

The stone effigy of Sir William Boydell in Grappenhall Church will give
you some idea of a crusading warrior. He is clad in chain armour with a
plain surcoat. His legs are crossed, a sign perhaps that he had taken
the vows of the Cross, and his head rests on his helmet. A shield is on
his left shoulder, by his left side a sword.

Many Crusaders bound themselves by sacred vows and joined different
'Orders' or companies to which the names Knights Templars, Knights
Hospitallers, or Knights of Saint John, and so on, were given. The
last-named founded a house where the brethren of the Order might live in
their old age at Fulshaw, near Wilmslow.

When Randle returned to Cheshire he built in the heart of his earldom
the strong castle of Beeston, on the summit of Beeston Rock, from whose
walls he could survey nearly every portion of the county over which he
ruled. He entertained Henry the Second at Chester Castle when Henry made
an expedition against the Welsh, the troops encamping on Saltney
marshes. Henry the Second had high views of the duties of kingship, and
was always busily occupied at home or in his continental dominions. But
Cheshire saw little or nothing of his son Richard, greatest of all
Crusaders, for he spent the greater part of his reign seeking adventures
abroad, and left his people to take care of themselves.

  [Illustration: EFFIGY OF CRUSADER: GRAPPENHALL]

Earl Randle lived long enough to see the boy king Henry the Third
dismiss his guardians and rule on his own account. Almost his last act
was to refuse to allow the clergy of Cheshire to pay the tenth part of
their incomes to the pope to aid him in his private wars. In 1232 he
died, and was buried with his forefathers in the Abbey Church of
Chester.




CHAPTER XIII

THE CHURCHES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY


The greatest churches which the Normans planned were on such a scale
that they could not be finished in the lives of their designers. The
work was carried on more or less continuously by the builders and
architects who came after them. But, as time went on, various
improvements were made in the art of building, and new fashions came
into being, and the original plans had often to be altered to meet the
growing needs of the day, or to allow the newest features of style to be
introduced.

The interior of S. John's Church, Chester, will show you some of the
changes of style which were taking place in the early part of the
thirteenth century. The two rows of _pointed_ arches over the circular
headed arches of the nave tell us that by the time the massive Norman
piers and arches were finished, an entirely different form of arch was
coming into fashion.

The pointed arch was first used when Norman and Saxon had settled down
peaceably side by side. From the fusing of the two nations, the English
people grew in strength and power. Norman baron and Saxon peasant had
combined to wrest from a wicked king the Great Charter of freedom for
the English people. Hence the new style is appropriately called Early
English.

The work of church building had often been interrupted. During the civil
war of Stephen's reign, the building of churches was almost at a
standstill; the Crusades, by drawing large numbers of people from the
country, also checked the progress of the work. The raids of the Welsh
often destroyed a half-built Cheshire church. But from the time of Magna
Charta the erection of sacred buildings went forward apace, and was
continued with even greater zeal and activity through the long reign of
Henry the Third.

  [Illustration: RUINS OF S. JOHN'S, CHESTER
  Change from Norman round arch to pointed arch]

The pointed arch was the principal feature of the new style, which is,
therefore, sometimes called the Pointed style. But we must look
carefully at the shape and details before we can be quite sure that an
arch belongs to this period of building.

The arch must be tall and narrow, the columns on which they rest, round
and slender, often grouped together in clusters of three or more. Often
the columns consist of slender shafts united on one base and under one
capital. The mouldings of the arch, base and capital must be deeply cut
and grooved. The pointed arches of S. John's have all these
characteristic features. The lower of the two rows of pointed arches is
called the triforium or blind story, that is, without windows, for it is
built within the slope of the roof over the side aisles of the church.
The upper row is the clerestory, containing many window lights. A
triforium is only to be seen in the very largest churches. In the ruined
portion of S. John's you may see round and pointed arches side by side.

The arches of the nave at Prestbury belong to this period. The columns
are very much more slender than the massive columns of S. John's. You
will notice that the capital of one of the columns is covered with
carved foliage which could only have been done with a chisel. Deep
under-cutting is a feature of the Early English style, and shows that
the English masons had improved greatly in their skill.

Early English windows, like the arches, are long, narrow, and pointed.
From their shape they are called lancets. Sometimes two or more lancets
are grouped together side by side under a single 'dripstone' or hood. At
the east end of the Chapter-house at Chester is a window consisting of
five lancets.

Several portions of Chester Cathedral, or rather the Abbey of S.
Werburgh as it was still called, were built during this period. In the
north aisle of the choir you may see the point where we pass from the
massive Norman masonry to the lighter and more graceful Early English.
The piscina or basin built in the wall is the place where you must look
for the change.

At the end of the twelfth century the church of Hugh Lupus was already
in ruins. Earl Randle was in the Holy Land, and, during his absence, the
Welsh were more than usually troublesome. In the early years of the
thirteenth century large sums of money were given to the abbey, and the
abbots began building in the new style. When Hugh Grylle was abbot, the
Chapter-house, in which the business of the abbey was transacted, was
built. The number of monks also increased to such an extent that a new
and larger refectory was needed.

  [Illustration: BOSS FROM RUINS OF S. JOHN'S CHURCH, CHESTER
  Left of the boss is a strip of dog-tooth moulding]

This refectory and the vestibule or entrance hall leading to it contain
the most beautiful examples of Early English work to be found in
Cheshire, and boys and girls who live in or near Chester should study
them carefully. In the refectory is the stone pulpit referred to in a
previous chapter, with a staircase and arcade of Early English arches
leading to it. The wall above the arches is pierced with a row of
'quatrefoil' openings, with deeply cut mouldings.

  [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH DOORWAY, CHESTER]

In the hollows of the Early English mouldings we sometimes see an
ornament pointed like a dog's tooth. You will see it in the moulding
round a circular opening over the doorway of the vestibule in
the cloisters of the Cathedral. Another ornament which the
thirteenth-century masons invented and put into their work was the
'cusp', a projection made by the meeting of two curves placed end to
end. If you put two cusps into the head of a pointed arch you will find
that you have made a trefoil-headed arch. The triforium arches in the
choir of the cathedral are all of this description. Quatrefoils are made
by arranging four cusps within a circle.

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Abbot Simon of Whitchurch
built the Lady Chapel east of the choir. The windows of this chapel are
all lancets, those at the side being arranged in groups of three, while
the east window contains five lights. The Lady Chapel looks very new
now. It has, in fact, been almost entirely rebuilt since Abbot Simon's
day. The mediaeval builders of Cheshire did not select their
building-stone very carefully. You will see from the cloisters how the
red sandstone has weathered and crumbled to ruin.

The walls of Early English buildings were not so thick as those built by
the Normans, and required to be supported on the exterior by buttresses
which projected further from the walls than the flat Norman buttresses.
You will find Early English buttresses at Audlem and Prestbury.

Many houses in Chester are built over crypts or underground cellars,
which were made during the reign of Henry the Third, and consequently
show some of the features we have been describing. The oldest of these
crypts is under a shop in Bridge Street. It is lighted by a triple
lancet window having deep splays. The door of the staircase leading to
it has a trefoiled head, and the vaulted stone roof is groined and
ribbed like the roof of the cloisters of the cathedral. The roofs of
Early English churches were groined in the same way, but with wood
instead of stone.

Many Cheshire churches were, no doubt, rebuilt or repaired in the new
style. At Bruera there is a pointed doorway under a semicircular arch.
Bruera was one of the many churches bestowed on the Abbey of S. Werburgh
by Norman lords. A grant of a manor or a church was often made when a
baron or some member of his family entered the abbey as a monk of the
brotherhood.

Their descendants did not always approve of these gifts. In the
Chronicle of S. Werburgh, we read that in 1258 Roger de Montalt, Chief
Justice of Chester, tried to recover the churches of Bruera, Coddington,
and Neston, which the lord of Montalt had given to the abbey in the days
of Earl Hugh. Roger entered Neston Church with a body of armed men, and
turned out the monks who had been sent from the abbey to perform the
services, and gave the living to his nephew Ralph. The Chronicle speaks
of the misfortunes that befell Roger as a warning to other would-be
robbers of the Church. His eldest son died within fifteen days, and
Roger himself 'died in poverty within two years, the common people being
ignorant of the place of his burial'.




