CHAPTER XXTHE REFORMATION AND THE GREAT AWAKENING

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.

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, whowas 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 wantonlydestroyed 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.

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 ofprinting 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 statutes of the founder of Witton Grammar School it is laid down 'that the scholars shall thrice a day serve God within the school, rendering Him thanks for His goodness done to them, craving His special grace that they may profit in learning to His honour and glory'.

In the reign of Henry the Eighth the voice of the people of Cheshire was heard for the first time in the Parliament of the English people at Westminster. Hitherto, the miniature Parliament of the Norman and royal Earls of Chester had been considered sufficient for them. Henry now summoned two knights of the county and two burgesses from the city of Chester to take their place side by side with the chosen representatives of the other English shires and boroughs in the national assembly.

The chief event with which all boys, I imagine, connect the name of Queen Elizabeth is the defeat of the Great Armada sent against these shores by the King of Spain. Doubtless on that summer night in the year 1588 there were watchers by the beacon on Alderley Edge who saw the 'Wrekin's crest of fire' flashing its message northwards. There was no telegraph in those days, and yet in an hour or two at most the news of the approach of an enemy was carried by beacon fires from the Channel to the Cheviots. Cheshire indeed produced no Drake or Hawkins; but Sir George Beeston, whose tomb you may see in Bunbury Church, commanded the ship Dreadnought, one of the four ships that broke through the Spanish line and took an active part in the pursuit and destruction of the Spanish vessels.

A few years later Sir Uryan Legh of Adlington Hall accompanied Lord Howard and Raleigh and the Earl of Essex on an expedition to Cadiz, when they destroyed the ships in the harbour and for a second time 'singed the King of Spain's beard'. The town itself was taken by storm, and for his bravery on this occasion Sir Uryan Legh was knighted. The Leghs were always to the fore when there was any fighting to be done. A canopied arch in Prestbury Church marks his last resting-place, but the tomb itself has long since disappeared.

One result of the expeditions of Drake and Raleigh was that Englishmen were inspired with a passion for travel, whether abroad or at home, partly for the sake of adventure and the pursuit of wealth, partly out of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. The voyages of the great navigators, 'itineraries' or diaries of travel, and histories of our own country and its people were written at this period. These books show clearly in their pages how intensely proud the Englishmen of Elizabeth's daywere of their country and their queen and her brave seamen, who by their victories over Spain raised England to the first position among the nations of the world.

Michael Drayton wrote a long poem called 'Polyolbion', in which four hundred lines are taken up with a description of Cheshire, which he calls the

thrice happy Shire, confined so to betwixt two so famous Floods, as Mersey is, and Dee.

thrice happy Shire, confined so to be

twixt two so famous Floods, as Mersey is, and Dee.

He speaks of Chester as

th' imaginary work of some huge Giant's hand:which if such ever were, Tradition tells not who.

th' imaginary work of some huge Giant's hand:

which if such ever were, Tradition tells not who.

The book was illustrated by a number of curious maps, adorned with quaint figures of men and women representing the rivers, hills, forests, and castled towns.

John Speed was born at Farndon on the Dee, and wrote a book called theTheatre of the Empire of Great Britain, which contained the earliest set of maps published in England.

Cophurst, an old house near Sutton Downes in the Forest of Macclesfield, is thought to have been the birthplace of the chronicler Raphael Holinshed, who wrote a History of England and dedicated it to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the great minister of Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare used this book for the plots of some of his plays.

The triumphs of Francis Drake were celebrated in a long Latin poem by Thomas Newton of Butley, who placed the small brass tablet on the wall near the pulpit in Prestbury Church to the memory of his parents. Newton was for some time the head master of Macclesfield Grammar School. Another Elizabethan poet was Geoffrey Whitney, who was born at Nantwich.

An inscription on an old house at Nantwich, bearing the date 1584, shows that Elizabeth returned the affections of her people and did all she could for them. The verse reads thus:—

God grant our royal QueenIn England long to reign;For she hath put her helping handTo build this town again.

