CHAPTER XVITHE COMING OF THE FRIARS

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 doorAnd gies to us of drink galore,For this was always Marler's law.Who-whoop who-whoop wo-o-o-o-o.

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.

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 forcharity 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.

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.

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.

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 thecrocket, 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.

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.

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 DunhamMassey 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.

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 builtabout 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.

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.

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 Crecyfrom 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 hisson, 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 thechurchyard 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 freeLove the old yew treeAnd the land where the yew tree grows.

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, whichat the time was covered with an extensive forest, so that an old rime said

From Blacon Point to HilbreSquirrels in search of foodMight jump straight from tree to tree,So thick the forest stood.

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 thefirst 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.

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.

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 ofAgincourt, 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.

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 GreatRebellion. 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.

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 torecognize 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 mightnot 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.

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 ofMottram, Malpas, Great Budworth, Nantwich, Astbury, Grappenhall, Tarvin, Bunbury, Wilmslow, Witton, Gawsworth, and many others were built or completed.

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 dividethe 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 runsa 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.

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.

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 churchfor 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 theoldest 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.

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 carefor 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, knightsand 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.

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