CHAPTER XXVICIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE. IIIThe Protectorate and the Restoration

'King Charlesstood on this towerSeptember 27th, 1645, and sawHis Army defeatedon Rowton Moor.'

'King Charles

stood on this tower

September 27th, 1645, and saw

His Army defeated

on Rowton Moor.'

Rowton Moor is no longer moorland. A village now stands on the battlefield where the last hopes of the loyal inhabitants of Chester were destroyed. The defeated army consisted of the remnants of the Royalist cavalry under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, who was trying to cut his way through the enemy to reinforce the garrison of Chester. The Royalists were almost successful, and a sortie was made by the troops within the city to join hands with Langdale, but the Puritan General Poyntz, following closely on the heels of the Royalist horse, threwthem into hopeless confusion and drove them helter-skelter in all directions. During the battle Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, whose tomb is in the Shakerley Chapel at Little Peover, carried dispatches to the king, ferrying himself across the river Dee in a tub. Some matchlocks and firelocks used in this battle have been found on the Heath, and are now in the Chester Museum.

This defeat was almost the final blow received by the king in his struggle with Parliament. On the following day Charles fled into Wales by an undefended road, asking only that the city might hold out for eight days longer to enable him to make good his escape. In a tiny window in Farndon Church are some pieces of ancient painted glass, with portraits of several of the Cheshire esquires who attended Charles during his stay in Chester.

The cordon was now drawn tighter round the doomed city, and a regular blockade followed to starve the citizens into surrender. When the Cromwellian troops who had been battering Lathom House in Lancashire arrived and took up a position on the north side of the walls, the city was completely surrounded. Dodleston Hall, to the south-west of the city, was occupied by Brereton to prevent any further escapes into Wales. The Roundheads made a floating bridge across the river Dee, which was, however, destroyed by fireships which were turned adrift and were carried up the river by a strong spring tide. Scaling-ladders were fixed on the walls, but the Royalists dragged them up into the city in the night-time.

The inhabitants were determined not to give in without a struggle. Even women took a share in the work of defence, carrying baskets of earth to fill up the breaches made by a night attack upon the city walls. The city was well protected by the river Dee on its western and southern sides; a semicircle of mud earthworks was made round the north and east of the city. Many large houses in the neighbourhood were burnt by the Royalists to prevent their being used by the enemy. The suburb of Boughton, with its hall, was entirely destroyed, fighting taking place almost daily in this quarter. The Royalists also made breaches in the Dee Bridge.

When the outworks were carried by the Parliamentarian troops, all S. John's parish lay at their mercy. The Roundheads turned the church into a fortress, and planted a battery of guns on the tower, from which they battered the city walls. In a glass case at the west end of the church you may see a cannon ball that was fired from the walls and long afterwards found embedded in the church tower.

The walls were also fiercely bombarded from Brewers Hall on the opposite side of the Dee, though a battery of guns placed on the summit of Morgan's Mount kept the besiegers at bay on the north. The Water Tower at the north-west corner of the city bears the marks of some well-aimed shots from the guns of Cromwell's men.

Within the city the hardships were very severe. Fires were frequent, especially in the night-time. Cold and bleak December days increased the suffering, and, worst of all, food was getting scarce, and the pinch of hunger began to be felt. At length the inhabitants were reduced to eating the flesh of horses and dogs, and still Sir Nicholas Byron held out, waiting daily for the help that never came. Famine did its work at last, and after a siege of eighteen weeks the city surrendered to Brereton on February 3, 1646.

One of the conditions of surrender was that the victorious troops should not do any damage to the city. The fragment of the High Cross, now in the Grosvenor Museum, shows that in this respect the soldiers of Cromwell did not keep their word. Sir Francis Gamull, the mayor, bargained with the Roundheads that the tombs of his family should not be harmed, and this explains the fact that the Gamull monuments in S. Mary's-on-the-Hill are almost the only relics of the kind in Chester that escaped destruction.

The events of the war were published every week in the Mercurius Aulicus or 'Court Mercury,' a forerunner of the modern newspaper. In the Free Library at Birkenhead are preserved some sheets of this paper, on one of which is related the story of the capture and recapture of Beeston Castle. After its occupation by the Parliamentary troopsa daring assault was made upon the castle by Captain Sandford and a party of eight Royalists, who scaled the steep rock on which the castle is built and called upon the defenders to surrender. Captain Steel, the Puritan commander, was tried for cowardice in yielding to so small a force, and condemned to be shot. After the battle of Rowton Moor the castle endured a seven weeks' siege, and surrendered in November, 1645. Shortly afterwards Parliament ordered the castle to be dismantled, and it has been in ruins ever since. Several of the officers who were killed at Beeston are buried at Tarporley.

Many of the Cheshire halls, which were held mainly by Royalists, suffered severely for their loyalty to the king. Crewe Hall was taken by the Roundheads, retaken by Byron, and finally garrisoned by the soldiers of Brereton. Huxley Hall was occupied by Colonel Croxton during the siege of Chester. Puddington Hall, in Wirral, the ancient home of the Masseys, whose owner, Sir William Massey, remained in Chester till its fall, was destroyed by fire.

Adlington Hall, the home of the loyal Leghs, endured a fortnight's siege, at the end of which time its gallant garrison of one hundred and fifty men was compelled to surrender and permitted to depart. The marks of cannon shot used in the bombardment may still be seen upon the massive oak doors of the courtyard. Wythenshaw Hall was held by Royalists, but Colonel Dukinfield, a friend and neighbour of Sir William Brereton, compelled a surrender after a short siege. Cannon balls have been found in the grounds of the hall.