God grant our royal Queen

In England long to reign;

For she hath put her helping hand

To build this town again.

Map of Cheshire.From Drayton's 'Polyolbion'

Nantwich had been almost totally destroyed by fire in the previous year. The risk of fire was always very great, owing to the fact that nearly all the houses of the Middle Ages were built of timber and thatched with straw.

The black and white timbered halls are the glory of Cheshire. Let us pay a visit to-day to Little Moreton Hall, near Congleton, perhaps the most beautiful of them all. The people who live here are proud of their home, and on certain days of the week allow you to examine at your leisure many of the rooms in the old house, which remains in almost the same condition as when the Moretons removed to a new and more spacious house of brick hard by.

The framework of the house is all of wood, good solid English oak, and black with age. The spaces between the beams and props are filled with plaster and painted white. The principal beams which support the building are of course upright, firmly laid on a foundation of stone. Within the squares of this framework other beams are set in sloping parallel lines, forming patterns of chevron or diamond, or arranged in rows of quatrefoils and arcades of trefoil-headed arches. The upper stories and the gables of the roof project beyond the ground floor of the building, which is thus kept dry.

We cross the moat by a substantial stone bridge, and enter through a gateway whose massive oaken lintel and side-posts are covered with rich carving, and find ourselves in a square paved courtyard. Within the gateway is a stone horse-block.

Facing us are two deep bay-windows formed of five sides of an octagon. Over them you may read the carved inscription: 'God is al in al things. This window whire made by William Moreton in the yeare of oure LordeMDLIX.' The building of the home was regarded by our Elizabethan forefathers as an almost sacred work, to be carried out with hardly less reverence than the building of a church.

A second gateway forms the entrance to the dining-hall on the one hand and the kitchen on the other. The wallsof the dining-room are lined with wainscoting of panelled oak; the open timbered roof is held up by a strong central beam; the windows are filled with countless tiny panes of glass, with bright patches of red and orange and blue where the coat-of-arms and crest of the Moretons are painted upon them.

Little Moreton Hall

In the kitchen are marks of the growing comfort and luxuries of Elizabethan days—the rows of pewter plates bearing the Moreton arms, and a great spice-chest where the fragrant spices of the East, brought home by travellers, were stored, as well as the sweet herbs, the sage and rosemary, lavender and thyme, from the herb-garden of the Hall. In the open fireplace, ten feet wide, an ox might well be roasted; the smoke from the log-fire was carried upwards from the roof by a chimney-stack of brick.

Over the 'screen' or passage that divides the dining-hall and the kitchen is a musicians' gallery, where the players of the viol and the harp made music while the squire and his lady supped in the early evening.

To the left of the gatehouse through which we first entered is the chapel, where the chaplain read the daily prayers to the assembled family. A narrow spiral staircase fixed upon a central newel post leads to a long gallery at the very top of the house, running the whole length of one side of the courtyard. This was the ballroom, where Elizabeth herself may perhaps have danced, as tradition says she did, for we know that she was fond of visiting her people in their own homes.

Few sixteenth-century houses were without a secret chamber. Little Moreton Hall contains two such rooms, cunningly concealed in a corner of the house. They are entered by sliding panels from an apartment over the kitchen, and the fugitive could escape his pursuers by an underground passage leading underneath the moat to the open field beyond.

At opposite corners of the moat are two green circular mounds, on which probably once stood two watch-towers to guard the house against attack. A large number of the old halls of Cheshire were at one time moated for their protection, though in many cases the moats havebeen filled up, now that they are no longer necessary. Peel Hall in Etchells, Irby, Swinyard Hall, Twemlow, Marthall, and Allostock Hall still retain portions of their original moats.