CHAPTER XIV

GROWTH OF TOWNS IN CHESHIRE


Earl Randle 'the Good' had no son to succeed him, and when he died the
earldom passed to his nephew John the Scot, the son of Randle's eldest
sister. John married the daughter of Llewellyn the Prince of Wales, so
that peace was secured for a time between the Welsh and the earl's
subjects. He did not live to enjoy his earldom long, however, and he too
died without an heir. His wife was suspected of causing his death by
poison.

Henry the Third was at this time King of England. He had looked with
anxious eyes upon the growing power of the Earls of Chester. Now that a
suitable opportunity presented itself, the king decided to take the
earldom into his own hands, his excuse being that he was unwilling that
so fair an inheritance should be divided 'among distaffs', meaning the
sisters of John the Scot. So he gave them each a portion of land and a
husband, and appointed John de Lacy, the Earl of Lincoln, as custodian
of Cheshire.

A few years later Henry bestowed the earldom on his son Edward, and from
that time down to the present day the title of Earl of Chester has
belonged to the son and heir of the reigning monarch. The present
Prince of Wales is also Earl of Chester. One of Edward's first acts was
to confirm to the barons and the people of Cheshire all the liberties
and privileges which Randle had formerly granted them.

Some of these 'liberties' are set forth in the Charter which John the
Scot gave to the people of Chester: 'Know that I have conceded and by
this my present charter confirmed to all my citizens of Chester that no
merchant should buy or sell any kind of merchandise which has come to
the city of Chester by sea or by land, except these my citizens of
Chester themselves and their heirs, or in accordance with their will,
and except in the established fairs, that is on S. John the Baptist's
day and at the feast of S. Michael. Likewise I have conceded and by this
my present charter confirmed to my citizens of Chester, to have and to
hold their guild merchant, as freely as they held it in the time of my
uncle, Lord Randle, Earl of Chester.'

Similar charters were given to other Cheshire towns. Earl Randle, who
was one of those who saw King John sign the Great Charter, gave to his
baron, Sir Robert de Stokeport, a charter for his town of Stockport,
with permission to hold markets and fairs, receiving in return the
market dues and tolls. Hamon de Massey gave a charter for a weekly
market to the inhabitants of Altrincham. Congleton received its charter
in the reign of Edward the First from Henry de Lacy, whose statue you
may see on the front of Congleton Town Hall. Macclesfield boasts of
charters received from Randle Blundeville and from Edward the First,
though by the latter the citizens were compelled to grind their corn at
the king's mill and bake their bread in the king's oven, paying a toll
of one shilling each for this privilege.

In the thirteenth century the merchants and traders of a town formed
themselves into guilds, which drew up sets of rules for the regulation
and protection of their trade and industries. The merchants met at fixed
times in their guild-hall, where they elected the officers of the guild,
an alderman, a steward, a chaplain, and an usher, and where they
transacted the business of the guild. By these laws no merchant could
buy or sell goods in the town unless he was a member of the guild. All
the members subscribed to the guild, and if one of their number fell
into poverty, or was unable to work and provide for himself, he received
a sum of money every year from the common chest.

The little schoolroom in the churchyard of Nantwich was the old Guild
Hall. The guilds became very rich in time, and bought property and built
homes for poor people who had belonged to the guild, and schools where
their children might be taught.

The workmen also who worked for the merchants wanted their own guilds,
and craft guilds were formed by the different trades of a city, each of
the guilds receiving a charter of its own. Several charters of this kind
may be seen in the muniment room of the Chester Town Hall.

In mediaeval towns those who were engaged in a particular trade lived
near to one another in the same street, to which they often gave the
name of their industry. The name of Shoemakers' Row still survives at
Chester to tell us where the shoemakers' shops were to be found. Newgate
Street was formerly Fleshmonger Lane, and was the chief place of
business of the butchers. The Skinners lived in 'Castle Drive', and a
portion of Bridge Street known as Mercers' Row was given over to the
mercers, drapers, and haberdashers. The trade guilds were formed in the
same way as the merchant guilds. Each had its own officers and
meeting-place. The Phoenix Tower takes its name from the crest of one of
the city guilds, which used the tower as its council-chamber.

While the merchant guild looked after the interests of the trades, the
town itself was governed by a mayor and aldermen, who were responsible
for the good behaviour of the inhabitants. They also fixed the prices at
which food and other necessaries of life were to be sold, and had the
control of all markets and fairs. Commonhall Street takes its name from
the old Common Hall in which the mayor and aldermen of the city met for
their deliberations. The old hall has long since disappeared. The mayor
and the magistrates administered justice in the Penthouse or Pentice,
which used to stand close to S. Peter's Church in the centre of the
city.

During the two great fairs of the city of Chester a large white glove
was suspended from the tower of S. Peter's as the symbol of welcome to
all strangers to bring their wares into the city for sale. In the church
of S. John's is an ancient grave-slab with glove and scissors carved
upon it. The slab once covered the remains of a glover; glove-making has
always been one of the chief industries of Chester. Another slab shows
by the hammer and horseshoe engraved upon it that it belonged to the
tomb of a smith.

  [Illustration: TOMBSTONE OF A GLOVER, S. JOHN'S CHURCH, CHESTER]

One of the privileges of the Shoemakers' Guild was that of providing the
ball for the annual game of football played on the Roodee on Easter
Monday. The mayor and all the city guilds came to watch the game, which
unfortunately did not always end happily, for we read that 'great strife
did arise', and many of the players were haled away to be dealt with by
the Mayor at the Pentice court. The saddlers provided a silver bell as a
prize for the winner of a horse-race on the Roodee.

But the greatest event of the year in mediaeval Chester was the
performance of scenes from the Scriptures--mystery plays, as they were
called--at the Festival of Whitsuntide. The city guilds bore the whole
of the expense and chose the players to perform them, each guild being
responsible for one scene. Thus the painters and glaziers performed the
Shepherds' Watch and the Angels' Hymn; the vintners acted the part of
the Wise Men of the East; the butchers the Story of the Temptation; the
glovers the Raising of Lazarus. Scenes from the Old Testament were
included, the linen drapers performing the story of Balaam and the Ass,
and the watermen of the Dee, appropriately enough, the story of the
Flood.

The plays were put into English verse by Randal Hignet, a monk of S.
Werburgh's, and no doubt were originally performed by the monks as a
means of instructing the people in the outlines of the Christian faith.
As the abbey church was found to be unsuitable they were performed
publicly in the streets, in order 'to exhort', as a clerk of the Pentice
said, 'the minds of the common people to good devotion as well as for
the common weal and prosperity of the city.'

Twenty-five scenes in all were played, and the performance lasted for
three days. On the first day the people saw scenes representing the
Creation of the World, the Banishment from the Garden of Eden, the Birth
of Christ and the Vision of the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Wise
Men; on the second day the Passion and Resurrection of Christ; and on
the third day stories illustrating the founding of the Christian Church,
the Lives of the Saints, and the final Advent of Christ and the Day of
Judgement.

The plays were performed on movable stages fitted with wheels. The
stages consisted of two stories, the upper one being left open for the
plays, the lower one covered with curtains that it might serve as a
dressing-room. The first performance took place at the Abbey Gate. The
stages then passed one by one to the Water Gate, where a second
performance was given. The plays were acted for the third and last time
in Bridge Street.

People crowded into Chester from all the country round on these
occasions, for the pope granted one thousand days of pardon to all who
witnessed the plays. The abbey also grew in wealth, for every one was
expected to visit the Abbey Church and lay some offering at S.
Werburgh's shrine. To provide a passage for the crowds of pilgrims, side
aisles were built round the choirs of famous churches, and behind the
high altar a vacant space left where the shrines of saints were placed.

The Cheshire towns which grew in importance during the thirteenth
century as a result of the great increase in trade were situated on or
near the great roads of Cheshire, which were still, in the main, the old
roads laid by the Romans. Their position was generally one of great
strength, having been chosen in early times in order that men might be
able to beat off the attacks of enemies. Chester was, as you have
already seen, guarded on two sides by a bend of the river Dee, and was
the meeting-place of Roman roads. Northwich on the Watling Street,
Middlewich on Kind Street, and Stockport were all built at a point where
two rivers meet. Runcorn, Lymm, and Altrincham are on sandstone heights
protected on the north by the Mersey; Macclesfield is astride the main
road in East Cheshire, and Nantwich on the highway into Wales. It was
only by means of the roads that commerce between the towns could be kept
open. The 'Welsh Row' of Nantwich recalls the days when the principal
trade of the town was with the wool-weavers of Wales, a trade that was
too often interrupted by the fierce outbreaks on the border.




CHAPTER XV

EDWARD THE FIRST AND CHESHIRE


Simon of Whitchurch received the Abbey of S. Werburgh from the hands of
another and a greater Simon, the powerful Earl of Leicester, who was
engaged in a grim struggle with the king on account of the king's
extravagance and misgovernment, and the rule of foreign favourites. Both
Henry and his son Edward were, in fact, at this very time prisoners of
the earl, for the battle of Lewes, which ended so disastrously for the
king, had just been fought. In the same year Earl Simon summoned the
famous Parliament in which knights from the shires, and citizens from
the boroughs, sat side by side with the nobles and bishops.

Edward had not long received the Earldom of Chester from his father when
the Barons' War broke out. Simon de Montfort made an alliance with
Llewellyn the Welsh prince, and Chester, expecting an attack, was put
into a state of defence. Abbot Simon could hardly have commenced
building his beautiful Lady Chapel when he saw his church desecrated and
turned into barracks by Sir William de la Zouche, the Chief Justice of
Chester.

After the defeat of Henry and Edward at Lewes they were compelled to
hand over to Earl Simon the Earldom of Chester, and Henry de Montfort,
Simon's eldest son, came to Chester and received in his father's name
the homage and oath of fealty of the citizens. Lucas de Taney was left
in charge of the city.

Edward afterwards escaped from the custody of Earl Simon, and James de
Audley seized the castle of Beeston on his behalf. He also besieged
Lucas de Taney in the castle of Chester for ten weeks, but did not
succeed in taking it on account of the excellent defence made by the
garrison. De Taney surrendered when he heard of the death of Simon de
Montfort at Evesham, where Edward won a great victory. The chief of the
surviving barons were brought as prisoners to Beeston Castle.

But the great prize for which de Montfort fought and laid down his life
was won. When Edward came to the throne he learned from the mistakes
made by his father, chose his ministers wisely, and gave his people good
laws. His reign saw the growth of a full and free parliament, in which
all classes of free men were represented. Cheshire did not, however,
send any members, but being under the personal eye of the king had still
a separate government of its own as well as its own judges and
law-courts.

Vale Royal reminds us of the great Plantagenet king, whose motto was
'Keep Troth' and who for thirty-five years did all he could to win the
love of his people. Before Edward became king he went on Crusade to the
Holy Land, where he distinguished himself by recovering the holy city of
Nazareth from the Saracens. On his return he narrowly escaped shipwreck.
In his peril he invoked the aid of the Virgin Mary, and vowed that if he
were saved he would build a monastery in her honour on his return to his
own country. The Chronicle tells us that 'the vessel straightway
righted itself and was miraculously brought safe into port; the sailors
disembarked, the Prince landing last of all, and immediately the vessel
broke in pieces, and every fragment of the wreck vanished under the
water'.

Edward 'kept his troth' and built a home for one hundred monks of the
Cistercian Order at Darnhall. Four years later he laid the foundation
stone of a stately Abbey at Vale Royal, in the very heart of Cheshire.
Queen Eleanor and a great company of nobles accompanied him. We may not
now hear the Angelus tolling its summons to evening prayer, nor see
jolly monks fishing the streams of the Weaver, but in the last few
months the foundations of the Abbey church where they chanted the mass
have been discovered.

The abbey took more than fifty years to build, and it was not until the
reign of the third Edward that the monks were able to move from their
temporary lodgings to the new and spacious building. The abbey received
valuable lands in the neighbourhood of Over, Darnhall, and Weaverham, of
which villages the abbot became lord. By the ancient 'customs' of the
manor of Darnhall the villagers were required to attend at the manorial,
now the abbot's court; the abbot had power of life and death over all
his tenants, who had also to grind all their corn at the abbot's mill;
at the death of any native the abbot took all his horses, cattle, and
pigs, and half of his standing and gathered corn.

Cheshire saw a good deal of Edward the First in the earlier half of his
reign. In the year after the ceremonies at Vale Royal we find him at
Macclesfield, when he began to build the parish church of S. Michael.

He was the first English king to take in hand the conquest of Wales
seriously. In the reign of Henry the Third the Welsh had taken advantage
of the king's troubles with his barons, and waged a murderous warfare on
the Cheshire border. They advanced as far as Nantwich, and James de
Audley, who owned a large part of the barony of Nantwich, saw his
castles burnt, woods felled, and cattle destroyed. Preparations were
made for a big expedition into Wales, and Prince Edward summoned the
knights and barons of Cheshire to Shotwick Castle on the banks of the
Dee. A grassy knoll, where once stood the castle keep, is all that is
left of the scene of the gathering.

  [Illustration: CHESTER WALL. Roman below; Edwardian above]

Chester, from its position at the very gates of North Wales, was the
natural meeting-place for the troops, and the starting-point of Edward's
expedition against Llewellyn. Soon after his accession he summoned the
Welsh princes to do homage to him. This they refused to do, and the king
prepared for war. Llewellyn's brother David for a long time fought on
the side of the English, and received the manor of Frodsham as his
reward.

Edward's first task, however, was to strengthen the defences of Chester
so that it might resist all attacks. The enemy frequently came close up
to the walls of the city, and raided especially the suburb of Handbridge
on the opposite shore of the Dee, naming it Treboeth or 'Burnt Town', a
name that tells its own tale.

Edward was a great castle-builder, as many of you have learnt from
pictures you have seen of his Welsh castles. The Norman castle of
Chester had been constructed largely of wood. Edward now rebuilt it of
stone, and greatly enlarged it by adding an outer ward or 'bailey'. He
surrounded the whole fortress with 'curtain' walls flanked with towers
and protected with a deep ditch. He also set to work to rebuild the
walls of the city.

The ancient Roman walls had long since crumbled to their foundations,
though here and there a mass of masonry remained standing, and the Roman
east gate was still in its place. The stones of which the walls had been
built had provided building-material for many centuries. On the east
side from the Pepper Gate to the Phoenix Tower Edward built his wall on
or near the foundations of the Roman wall, portions of which you may
still see on this side of the city. For the most part, however, the new
walls were built outside the older ones, and the area enclosed was much
greater than that of the Roman town.

The walls were strengthened by a number of watch towers, some of which
were not completed until the time of his grandson Edward the Third, when
Bonewaldeston's Tower and the Water Tower were built. A wall-tax called
'murage' was levied on the inhabitants of Cheshire for keeping the walls
in repair. The citizens of Chester were also made to build a bridge over
the Dee. Edward's chief engineer was named Richard, and in return for
his services he received for a number of years the Dee Mills, so that
for the time being he was the 'Miller of the Dee'.

  [Illustration: WATER TOWER AND CURTAIN WALL, CHESTER]

After some years of hard fighting the conquest of the Welsh was
complete. At Rhuddlan Castle, on the borders of the ancient palatine
earldom, Edward gave to the conquered Welsh a settled government and a
system of law-courts similar to that which he had already set up for the
English. He returned to Chester to celebrate the peace that he had made,
and accompanied by his queen, with great pomp and ceremony attended mass
and a service of thanksgiving in the Abbey of S. Werburgh.

The river Dee washed the walls of the Water Tower, and great iron rings,
to which the barges were moored, were fixed in the Tower walls. The
ships brought wines from Gascony and cloth from Flanders, whither the
monks of Vale Royal and Combermere sent the wool of the flocks that
pastured on their meadows. Some of the Flemish weavers left their own
country and settled on the shores of the Mersey near Birkenhead.

In nearly every field in the pastoral parts of Cheshire are to be found
one or more small round pools, often fringed with willows and reeds. You
know them well, for you have been to them often to watch the tadpoles
and the minnows. But you have not wondered why they are there, and why
there are so many of them. Yet they have something to tell of the
wool-raising in the days of the three Edwards. For they are marl-pits,
and many of them were dug first when the first Edward was king; the
marl, which is a great fertilizer, being taken out of the earth and
spread over the grass-lands on which the flocks were pastured. The
farmers do not use it now, for new and easier ways of enriching the soil
have been found.

The marl-diggers, or 'marlers' as they were called, had their own
particular feast-day once a year, when they claimed toll of every
passer-by, and in the evening sang their marling songs in the village
ale-house.