The Gallery, Little Moreton Hall

Handforth Hall was built, as the inscription over the entrance door tells us, 'in the year of our Lord GodMCCCCCLXIIby Uryan Brereton Knight.' The Tudor builders were not ashamed to put their names to their work. Within the Hall is a wide oak staircase with a wonderfully carved balustrade, one of the most beautiful pieces of Tudor woodwork in Cheshire. Sir Uryan's daughter married Thomas Legh of Adlington, who built the timber portions of Adlington Hall in 1581.

As you have already seen in a previous chapter, some of the timber houses of Cheshire belong to a period much earlier than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Just as they reached their highest pitch of beauty and richness under the Tudors a new style of domestic architecture was coming in. Bricks, which had been very seldom used since the days of the Romans, were again employed. The bricks were much larger than those used by the Romans; in fact they were precisely similar to those of the present day. They were not, however, laid as they are now, but in the style called 'English bond', in which one 'course' or row shows all the long faces and the next one all the short ends.

These brick mansions were larger and more spacious than the old wooden ones, and built for comfort rather than defence. They were set in the midst of broad parks, and surrounded by terraced lawns and gardens enclosed by walls of clipped yew-trees. Sometimes ornamental fish-ponds, such as you may see at Gawsworth, were laid out in front of the house; avenues of limes and Spanish chestnuts imported from abroad were planted along the roadway leading to the principal entrance. Their general shape, out of compliment to Queen Elizabeth, was that of the letter E. Brereton Hall is a good example of this 'Tudor' style. It was built in 1586, the first stone being laid, so it is said, by the queen herself.

In the eastern parts of Cheshire, where stone is abundant,houses similar in design were built of this material instead of brick. Arden Hall, near Stockport, is now in ruins, but enough remains to show the chief characteristics of an Elizabethan mansion; the turret with circular stone staircase, the wings with gabled ends, and the bay windows carried up to the roof. Other Elizabethan houses areMarple Hall, Poole Hall, Carden Hall in the Broxton Hills, Dorfold Hall, and Burton Hall in Wirral.

Tudor Monuments in Gawsworth ChurchThe central figure is that of Mary Fitton

Tudor Monuments in Gawsworth Church

The central figure is that of Mary Fitton

In Gawsworth Church are a number of monuments of members of the Fitton family, who lived at the Old Hall at Gawsworth. Mary Fitton was one of Elizabeth's maids-of-honour, and used to take part in plays for the amusement of the queen; and it is not at all unlikely that she was a friend of Shakespeare. It is indeed supposed that she is the 'dark lady' of whom the poet speaks in his sonnets. From an examination of these Fitton monuments you can learn what the costume at the end of the sixteenth century was like. Lady Alice Fitton is surrounded by the kneeling figures of her two sons and two daughters, the former in plate armour, the latter wearing the familiar head-dress and ruff which are such distinctive features in the dress of Tudor ladies. The figures are carved in alabaster, and have clearly at one time been painted in bright colours. The picture of Mary Fitton will help you to recognize the Tudor monuments which are to be seen in many Cheshire churches.

Many attempts were made by the Tudor sovereigns to conquer the Irish. From time to time expeditions were sent across the sea, and the troops embarked at various points on the Cheshire coast. The fighting Leghs of Adlington raised a troop of Cheshire soldiers, and Thomas and Ralph Legh fell in battle against the Irish chieftain Shane O'Neill. A Cheshire knight, Sir Edward Fitton, of Gawsworth, was made Governor of Connaught.

In the later years of Elizabeth's reign a constant stream of ill-clad and ill-paid soldiers marched through Cheshire on their way to the wars. The soldiers had to be supplied with food and quarters by the towns and villages throughwhich they passed, and the cost of billeting the men in the houses on their arrival at Chester fell very hard on the city merchants, who were soon brought to great distress. The soldiers were generally put on board ship at Parkgate, for the channel of the Dee had become so choked up with sand that only the smallest vessels could reach Chester.

The leader of one of the expeditions was the Earl of Essex, who was a frequent visitor at Lyme Park, where he hunted the stag with his host, Sir Piers Legh.

The wars with Spain ruined the oversea trade of Chester, consisting at this time largely in the export of tanned leather to the French ports of Rochelle and Bordeaux. In the year 1598, Thomas Fletcher, the Mayor of Chester, wrote to Lord Burghley that he 'had found the poor city to be generally very weak and much decayed, especially in the chiefest parts thereof (the merchants) who have been heretofore the most able to do her Majesty service'. For eight months there had not been 'one ship nor small bark laden into any foreign place'. The queen had, some years previously, given the merchants license to export 10,000 'dickers' (that is, bundles of ten) of tanned calf-skins within a certain time, but owing to the wars they were unable to get them away within the given period, and the merchants asked for the time to be extended.

An old gabled house in Watergate Street, with its pious superscription 'God's Providence is mine inheritance', reminds us of a more dreadful scourge than war which visited Chester, and indeed the whole of Cheshire, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This was the terrible plague, which attacked rich and poor alike, and stopped the trade of the city so much that, as one writer says, 'grass did grow a foot high at the Cross'. Houses that were infected with the disease were marked with a cross, that none might go near; no merchandise was allowed to enter the city until it had been unpacked and aired outside the walls. Death came suddenly, or within a few hours at most; and often 'to those that merrily dined it gave a sorrowful supper'. God's Providence House receivedits name from the fact that its inmates alone of all the neighbourhood escaped the disease.

Stanley Palace, Chester(showing influence of Renaissance)

The Courts could not be held in the plague-stricken city; the Exchequer Court was removed to Tarvin, and the Assizes were held at Nantwich. The annual fairs were abandoned to prevent the spread of the disease. Numbers of victims were carried out from the city and hastily buried in the 'Barrow Field'. Other Cheshire towns suffered severely. On the hills, near Macclesfield, are many gravestones of the victims of the plague; two gravestones near the Bowstones on Disley Moor tell the same tale.

Some of the English nobles had residences in Chester. The city gates were confided to noble families for safe keeping. The East Gate was guarded by the ancestors of Lord Crewe. The 'Bear and Billet' Inn in Bridge Street belonged to the Earls of Shrewsbury, who were Sergeants of the Bridge Gate. The Earls of Derby had charge of the Watergate. The North Gate, however, the most important entrance to the city, was entrusted to the mayor and the citizens.

A narrow court in Watergate Street leads to the Stanley Palace of the Earls of Derby; the gardens extended down to the river-side. The architecture is very similar to that of the old timber halls described in the last chapter, but the row of round-headed panels tells us that people were beginning to imitate in their timber decorations the round-headed arches of the Italian style.

As early as the reign of Henry the Seventh, English architects were beginning to study the remains of ancient buildings in Rome, and Italian architects were brought over to England. Henry the Eighth invited a builder named John of Padua, who designed the north side of Lyme Hall. The Italians despised the Pointed styles of English architecture, calling it contemptuously 'Gothic', from the name of the barbarian Goths, who overran the Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries.

Many of the Cheshire gentry left their homes in the towns to live in new houses in the country. The old hall of the Sandbach family is now the principal inn of thetown of Sandbach; the ancient home of the Ardernes in Great Underbank, Stockport, is now a bank; and the house built at Nantwich by 'Richarde and Marjery Churche' has been turned into a ladies' school. The Mainwarings lived in a fine house in Watergate Street, Chester, until a number of little shops were allowed to block up the front of their home. The Wilbrahams moved from Nantwich to the spacious Elizabethan hall at Dorfold.

When the monasteries were destroyed, a large number of people were thrown out of work, especially in the country districts. The distress was so great in Queen Elizabeth's reign that Parliament passed a 'poor law', by which the inhabitants of every parish were compelled to pay taxes for the support of their own poor.