  When shut the pit, the labour o'er,
  He whom we work for opes his door
  And gies to us of drink galore,
  For this was always Marler's law.
        Who-whoop who-whoop wo-o-o-o-o.




CHAPTER XVI

THE COMING OF THE FRIARS


Three streets in Chester in the neighbourhood of the Church of S. Martin
bear the names of Grey Friars, Black Friars, and White Friars
respectively. During the thirteenth century numbers of begging friars,
clad in simple grey or black or white tunics, came to Chester and
settled in the poorest quarters of the city. Like the early disciples of
Christ, whose lives of poverty they sought to imitate, they carried with
them neither gold nor silver, and walked unshod, begging their food and
shelter as they journeyed from town to town.

Their simple teaching appealed to the poor, who soon began to look upon
them as their best friends. For they brought the Gospel of Christ to
them in their streets, and tended the sick and the aged amid their
squalid homes. They were forbidden by the rules of their Orders to
receive either money or lands.

The first to arrive in Chester were the Dominicans or Black Friars, who
settled near the Watergate when Randle Blundeville was earl. The old
palace of the Stanleys formed part of the home of the Black Friars. They
were followed a few years later by the Franciscans or Grey Friars who
also lived by the Watergate, near the spot on which the Linen Hall was
afterwards erected, and in the reign of Edward the First the White
Friars or Carmelites took up their abode in the neighbourhood of White
Friars Street.

Unlike the monks, the friars had at first no fixed homes of their own,
and preached at wooden crosses set up at the street corners. Afterwards,
with the alms they received from the people and the legacies from rich
men who admired their devout lives, each of the different Orders of
friars built for themselves a permanent dwelling-place or friary, to
which a church in time was added.

The Church of the Carmelites must have been one of great beauty. Some of
the glazed coloured tiles which formed the pavement of the building may
be seen in the Grosvenor Museum. Excavations have been made at the spot
where the tiles were found, and three feet lower down the workmen came
across broken columns and bases of a large Roman building. Mediaeval
Chester was built on the ruins of the ancient Roman city. A doorway in
an old house called 'The Friars' was part of the Carmelite Friary.

The friars studied medicine and devoted themselves particularly to the
care of lepers. They also built schools for the children of the poor.
The Dominicans were also skilful engineers, and Edward the First
employed them in making wells and laying water-pipes in the city.

Unfortunately some of the friars did not live up to their early vows of
poverty, and the rules which S. Francis and S. Dominic had drawn up for
them. When wealth poured in upon them they became jealous of one
another, and quarrels and disturbances frequently arose between them.
The Records of Chester tell of many violent acts on the part of the
Dominicans and Carmelites, the latter of whom, armed with cudgels, were
wont to roam in the night time through the city to the terror of the
inhabitants.

The monks of the thirteenth century had also become idle and luxurious.
They had, as you have already read, become great landowners, and
received the manorial dues from the manors which belonged to them. The
Abbots of Vale Royal ruled with a rod of iron. The poor people rebelled,
and fights between them and the monks were frequent. They laid their
complaints before the king, and good Queen Philippa interceded for them
as she did for the burghers of Calais, but the abbot was generally able
to prove his 'rights', and the people obtained little satisfaction. The
wealth of the monasteries was also greatly increased by the cultivation
of crops and the sale of their wool. But the richer they became, the
more they neglected their spiritual duties. The poor could no longer
look to them for their spiritual teaching or for charity and good
works, and so gladly turned to the friars who for a time ministered to
their needs so well.

Monks and friars alike were bitterly attacked in Edward the Third's
reign in a poem written by William Langland. In this poem, which is
called 'The Vision of Piers Plowman', the poet speaks of the ignorance
and sloth of the monks, one of whom is made to confess that he cannot
even chant the Lord's Prayer.

  I cannot the Pater Noster as the priest it syngethe,
  But I can Rimes of Robin Hood and of Randall of Chestre.

A few exceptions there were to the general rule. In his quiet retreat in
the Abbey of S. Werburgh, Ranulf Higden wrote a work called
'Polychronicon', which contained a history of the world from the
Creation to his own day, with geographical descriptions of the different
countries of the world, and the favourite mediaeval legends of Babylon
and Rome. The book is valuable because it is one of the earliest pieces
of literature written in the language of mixed Norman and Saxon which is
our mother tongue to-day. When printing was invented in the fifteenth
century, the Polychronicon was one of the books printed by Caxton the
first English printer.

Many of the churches in Cheshire show us that the masons and builders of
Edward the Third's long reign made great progress in their art.

We have seen how the thirteenth-century workmen learned to group a
number of lancets together under one hood, and to shape the lancet heads
like a clover leaf by the addition of cusps. In the fourteenth century
the space above a row of lancet or trefoil-headed lights was filled in
with a number of geometrical figures such as circles and foils. Hence
the name of Geometrical or Decorated has been given to the work of this
period. The large east windows of many of our Cheshire churches are made
up in this way. The patterns of flowing lines thus produced are called
'bar tracery'. There are Decorated windows in the aisles of the choir
and south transept of Chester Cathedral.

  [Illustration: NORTH-WEST VIEW OF NANTWICH CHURCH]

Windows and arches were now made wider than in the previous century. The
builders of the Pointed period sought after height; those of the
Decorated period aimed rather at breadth and openness.

  [Illustration: GEOMETRICAL WINDOW, SOUTH TRANSEPT, CHESTER CATHEDRAL]

The fourteenth-century masons studied nature carefully, and put masses
of carved fruit or flowers or leaves in the capitals of their columns.
The arches of the nave of Chester Cathedral prove this fact.

A favourite ornament of the Decorated period is the crocket, a
projecting bunch of foliage added to pinnacles, the hoods of arches, and
the canopies of niches and tombs. Another device is the ball-flower
carved in the mouldings. The ball-flower is as sure a sign of Decorated
mouldings as the dog-tooth was in those of the Early English period.

  [Illustration: ALTAR TOMBS, MACCLESFIELD]

The choir of Stockport Parish Church is a beautiful example of the
Decorated style, and the greater portions of Macclesfield, Nantwich, and
Prestbury Parish Churches belong to the same period. In many other
churches you will find some detail, generally a window or a doorway or
an altar tomb, which will show you some of the features of this style.

In the Early English and Decorated periods a spire was sometimes added
to the tower, as at Astbury and Bebington. The spire grew out of the
pyramid-shaped roof with which the towers of Norman churches were
covered.

In the low-lying portions of the Cheshire plain, where stone was scarce
but timber plentiful, the framework of a church was often built of wood.
In the village of Warburton, on the banks of the Mersey, is a
fourteenth-century wooden church, which served as the chapel of a priory
that was established here by the Normans. The name itself
('Werburgh-ton') speaks to us of S. Werburgh, the patron saint of the
Abbey of Chester, and a field by the river is still called the Abbey
Croft; the stone coffins within the church once contained the bones of
monks who lived here.

  [Illustration: INTERIOR OF WARBURTON TIMBER CHURCH. FOURTEENTH CENTURY]

The arches within are made of rough-hewn timber, rudely shaped with the
axe. Lantern pegs of buck-horn from the deer that once roamed the
woodlands of Dunham Massey are fixed on the oak pillars; the roof is
supported by stout cross-beams. The brick tower has been added at a
later day, and the south wall built when the timbers on that side of the
church collapsed. The timber churches of Lower Peover and Marton belong
to the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century.
Marton Church was the burial-place of the Davenports, who lived at
Marton Hall.

  [Illustration: THE OLD PRIEST'S HOUSE, PRESTBURY]

The Davenports had a more splendid home at Bramhall, the oldest portions
of which were built when Edward the Third was king. The great hall at
Baguley was built about the same time. The massive upright posts are
cut from timber more than two feet square, and the spaces between them
filled with wickerwork and plaster. The open roof is supported by a
mighty 'tie-beam' and two uprights called 'queen-posts'[2]. The windows
are tall and the lights narrow, and separated from one another by oak
mullions.

  [2] Sometimes the roof was held up by a single 'king-post' in
  place of two queen-posts. The 'king-post' reached from the centre
  of the tie-beam to the point of the roof.

Surely the men who built it had hearts of oak. The building reflects the
rugged character of the men of the days when 'knights were bold' and
'might was right'. In this hall we can picture old Sir William Baggiley
feasting with his family and his retainers, when the summons came from
his king to follow him to the French wars.