This did not, however, prevent rich and charitable men from devoting a portion of their wealth to the building of hospitals and almshouses, where the aged poor could live in comfort. In Commonhall Street, Chester, are the old almshouses founded by Sir Thomas Smith in 1532, and there are almshouses at Acton, Little Budworth, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Tarporley, Sandbach, and Stockport, though some of these were built in later reigns. Nantwich was particularly favoured by benefactors, and possesses four separate sets of almshouses.

Sometimes sums of money were left to be spent on providing bread for those who were unable to work. In the churches at Little Peover, Mottram, and Woodchurch, you will see some wooden shelves fixed on the wall near the porch. On these were placed the loaves which were distributed after the Sunday services. At Bebington and Woodchurch sums of money were given by a family of the name of Goodacre for the purchase of bullocks to draw the ploughs of the poor peasants of Wirral.

Certain days of the year were set apart as public holidays. Every parish had its 'wakes' or festival of the dedication of the parish church. These were held on the feast-day of the saint after whom the church was named. Another festival was that of the 'rush-bearing'. In a former chapter you have read of the rushes that were spread on the floors of churches. They were gatheredfrom the fringe of a stream or mere, and tied into bundles and placed on the rush-cart, which was gaily decked with ribbons and flowers. A procession was then formed of the villagers, who accompanied the cart to the church, where a special service was held. There are still rush-bearing services at Farndon, Aldford, and Forest Chapel, but in many villages the merry-making too often ended in disorder and drunkenness, and the custom has been allowed to die out.

An Elizabethan writer tells us that the people of Nantwich visited the brine pits on Ascension Day and decked them with flowers and garlands. Then they offered hymns and prayers of thanksgiving for the blessing of the brine, on which the prosperity of their town depended.

May-day was the favourite holiday of the people. The maypole was set up on the village green, where the Queen of the May was crowned, and morris-dancers danced to the fiddle and horn-pipe, as they do to this day at Lymm, Knutsford, Holmes Chapel, and many other Cheshire villages. Sometimes there were wrestling matches, and combat with sword and quarterstaff. At Gawsworth are the remains of a tilting-ground where such encounters took place. The long terraced banks of earth on which the spectators sat may still be seen.

The good people of Chester were particularly fond of shows and pageants, and processions. On Midsummer Day the mayor and aldermen of the city marched with banners through the streets to S. Oswald's Church. With them went 'four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, an ass and a dragon, and six hobby horses'. The giants were made of pasteboard and repainted every year, and 'dosed with arsenic to keep the rats from eating them'.

Some of their amusements were, however, of a more degrading kind. The High Cross of Chester, from which the friars and Wyclif's 'poor priests' had preached in former days, now became the scene of brutal pastimes. For at this spot bulls were baited in the bull-ring when a mayor finished his year of office, the mayor himself paying the expenses.

The Bear's Head and White Bear Inn at Congletonremind us that the natives of Congleton were so fond of bear-baiting, that a local proverb says that they 'sold their Church Bible to buy a new bear'. Few towns or villages were without a cock-pit, for cock-fighting was a favourite amusement of all classes. Happily, these degrading sports are now forbidden by law, and we do not regret their disappearance.

Little mercy was shown to those who were guilty of brawling or breaches of the peace. Often by the lichgate of a Cheshire churchyard, or near the village cross, you will see the remains of the wooden stocks in which drunkards were placed and exposed to the jeers and gibes of the passers-by. In the museums at Chester, Stockport, and Macclesfield, you will see a still more barbarous form of punishment. The scolding or brawling woman was compelled to have her head encased in a 'brank' or skeleton helmet of iron, with a spiked iron piece pressingon the tongue. A chain was attached to the woman's waist, and she was led through the town.

Another instrument of punishment is to be seen in the Museum at West Park, Macclesfield. It is a girdle or cage, consisting of a number of iron hoops fastened together by chains which were placed round the body of a woman, who was then tied to a plank called a 'ducking-stool', and dipped in a pond. There was also an iron strait-jacket at Macclesfield for drunkards and lunatics.

In the 'Stag Parlour' of Lyme Hall is a framed piece of needlework done by Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, when she stayed at Lyme. When she was deposed by her Scottish subjects she threw herself on the mercy of Queen Elizabeth, who permitted her to live in England. But plots were made against the life of Elizabeth, and Mary was suspected of having a hand in them, and in the end Mary had to pay the penalty of death.

Mary was a Catholic, but her son James, who succeeded to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth, had been brought up among the Scottish reformers. The extreme English reformers, or Puritans as they were now called, hoped therefore that the king would be friendly to their wishes. The Puritans were disappointed, but James agreed to one of their demands, and said that he would have a new translation of the Bible made. The Authorized Version of the Bible which is read in all Cheshire churches and chapels to-day is the one noble work due to the first Stuart king.

The Puritans were so named because they wished to 'purify' the Church of certain forms and ceremonies, such as the use of the surplice, and the sign of the cross at baptism, and even the ring in the marriage service. They also objected to the rule of bishops, and wished theChurch to be governed by councils of elders or 'presbyters' after the manner of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

During the reign of Elizabeth many Puritan clergymen had refused to perform the services of the Church in the way ordered by the Prayer Book. They were driven out of the Church, and formed separate congregations of their own. Hence they received the name of Independents, and they were the earliest of the Nonconformist dissenters.

Many Independents suffered so severely at the hands of King James and his archbishop, that they determined to leave the country and settle in new homes across the sea. They gave the name of New England to their colony in America, and thus became the founders of our American possessions. Among the exiles was Samuel Eaton, a Wirral clergyman. He returned in the reign of Charles the First, and became a minister in the chapel attached to Dukinfield Hall, which thus became one of the earliest places of worship for the Independents in Cheshire. The ancient chapel now forms a portion of the modern Nonconformist church of Dukinfield.

The Catholics were not more pleased with James than the Puritans were. They were compelled to attend the new services of the Protestant Church. Those who refused to do so were called 'recusants'. The Bishop of Chester was ordered by James to hunt out all the Popish recusants in Cheshire and bring them to trial. The secret hiding-places built in the walls of many Cheshire halls must often have sheltered these fugitive priests, for many great families in Cheshire, such as the Stanleys of Hooton and the Masseys of Puddington, were strongly Catholic.

Chester was Protestant, and a Puritan Mayor of Chester stopped the Midsummer show, and broke up the pasteboard giants, and abolished the bull-ring; for the Puritans disliked shows and processions and sports of all kinds, and even such harmless pastimes as the May-day dances.

The Midsummer revels were, however, revived, and held with great pomp when King James paid a visit to Chesterin 1617. His arms are carved in a panel under one of the front windows of Bishop Lloyd's house. One of the Fitton family was mayor on this occasion, and the king's sword was borne by a Stanley. James rode to the minster, where he heard one of the scholars of the King's School read a Latin address of welcome. 'After the said oration he went into the choir, and there, in a seat made for the king at the higher end of the choir, he heard an anthem sung. And after certain prayers the king went from thence to the Pentice, where a sumptuous banquet was prepared at the city's cost: which being ended, the king departed to the Vale Royal: and at his departure the order of knighthood was offered to the mayor, but he refused the same.' The sale of knighthoods and baronetcies was one of King James's ways of raising money, and the Mayor of Chester was not the only one who declined the honour.

A zealous Puritan named William Prynne wrote against the performance of stage plays, dancing, and other amusements. Some things that he said were thought to refer to the Queen of Charles the First, and he was tried by the Star Chamber and ordered to pay a fine of £5,000 and to have his ears slit. There was a branch of the Court of Star Chamber at Chester, but it was abolished in Charles the First's reign. In one of the rooms of Leasowe Castle are some oak panels brought from the Star Chamber at Westminster.