His effigy still rests in the hall that he himself perhaps built. It is
broken and battered, but enough remains to show us that the knights who
fought for Edward and the Black Prince had changed the fashion of their
war dress since the Crusades. A hood of mail still protects the head and
neck, but the suit of mail has given way to plates of steel riveted or
hooked together, so that the whole body is cased in armour.




CHAPTER XVII

A DEPOSED KING


When Edward the First completed his conquest of North Wales, and the
Welsh chiefs swore fealty at Chester to the first English Prince of
Wales, the fighting squires of Cheshire found themselves without any
occupation. Edward the Third, ambitious of recovering the French
dominions of the Norman and Angevin Kings of England, provided the
Cheshire men with a fresh field of adventures, with far greater
opportunities of performing deeds of valour and satisfying their thirst
for warfare.

A number of Cheshire knights followed the king and the Black Prince to
France. The French Chronicler, Froissart, tells us that Sir James Audley
and his four Cheshire squires 'fought always in the chief of the battle'
at Poitiers. One of the four squires was Sir John Delves, who built the
old tower of Doddington Castle, near Audlem. In Barthomley Church is a
monument to Sir Robert Fulleshurst, who also was one of the dauntless
four.

In the chancel of Bunbury Church is the tomb of Sir Hugh Calveley, who,
by his bold deeds, won for himself the title of the 'Cheshire Hero'.
Over the doorway of the inn at Handley you may see the sign of the three
calves, the ancient coat of arms of the Calveleys. Sir Hugh was the
leader of a famous band of soldiers called the 'Companions', who gave
their services for pay to any leader who required them, and were the
terror of the country people of France for many years. Edward made him
the Governor of Calais, from whence he sacked the seaport of Boulogne,
and treated the inhabitants with great cruelty. Indeed, many of his
exploits are anything but deeds of glory.

When Sir Hugh Calveley returned in his old age to his home in Cheshire,
wishing to atone, perhaps, for his ruthless acts, he founded a college
at Bunbury for a master, two chaplains, and two choristers. Their chief
duty, no doubt, was to pray for the repose of the soul of their
benefactor.

Cheshire knights and Welshmen fought side by side at Poitiers. When the
Black Prince returned to England he gave the Dee Mills for life to Sir
Howell y Fwyall.

An inscription on the wall of the Parish Church of Macclesfield tells us
that Perkin a Legh 'serv'd King Edward the Third and the Black Prince
his sonne in all their warres in France, and was at the Battell of
Cressie, and hadd Lyme given him for that service'. The descendants of
the Leghs still live at Lyme Hall, near Disley, where a life-size
portrait of the Black Prince hangs in the entrance hall. Sir Perkin
married the daughter of Sir Thomas d'Anyers, who received a handsome
reward for rescuing the Royal Standard at Crecy from the French. His
body lies beneath the d'Anyers monument in Grappenhall Church.

The same inscription at Macclesfield tells us that Perkin a Legh 'serv'd
King Richard the Second, and left him not in his troubles, but was taken
with him and beheaded at Chester'.

Cheshire was very loyal to the unfortunate Richard, who styled himself
Prince of Cheshire, and showed great favour to the ancient earldom. The
victory of Crecy was due to the English archers, and among them none
were more famous than those of Cheshire. On their return from the wars,
Richard's faithful bowmen became his body-guard, and could always be
relied upon whenever he wished to strike a blow at his enemies. 'Sleep
in peace, Dickon,' they would say to him, 'we will take care of thee,
and if thou hadst married the daughter of Sir Perkin of Legh, thou
mightest have defied all the lords in England.'

Cheshire men got a very bad name, for they were cruel and bloodthirsty,
given to lawless deeds and inspiring terror wherever they appeared. They
were safe in Cheshire, for the county was governed directly by the king,
and did not yet send representatives to Parliament. The House of Commons
itself was overawed by a force of 2,000 Cheshire archers, commanded by
seven Cheshire esquires. When the Commons rose against the misgovernment
of the king, the unpunished robberies and evil deeds of the Cheshire men
were one of the causes of complaint. The bowmen all wore the badge of
the White Hart, Richard's own device. There are at the present day many
inns in the villages of Cheshire that bear the sign of the White Hart, a
reminiscence of the days of Richard and his Cheshire guards.

The enemies of Richard were determined to depose him, and put in his
place Henry of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt. Richard banished Henry,
and deprived him of his estates and possessions. When Henry landed with
a small force at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, in the year 1399, he was joined
by many of the northern lords, chief among whom was the powerful Earl of
Northumberland and his son, Harry 'Hotspur'. Richard surrendered to his
cousin at Flint, and was brought to Chester 'on a sorry hack not worth a
couple of pounds'. He was confined in the tower over the gateway of the
Castle at Chester before being removed to Pontefract, where he probably
met a violent death, though it was given out that he died of starvation.
Perkin a Legh was executed for his loyalty to Richard, and his head
fixed on a pole on the highest tower of Chester Castle.

The Cheshire archers struck one more blow in Richard's defence. Hotspur
had been made Justice of Cheshire and North Wales by Henry the Fourth,
to keep down the turbulent Cheshire men and the Welsh insurgents. He
suddenly changed sides, and joined Earl Mortimer and Owen Glendower of
Wales in their revolt against the new king.

Hotspur gave out that Richard was yet alive at Sandiway, and the chief
barons of Cheshire, the Venables and the Vernons, and the archers of
Macclesfield and Delamere flocked to his standard. The Mayor of Chester
went too, and the parsons of Pulford, Davenham, Rostherne and other
villages, each with his own following. Though they were afterwards told
that Richard was really dead, they were quite content to avenge him, and
the army decked with the badge of the White Hart marched from Cheshire
to join the Welsh leader.

King Henry met them near Shrewsbury, where a fierce battle took place.
The Cheshire archers fought with great bravery, and even routed a
portion of the king's army. But they were gradually overcome by the more
numerous royal forces, and Henry's victory was complete. Hotspur himself
was killed, and among the slain were 'the most part of the knights and
squires of the county of Chester'. After the battle, the baron of
Kinderton, Sir Richard Venables, was executed, and his estates given to
his brother, a supporter of the king.

The ancient yew-trees in many of the churchyards of Cheshire will remind
you of the sturdy bowmen who overthrew the mail-clad mounted men of
France at the battles of Crecy and Poitiers. The big yew in the
churchyard of Farndon must have been of great age, even in the days
when Richard's archers cut their bows from its tough and pliant boughs.

  The bow was made in England, in England,
  Of true wood, of yew wood, the wood of English bows:
  So men who are free
  Love the old yew tree
  And the land where the yew tree grows.

In order to encourage archery among workmen and labourers, Richard
forbade the playing of football, tennis, and the like, under penalty of
fine or imprisonment. Among the town-laws of Chester was one which
compelled all children of six years old and upwards to be taught the use
of the bow and arrow, both 'for the avoiding of idleness' and for
service 'in the ancient defence of the kingdom'. Every Easter Monday the
two sheriffs chose teams of archers, and shot a match on the Roodee, the
prize being a breakfast or dinner of calves' heads and bacon, in which
the Mayor and Aldermen also took part. When a man of any well-to-do
family married in Chester, he was expected to give a silver arrow in the
following year as a prize for archery.

Some of the knights who returned from the French wars found their old
homes burnt or destroyed by marauding Welshmen during their absence. The
castles which they built for their protection were built of stone, and
portions strongly fortified. The massive tower or keep of Doddington is
crowned with a battlement and four square corner turrets; the windows
are mere slits in the walls. Brimstage Tower in Wirral was built in 1398
by Sir Hugh de Hulse. The parapet or gallery is 'machicolated', that is
to say it projects beyond the walls of the tower, so that molten metal
might be poured through holes in the parapet upon an attacking force
below.

The more famous Storeton Hall was built about the same time, though
little remains now to show its former splendour. From Storeton came the
powerful Cheshire House of Stanley. In the reign of Edward the Third,
Sir Philip de Bamville was master-forester of Wirral, which at the time
was covered with an extensive forest, so that an old rime said

  From Blacon Point to Hilbre
  Squirrels in search of food
  Might jump straight from tree to tree,
  So thick the forest stood.

Sir Philip was being entertained by John Stanley. In the evening, when
the festivities were at their height, young William Stanley ran away
with Joan de Bamville, Sir Philip's only child. Through forest and over
moorland they spurred their horses, and stayed not till the wide
Cheshire plain lay between them and their homes. At Astbury Church they
were wedded, and after the old knight's death, the Stanleys succeeded to
the forestership and the estates that went with it.

Scarcely any churches were built in Cheshire in the latter part of the
fourteenth century, though the chancel of West Kirby was put up in the
reign of Richard the Second. The carved heads on one of the window-hoods
are those of Richard and his queen. Labourers were very scarce, owing to
the ravages of the terrible calamity known as the Black Death, and the
men who returned from the wars had no fancy for doing the work of the
mason and the builder. Men refused to work; wages and the price of bread
rose so high that a limit had to be set to them by law. Even so great a
person as the Abbot of S. Werburgh was fined because his steward charged
too big a price for the abbey corn.

When the next century dawned and the land had rest for a while under the
Lancastrian king, churches were no longer built in the Decorated style
of the fourteenth century. Another style of church-building prevailed.

The curious Chester 'Rows' were originally built during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, though they have been altered and rebuilt many
times since then. There is nothing quite like them in any other English
city. The 'Rows', or galleries, run continuously for most of the length
of the four principal streets over the shops on the street level, as if
the front rooms on the first floor of all the houses had been taken
out and a thoroughfare made through them. At the ends of the Rows, and
at street corners, you may descend by a staircase to the pavement below.

  [Illustration: CHESTER ROWS, WATERGATE STREET]

No one can be quite sure how the Rows came to be built on this plan.
Some people have thought that they were copied from the porticoes or
colonnades of shops in Roman towns. Others, again, say that they were
intended to serve as barricades in the street fighting which often took
place when the Welsh attacked the city. Probably, however, neither of
these explanations is correct.

Many old houses in Chester show that they were at first built with
outside flights of stone steps leading from the street to the first
floor. Under the steps was an entrance to a cellar or storeroom. At some
time or other the steps were removed, except at the ends of the streets,
and a footway laid along the tops of the cellars. The upper stories were
then brought forward, and, resting on columns of wood, made level with
the street fronts of the basement.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE RIVAL ROSES


Henry the Fourth belongs partly to Cheshire, for a Duke of Lancaster had
married the heiress of the Lacys, who were descended from Nigel, Baron
of Halton and Constable of Chester. John of Gaunt, the king's father,
was a frequent visitor at Halton Castle, which he used as a
hunting-lodge.

The French wars broke out again in the reign of Henry the Fifth. Once
more the loyal Leghs and other Cheshire knights followed their king. In
fact the king's body-guard was composed of Cheshire men, among them
being Richard de Mobberley, Ranulf de Chelford, and William de Mere.
Piers Legh, the grandson of Perkin Legh, fell at Agincourt, as you may
read on the brass plate in Macclesfield Church. In the same church is
the altar-tomb of another hero of Agincourt, Sir John Savage, who was
knighted after the battle.

Henry was stricken down at the very moment of his triumph, and a baby
king succeeded to the throne of England. The royal uncles, who acted as
guardians, quarrelled with one another, and in a few years the English
were compelled to leave France. Foreign wars were followed by strife in
our own country. The Wars of the Roses lasted for the greater part of
the second half of the fifteenth century.

Queen Margaret, the 'outlandish woman' as her Yorkist enemies called
her, was in Chester in the year 1459. The king was ill, and the queen
conducted the wars herself, and summoned the fighting-men of Cheshire to
rally to her side. The people of Cheshire were not greatly excited over
the wars, which were mainly blood-feuds of powerful nobles. The trading
classes and the artisans of the towns took little part in the fighting,
but the sturdy Cheshire yeomen followed the squires, who ranged
themselves on the one side or the other. Members of the same family
often found themselves opposed to one another.

A sixteenth-century poet, describing the battle of Blore Heath, which
took place just over the southern border of Cheshire, says:

  There Dutton Dutton kills, a Done doth kill a Done,
  A Booth a Booth, and Legh by Legh is overthrown;
  A Venables against a Venables doth stand,
  A Troutbeck fighteth with a Troutbeck hand to hand.

The Red Rose was badly beaten in this battle, in which Lord Audley and
two thousand Cheshire men were killed.

One of the Booths who fought in the Wars of the Roses is buried beneath
the chancel floor of Wilmslow Church. Set in a marble slab which covers
the grave is a brass plate with figures of Sir Robert de Bothe and Douce
Venables his wife. Similar 'brasses' were common enough in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the monuments of those families
who could afford them. They represent, for the most part, knights and
priests. Few are left now, for numbers were stripped from their places
during the Great Rebellion. Portions of the brass at Wilmslow have been
destroyed or lost, for the figures were at one time set in a handsome
canopy of brass, and the whole surrounded by an inscription, only a
fragment of which remains.

  [Illustration: BRASS OF ROBERT DE BOTHE AND DOUCE VENABLES]

The brass shows us the costume of a knight and lady of the fifteenth
century. The knight is in plate armour, which, since its first
appearance in the Edwardian wars, had become more and more elaborate and
highly ornamental. If you study this brass and the effigies on the
Savage monuments at Macclesfield you will be able to recognize in other
churches the warriors who fought in the battles of the fifteenth
century.

Douce Venables was only nine years of age when she was married by her
parents to the twelve-year-old husband whom they chose for her.
Throughout the Middle Ages child-marriages were frequently arranged in
order to make secure the estates which the children were to inherit, and
save them from the greediness of the kings. The sovereign claimed the
right of wardship over all heirs and heiresses who were left orphans in
early life, and took a large sum of money out of their estates when he
gave them away in marriage. If they did not then marry according to his
wishes they had to pay a further sum. We may be sure the kings made all
they could from this source, for wars were expensive and the kings were
always short of ready money.

The people of Cheshire were glad when the Wars of the Roses were over.
The Roses were united when Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, married
Elizabeth the heiress of Edward the Fourth and of the House of York. On
the porch of Gawsworth Church is a carved corbel consisting of a rose,
within whose petals appear two faces. This is the Tudor Rose, a symbol
of the union of the Houses of Lancaster and York. The porch was
therefore built shortly after the wars were ended.

The Cheshire Stanleys helped Henry Tudor to win the crown of Richard the
Third on the field of Bosworth, the last battle of the rival Roses. When
Richard saw the redcoats and the harts' heads of the Stanley followers
ranged on the side of his enemies, he knew that he was doomed.

  The Stanley strokes they are so strong, there may no man their blows
                                                                  abide.

It was Sir William Stanley who picked up the crown which had fallen from
King Richard's head when he was struck down, and taking Henry aside, set
it on his head.

Macclesfield suffered severely in this battle. Among the corporation
records of Macclesfield is preserved a letter to King Henry the Seventh,
praying that the town might not lose its charter because it could not
make up the necessary number of aldermen, owing to the heavy slaughter
of the townsmen at Bosworth.

Lord Derby, the head of the House of Stanley, arranged the new king's
marriage with the Lady Elizabeth, and Sir William Stanley was for a time
high in favour with the king. But one day he asked for too great a
reward--nothing less than the Earldom of Chester, and the suspicious
king chopped off his head. Thus were men often requited for their
services.

Notwithstanding the squabbles and jealousies of rival kings and princes,
the people as a whole were progressing along more peaceful ways. Trade
was flourishing, and the class of well-to-do merchants becoming yearly
more numerous and important. Wealthy aldermen imitated the good example
of King Henry the Sixth, founder of many schools and colleges. Edmund
Shaw, of Stockport, founded in 1487 a Free School at Stockport for the
children of the burgesses. The master of the school was to be a priest,
'a discrete man, and conning in grammer and able of connyng to teche
gramer.' The art of printing had just been discovered, and now that
books were likely to be within the reach of all, it was necessary first
of all to teach Cheshire boys how to read and understand their own
language.

The century, that opened with war and bloodshed, closed in peace such as
Cheshire had hardly ever before experienced.




CHAPTER XIX

CHURCHES OF THE MIDDLE AGES


Many of the largest and finest churches in Cheshire were built during
the Wars of the Roses, and in the reigns of the early Tudors. This fact
shows us more than anything else perhaps that the wars did not greatly
interfere with the progress and prosperity of the inhabitants of
Cheshire. During this period the churches of Mottram, Malpas, Great
Budworth, Nantwich, Astbury, Grappenhall, Tarvin, Bunbury, Wilmslow,
Witton, Gawsworth, and many others were built or completed.