William Prynne passed through Chester on his way to his prison in Carnarvon Castle. The Puritans turned out to welcome and cheer him in the streets, but their leaders were punished by fines and imprisonment for so doing.

Neither James nor Charles got on well with their Parliaments. The Tudor monarchs had for the most part understood the people, and the people in their turn allowed them to have their own way. But the Stuarts began to claim powers which the people would not permit. When Parliament refused to grant money they asked for, the Stuart kings tried to raise money by means which the people thought illegal. Charles borrowed large sums of money without the consent of Parliament. Sir Randolph Crewe, of Crewe Hall, was one of the judges who thoughtthat this was wrong, and he was dismissed from his office by the king.

Charles also tried to impose a tax called Ship Money, a tax which had in former times been levied on the counties on the seaboard for the support of the navy. Now the king proposed that inland counties also should contribute for this purpose. Sir William Brereton, a Cheshire knight, objected strongly to the hateful tax, and was very angry with the people of Chester for rating some land of his near Chester, called the Nunnery Fields, for the payment of the money.

It is not surprising that trouble should arise between Parliament and a king who refused to obey the wishes of the people over whom he ruled. The Stuarts believed in the theory known as the Divine right of kings, that is, that kings are made by God alone, and that from Him alone they receive their power. But from the time of the great awakening the people had begun to think for themselves, and the result of this was that they were now determined that the king should carry out the will of the nation through the mouth of its Parliament.

Moreover, Charles was suspected of being a Catholic; at any rate he had married a Catholic wife, and Parliament was not in a mood to permit a return to the unhappy state of affairs of Queen Mary's reign.

Charles proclaimed war on Parliament in the year 1642, and both sides prepared at once for the struggle. Roughly speaking, London and the south-eastern counties were on the side of Parliament, for they were the chief centres of trade in the seventeenth century, and felt most keenly the evils of bad government. The great modernindustrial towns of the northern counties of England were in most cases as yet mere villages.

THE CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE

The king's supporters were drawn chiefly from the north and west. They were called Royalists or Cavaliers, while the Parliamentarians were nicknamed Roundheads because they wore their hair cut short, after the manner of the Puritans, and disdained the flowing curls which were fashionable at the time. But although the country was thus roughly divided into two opposing factions, supporters both of king and of parliament were to be found in nearly every town and village. Indeed it sometimes happened that members of a single family found themselves on different sides in the war. The Breretons of Brereton Hall were stout royalists, but their cousins of Handforth were, as you will see, the most determined opponents of the king.

The towns of Cheshire, with the exception of Chester, were largely on the side of Parliament, while most, but not all, of the great landowners and their numerous retainers fought for the king. The county was represented in the Long Parliament by Sir William Brereton, the son of William Brereton of Handforth Hall.

Brereton was an ardent Puritan, and at the first signs of approaching war he put himself at the head of the Parliamentary party in Cheshire, calling upon all able-bodied men between the ages of sixteen and sixty to join him at Tarporley, and soon after was appointed by Parliament itself as commander of the Cheshire forces. His career was very nearly cut short at the very beginning of the struggle, for he brought about a riot in Chester by causing the drum to be beaten publicly in the streets for Parliament. He was brought to the Pentice but released, and with difficulty saved from the fury of the citizens, who in later days complained bitterly that the mayor had preserved the life of one who was to be the author of so much disaster to themselves.

In Tarporley Church you may see a helmet and breastplate that were dug up in the neighbourhood. They were probably worn by some soldier who fought in one of the earliest battles of the civil war in Cheshire. Thefirst fighting took place in the southern parts of the county. In February, 1642, Brereton was attacked at Tarporley by the king's troops who had marched out from Chester. Entrenchments were thrown up near the church, but the severest fighting was at the neighbouring hamlet of Tiverton, where both sides lost heavily. The Royalist troops retired to Chester and the Parliamentarians to Nantwich, which Brereton made his head-quarters. From these two places the two parties 'contended which should most prevail upon the affections of the county to declare for them and join them'.