  [Illustration: ASTBURY, WEST FRONT. PERPENDICULAR]

If you study any of these churches carefully you will see that the style
was once again changing. Probably the first thing you will note will be
the change in the patterns of the windows. The mullions which divide
the lights are carried right up to the crown of the windows instead of
branching off to right or left in flowing curves. This is the chief
feature from which the new style has received the name of Perpendicular.

The Perpendicular builders of the latter half of the fifteenth and the
first half of the sixteenth centuries found their windows growing to
such a size that they had to strengthen them with cross-bars called
transoms. Thus the windows, as in the west front of Astbury and the
south transept of Chester Cathedral, for instance, present the
appearance of a number of rectangles placed side by side and piled one
above another. The crown of the windows are also now flattened until
they hardly appear to be pointed at all.

The clerestories of the Perpendicular churches were filled with rows of
windows until the whole length of the wall was almost continuous glass,
as at Malpas and Astbury. When Bibles and Church services began to be
printed more light was needed, for people went to church to read as well
as to listen.

The doorways, like the windows, have changed with the times. The heads
are flattened and covered with a square moulded hood. The corner spaces
between the arch and the hood are called spandrels, and are generally
filled in with carved foliage or shields. At the sides are often niches
for the images of saints, or moulded panels. The door of the Rivers
Chapel at Macclesfield is a beautiful specimen of Perpendicular
architecture.

The walls of Perpendicular churches are generally surmounted by a
parapet which runs round the whole length of a church, as at Malpas.
Sometimes the stone work of the parapet is pierced with panel-shaped
slits or ornamented with rows of quatrefoils. Panels appear on the
buttresses of Gawsworth Church.

But the great glory of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century churches are
the tall and massive square towers. These are built in stages separated
from one another by a narrow projecting course of stones or by bands of
quatrefoils. The name of the builder often appears on the tower. Round
the tower of Mobberley Church runs a Latin inscription bearing the
names of John Talbot and Margaret his wife, the patrons of the church,
and Richard Plat the master-mason. On the towers of Macclesfield and
Gawsworth Churches are carved rows of shields bearing the arms of
different lords of the manor. Like the body of the church, the tower is
generally crowned with an embattled parapet with pinnacles at the four
corners.

  [Illustration: PERPENDICULAR TOWER, HANDLEY. FIFTEENTH CENTURY]

In the carved foliage of one of the capitals in the nave of Chester
Cathedral are the letters S. R. They are the initials of Abbot Simon
Ripley, one of the greatest of fifteenth-century builders in Cheshire.
He rebuilt the upper parts of the nave and south transept of the Abbey
Church, and planned the central tower, which was finished by the next
abbot. Simon Ripley also built the old tower and gateway at Saighton
Grange, which had been the residence of the Abbots of S. Werburgh ever
since the time of Hugh Lupus.

Many of the village churches of Cheshire were built on the sites of
former churches, and often a portion of the older building remains to
prove this. The Norman font at Grappenhall and the little Norman window
at Woodchurch are all that is left to prove that churches existed here
before the present buildings were erected. In such churches you can
often trace the successive buildings and rebuildings, alterations and
additions that have been made from time to time. A single church may
indeed show the chief features of all the styles from the time of the
Conqueror to the Civil War. At Prestbury you may see a Norman doorway in
the little chapel in the churchyard; in the chancel of the church is a
window of pure Early English, and in the nave a pillar of the same
period. There are Decorated windows in the aisles, and a Perpendicular
window at the east end.

The Cheshire churches are beautiful still; they must have been even more
beautiful in the sixteenth century, before the Puritans of the
Reformation and the Civil War in their mistaken zeal destroyed almost
everything of beauty within and without that could be destroyed. On the
walls of the interior were often painted pictures of Bible stories such
as the Creation, the Crucifixion, or the Resurrection of our Lord. When
the plaster was stripped from the walls of Gawsworth Church some of
these wall-paintings were discovered. Drawings were made from them,
which you may see in the Free Library of Macclesfield. On the wall of
the nave of Mobberley Church some of these paintings still remain, but
their meaning is not very clear.

The chancel was divided from the nave by a screen of carved oak, with a
long narrow gallery above it called a rood-loft, from the rood or cross
which was placed in the centre of the gallery. The crosses have gone,
but at Mobberley you may see the ancient screen, with an inscription,
and the date 1500 carved upon it.

  [Illustration: SHOCKLACH: CROSS AND NORMAN DOOR]

Throughout the Middle Ages it was the custom for the lord of the manor
to reserve some portion of the church for his own use, or to add to the
building a chantry or chapel where his own chantry priest might pray
daily for the salvation of his soul. These chapels are generally at the
eastern ends of the aisles. You will know them by the handsome monuments
which were raised over the graves of the founders, for these chapels
were used as the burial-place of the founders and their families. The
Calveleys had a private chapel at Bunbury, the Mainwarings at Over
Peover, the Dones at Tarporley, the Troutbecks in S. Mary's, Chester,
and the Cholmondeleys at Malpas.

The church porches are on the south side of the church. They are
generally large, for portions of the baptismal service were read there,
and the font is therefore close to the door within the church. In the
corner of the porch at Woodchurch you will see a little stone basin or
'stoup' in which holy water was placed for the use of those entering the
church. At Malpas there is a little room above the porch called a
'parvise'; this was used as a priest's room. Over the door of the porch
are niches for the images of the saints to whom the church is dedicated.

In the churchyard near the south porch, which was nearly always the
principal entrance to the church, you will generally see a cross or
stump of a cross and steps representing a Calvary. From these steps the
friars used to preach to the people when they travelled through the
Cheshire towns and villages.

In many of the old churches of Cheshire you will see a stout oak chest,
often black with age, and strongly bound with bands and clasps of iron.
These chests were made to hold the deeds of gift of land and money made
by rich patrons. Beneath the tower of Wilmslow Church is an ancient
chest that was carved out of a solid block of wood. Some of you have
perhaps tried to raise the heavy lid of the chest at Little Peover, but
it is as much as a strong man may do. An old legend says that the maid
who can lift it is indeed worthy to become a Cheshire farmer's wife. In
the museum at Warrington is preserved the old parish chest of
Grappenhall. It is the oldest chest in the county. It is of the rudest
description, consisting merely of a tree trunk, seven feet long, chopped
smooth with an axe, sawn into two portions and hollowed.

  [Illustration: PORCH WITH PARVISE: MALPAS]

In these chests were also placed the churchwardens' accounts of
expenses, as well as the registers of births, deaths, and marriages
which Henry the Eighth in 1538 commanded to be kept in every parish.
These ancient records are valuable now, and preserved with great care
for from them we can glean much information about the lives of our
forefathers. Many of them have been copied and published by scholars,
and may be read by you in your libraries. Many Cheshire parish registers
date from the times of the Tudors, but a large number were lost or
destroyed during the Civil Wars.

Churchwardens' accounts help us to picture in our minds the interior of
a mediaeval church. We read of payments made 'for timber bought to make
the pulpit', 'for mending of the Bible book and for the covering of the
same', for strewing rushes on the floor of the church to keep it warm,
and 'for a chain to the Bible'. There are chained Bibles still at
Bunbury, Backford, and Burton. A printed Bible cost a lot of money, and
chains were necessary to prevent it being stolen.

There were no comfortable cushioned seats for those who worshipped in
mediaeval churches. Wooden or stone benches were ranged along the walls,
and 'kneeling places' were made for those who could afford to pay for
them. In Acton Church the old stone bench running all round the walls of
the nave and chancel still remains.

In the choir there were stone seats, called 'sedilia', for the priests.
They are set in the wall on the south side of the chancel, and are
generally covered, as at Stockport and Mobberley, with a canopy of Early
English or Decorated tracery.

In the churches which were closely connected with an abbey or monastery,
wooden stalls were made for the monks. These are often beautifully
carved, and covered with handsome canopies of wooden tracery and
pinnacles. The choir stalls of Nantwich are said to have been brought
from the Abbey of Vale Royal.