Brereton's task was the capture of the important city of Chester, in order to prevent assistance reaching the king from Ireland. To this end he placed troops on the principal roads leading to the city. The roads from the south were watched by the Nantwich forces, who captured and occupied Beeston Castle. On the north Warrington Bridge was seized to prevent help coming from Lancashire or from Scotland, which remained loyal to Charles. Norton Priory and the Norman castle of Halton, already in ruins, were fortified and held by the Roundheads. A strong force was posted at Northwich which commanded the main road through the forest of Delamere, thus completing a chain of garrisons along the valley of the Weaver from Nantwich to the Mersey. On the Welsh side the border castles of Holt on the Dee and Hawarden in the county of Flint were attacked and occupied by the Parliamentarians, who thus prevented the arrival of reinforcements from the west.

In 1643 Brereton won his first great victory by defeating Sir Thomas Aston, the Royalist leader, at Middlewich, capturing two cannon, four barrels of powder, four hundred soldiers, and arms for five hundred men. Sir Thomas Aston marched out from Chester with a strong force of Royalists one Sunday morning in March. Brereton was at Northwich at the time, and word was sent to him that the king's forces were at Middlewich and taking up a strong position there. The Roundheads hurried southwards, but had not sufficient ammunition to take the town. A fresh supply was sent for, and on Monday afternoon Sir ThomasAston found himself between two fires, for troops from Nantwich also arrived on the scene.

The Royalists were driven into the narrow streets of the town, where the cavalry were penned like sheep and quite useless. The foot-soldiers fled into the church, where they laid down their arms or were slain. The church steeples, like the keeps of the Norman castles, were usually the last places of refuge for the defenders of a town, and many of them suffered great damage in consequence during the war. Aston escaped with a remnant of his cavalry, leaving the infantry to their fate. He laid the blame for his defeat upon his Welsh allies, who were sent to line the hedges of the roads by which the Roundheads advanced, but who threw away their arms and fled at the first approach of the enemy.

Brereton's victory at Middlewich was complete, but some months afterwards Sir Thomas Aston had his revenge and turned the tables on his enemy. He was reinforced by troops from Ireland, by whose aid he was able to drive the Parliamentarian general out of Middlewich.

The Royalists now appeared to be getting the upper hand, and they actually laid siege to Nantwich, which was defended by Sir George Booth during the temporary absence of Brereton. The besiegers were commanded by Sir Nicholas Byron, the governor of Chester, and an ancestor of the poet Byron. Brereton returned with Sir Thomas Fairfax, one of the greatest of Cromwell's lieutenants, and compelled the Royalists to raise the siege. Thus the fortunes of war inclined now to one side, now to the other, and the towns continually changed hands. The strong Parliamentary garrison at Northwich was attacked by Aston, at first without success, but later in the year Brereton was badly defeated here by his determined enemy, and the town held by the Royalist troops.

The event which had most effect on the war in Cheshire was Brereton's victory in August, 1644, at Tarvin on the road from Chester to Northwich. Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, nephews of the king, were attempting to reach Chester with a relieving column. Breretonattacked and routed them and posted himself astride the main road. Tarvin Church still shows traces of the fighting here, for a bullet is buried deep in a brass plate in the chancel. After this success Brereton advanced his head-quarters to Christleton, only two miles from the gates of Chester.

In 1645 word was brought to Chester that the king himself was coming, and the drooping spirits of the Royalists revived. Charles entered the city with about three hundred followers who had escaped from the battle of Naseby, where the main Royalist army had been cut to pieces by Cromwell's Ironsides. During his short visit to Chester the king was the guest of Sir Francis Gamull at his home, still called Gamull House, in Bridge Street.

Many of you have read the inscription on the Phoenix Tower on the walls of Chester—

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