The carved oak stalls in Chester Cathedral are thought by many people to
be the handsomest in England. Many of them still remain as they were in
King Henry the Eighth's days, freed now from the coat of white paint
with which stupid workmen covered them at a later time. The heavy seats
are fitted with hinges, so that they may be raised. On the under side
are quaint carvings of birds and dragons and unicorns, kings, knights
and seraphs, illustrating ancient legends such as Richard Cœur de
Lion pulling the heart out of a lion, or Scriptural subjects and stories
from the lives of the saints.

  [Illustration: Sedilia at Mobberley]

All Cheshire boys and girls should learn to read and understand the
stories of the Cheshire churches, for in them is bound up the story of
Cheshire men and women of many ages.




CHAPTER XX

THE REFORMATION AND THE GREAT AWAKENING


On one of the walls of the Parish Church of Macclesfield is a small
brass plate, a few inches square. It is called a 'Pardon brass', and
represents the Pope bowing before Christ, while Roger Legh and his six
sons are in the act of prayer. Beneath the figures is the inscription:
'The pardon for saying of five paternosters, five aves and a creed, is
twenty-six thousand years and twenty-six days of pardon.' We are not
told how much money Roger Legh paid the Pope for obtaining pardon for
his misdeeds, but it was a good round sum, I imagine.

During the Middle Ages the doctrine grew up that sins committed by one
man might be atoned for by the prayers or penance performed by others,
together with a sum of money, which varied according to the crime. The
price of pardon for robbery was twelve shillings, for murder only seven
shillings and sixpence, and for perjury nine shillings. By the sixteenth
century people began to have an uneasy feeling that the sale of
'indulgences', as these pardons were called, was wrong, and preachers
rose up everywhere to denounce the system.

This was only one of many evils which was bringing the Church into ill
repute. Reformers, like Martin Luther, showed that the Church believed
many things which did not agree with the teaching of the Bible.
Moreover, churchmen filled all the principal offices of state, and used
their position as a means of amassing great wealth, a portion of which
passed into the hands of the Pope, who was the recognized head of the
Church and whom the clergy were bound to obey. As the clergy would not
reform the Church themselves, the king and his lay ministers decided to
do it for them by Act of Parliament. King Henry the Eighth declared
himself head of the English Church, which, from this time, became
separated from the Church of Rome.

The king then turned his attention to the monasteries, which had grown
wealthy at the expense of the people. The monks themselves had grown
lazy and careless of their duties, and many of them were living evil
lives. The king decided to turn out the monks and do away with the
monasteries altogether.

In the year 1536 the king's officers appeared in Cheshire. The first to
suffer was the Abbot of Norton Priory, who resisted stoutly and summoned
all his tenants to his assistance. The king's men were compelled to take
refuge in a tower, but managed to send a message to Sir Piers Dutton,
Sheriff of Chester, by whose aid the abbot was captured and conveyed to
Halton Castle. The priory was sold, and the revenues, plate, and jewels
confiscated to the king.

Vale Royal fared no better. In this case, at any rate, the monks
deserved their fate. They had long been the terror of the neighbourhood,
and were the friends of the robbers and cut-throats of Delamere Forest.
Abbot and monks were expelled from the abbey, which was handed over to
Sir Thomas Holcroft. The Holcroft crest was a raven, and superstitious
people saw in the fall of Vale Royal the fulfilment of a prophecy of a
Cheshire 'wise man' named Nixon, who said that the abbey would one day
be destroyed and become a raven's nest.

The Cistercian Abbeys of Combermere and Darnhall, and the Priories at
Mobberley and Birkenhead, were treated in similar fashion, and their
wealth and estates divided between the neighbouring gentry and the king.

The Abbot of S. Werburgh was the most powerful man in Cheshire, but he
could not save his abbey from the greedy hands of the king's officials.
The wealth of this abbey was reckoned at more than a thousand pounds, a
large sum in those days, equal to a sum at least ten times as great at
the present time. The abbots lived in their fortified manor-houses at
Saighton and Ince, where they kept great state, and supported large
numbers of retainers and dependants. They held a court at Chester, and
frequent quarrels arose between them and the Mayor of Chester as to the
extent of their powers and jurisdiction.

The people of Chester were probably not sorry to see the abbot stripped
of his power. He did not, like the Abbot of Norton, show violence to the
royal officers, but fell in quietly with their wishes. For this he
received his reward, and returned to Chester within two years, no longer
as abbot, but as dean of a new cathedral.

Many of the bishoprics of England covered such a vast extent of country
that Henry decided to spend a portion of the wealth which he had taken
from the monasteries, in creating six new bishoprics. Chester was one of
them, and the Abbey of S. Werburgh became the cathedral church of the
new bishopric, a portion of the new buildings being set apart as a
palace for the newly made Bishops of Chester. The first bishop was John
Bird, a Carmelite friar.

Henry did not go as far in his reformation of the English Church as many
people wished. There were many who 'protested' against practices in the
Roman Church which they thought wrong, such as the worship of images or
of the relics of saints, to which the people were encouraged by the
clergy to pray for help. The Protestants, as the extreme reformers were
called, increased in number daily, and in the reign of Edward the Sixth
got the upper hand. They did away with the old Latin services of the
Church, which the greater part of the poorer classes did not understand,
and wrote a Book of Common Prayer in the English tongue. By an Act of
Uniformity, all the clergy were called upon to use this Prayer Book in
their churches.

During Edward's reign, the rich jewelled vestments of the priests, the
church plate and crucifixes, and even the church bells, were swept away
and sold for the benefit of the king. Many of our village crosses were
wantonly destroyed during this period. The beautiful Sandbach crosses
were thrown down and broken in fragments. Most of the pieces were
recovered at a later day, and the crosses set up again, but they will
for ever remain a proof of the careless destruction of works of art by
which the period of the Reformation was marked.

  [Illustration: CHESTER CATHEDRAL (before Restoration)]

When Queen Mary came to the throne she restored the old religion of
Rome. A memorial obelisk on Gallows Hill, Boughton, reminds us of the
dark days when Protestants were persecuted with blind and bitter hatred
by their Catholic enemies, and even suffered death for their beliefs. On
Gallows Hill, George Marsh was burnt at the stake for teaching the
doctrines of the reformed faith. He was tried in the Lady Chapel of the
cathedral, and condemned to death. The citizens of Chester, who had
shown themselves sympathetic to the reformers, were filled with horror,
and, led by one of the sheriffs, tried to rescue him, but failed in the
attempt. The bones of the martyr were collected and laid in the
burial-ground of S. Giles. The sheriff was forced to flee to the
continent until better times. He returned in the more tolerant days of
Queen Elizabeth, and became mayor of the city.

A settlement was brought about in Queen Elizabeth's reign, which
satisfied all but the extreme men on either side. She was the more
inclined to the Protestant cause inasmuch as she hated the Catholic King
Philip of Spain, who called her 'the heretic queen', and whose spies
were to be found all over England. When the struggle with Spain was near
at hand, Protestants and Catholics forgot their quarrels in face of a
common danger, and the queen had no more loyal subjects than the great
Catholic families of Cheshire. Rowland Stanley, of Hooton-in-Wirral,
gave a large sum of money for improving the defence of the sea-coast,
for it was thought that Philip might land troops in Wirral.

The Reformation was only part of a great awakening of peoples all over
Western and Central Europe. Scholars studied and brought from Italy
copies of the books of the ancient Greek and Roman writers. The
invention of printing helped the spread of learning, and the Tudor
monarchs encouraged the building of schools and colleges in order that
all classes might have the benefit of a better education. Over the porch
of the King's School, Chester, is a statue of King Henry the Eighth. He
was the founder of the school, which for a long time was carried on in
the ancient refectory of the abbey.

Some of the wealth taken from the abbeys and monasteries was devoted to
the foundation of schools. The Grammar School at Macclesfield was
endowed in the reign of Edward the Sixth. At Bunbury, Thomas Aldersey, a
haberdasher of London, founded a school, the chantry and college of Sir
Hugh Calveley having been dissolved at the same time as the abbeys.

Sir John Deane, son of Laurence Deane, of Davenham, gave some property
which had been in the possession of monks for the building of a free
Grammar School at Northwich, 'forasmuch as God's glory, His honour and
the public weal is advanced and maintained by no means more than by
virtuous education and bringing up of youth under such as be learned and
virtuous school-masters.'

'God's glory' was indeed not the least of the things that Cheshire boys
of the sixteenth century were taught to observe. In the stat

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