Vale Royal, the private residence of the Cholmondeleys since Henry the Eighth turned out its abbot and monks, was plundered and partly burnt by the soldiers of General Lambert's army. Sir Peter Leycester, of Tabley Hall, fell into the hands of the Parliamentarians and was sent to prison. During his captivity he first planned his famous book of the History and Antiquities of Cheshire.

The lot of the unhappy Cheshire squire was indeed pitiable. Royalists and Roundheads were equally unwelcome guests, treating their host with scant ceremony, ransacking his house and helping themselves freely toeverything that might be of any service to them. Let Peter Davenport, the squire of Bramhall, tell in his own words the story of his woes: 'On New Year's Day, 1643, came Captain Sankey (a Parliamentary officer) with two or three troopers to Bramhall, and went into my stable and took out my horses, above twenty in all, and afterwards searched my house for arms again and took my fowling-piece, stocking-piece, and drum, with divers other things. Next day, after they were gone, came Prince Rupert's army, by whom I lost better than a hundred pounds in linen and other goods, besides the rifling and pulling to pieces of my house. By whom I lost eight horses, and they ate me threescore bushels of oats.' Poor Peter was not yet at the end of his troubles, for when the war was over he had to pay five hundred pounds in order to buy back his own property, for the estates of the Royalists were confiscated by Parliament and sold back to their owners for large sums of money.

The empty niches over the porches of many Cheshire churches tell their own tale of the damage done by the Cromwellian troops. Sculptured images were everywhere broken in fragments, lead was stripped from the fonts and roofs to be turned into bullets. The pipes were taken from the organ of Budworth Church, and the stained glass windows of Tarvin destroyed by the Puritan fanatic, John Bruen. The sacred buildings themselves were used throughout the war as barracks, fortresses, stables, or prisons.

The destruction of property and of works of art that can never be replaced was indeed largely the work of the Roundheads; but it was the Royalists who perpetrated the blackest deed in this long tale of civil strife. In the winter of 1643 Lord Byron's troopers were plundering the villages of South Cheshire, burning farms and homesteads, and driving the country people before them. One of his officers, Major Connought, entered the village of Barthomley, and many of the panic-stricken inhabitants took refuge in the tower of the church. Connought and his brutal followers broke up the pews, gathered together the mats and rushes strewn upon the floor, and madea bonfire at the entrance to the tower. Forced from their place of refuge by fire and smoke, the unfortunate villagers were stabbed and hacked to death as they came out one by one. This was their Christmastide, the season of peace and good fellowship and brotherly love, and men, blind with the lust of blood, were cutting the throats of their brothers as if they were sheep in the shambles. Happily, such scenes as this were rare, even in those dark years.

The story is told that a schoolboy, wandering among the tombstones in the churchyard of Macclesfield, scratched these strange lines on one of the grave-slabs:

My brother Harry must heir the land;My brother Frank must be at his command;While I, poor Jack, shall do thatWhich all the world will wonder at.

My brother Harry must heir the land;

My brother Frank must be at his command;

While I, poor Jack, shall do that

Which all the world will wonder at.

'Poor Jack' was John Bradshaw, whose name is the first on the list of those who signed the warrant for the execution of the king. On January 1, 1649, Parliament decided that Charles should be tried before a High Court of Justice, and on the twenty-seventh of the same month, Bradshaw, the president of the Court, pronounced the death sentence in Westminster Hall.

John Bradshaw, the 'regicide', was born at Wibbersley Hall, near Disley. In the register of the Parish Church of Stockport is the record of his baptism: 'December, 1602, John, the son of Henry Bradshaw, of Marple, baptised the tenth. Traitor.' The word 'Traitor' has been added by another hand, no doubt that of some ardent Royalist.

He was educated at Bunbury School by EdwardBurghall, a notable Cheshire Puritan, who was afterwards made vicar of Acton, and wrote a Diary (or copied someone else's Diary) of the Civil War in Cheshire. Bradshaw also probably spent a short time at the Grammar School at Macclesfield. He became Mayor of Congleton and Chief Justice of Cheshire.

The name of Major-General Thomas Harrison, a native of Nantwich, also appears on the list of those who signed the death-warrant of the king.

Memorials of the ill-fated monarch were eagerly sought for by the most devoted of his followers. In the Stag Parlour at Lyme Hall are some chairs, said to be covered with portions of the cloak that Charles wore at the time of his death. Here also are a pair of embroidered gloves that belonged to the king, and a dagger with his name 'Carolus' engraved upon it.

The war was continued by his son, Charles the Second. James Stanley, Earl of Derby, was made commander of the Royalist forces in Cheshire. In the year 1651 Knutsford Heath was a scene of bustling activity. Here were encamped the forces of General Lambert, one of Cromwell's most trusted lieutenants, consisting of 9,000 horse and 4,000 foot. He was waiting for the Royalist army, which was marching southwards from Scotland under the command of Charles himself and General Leslie. Lambert was ordered to cut down the bridge at Warrington to prevent the passage of the king's army, but arrived too late. Skirmishes took place at Budworth and High Legh, and Lambert was compelled to retreat to Knutsford, while the Royalist army passed on its way to the fatal field of Worcester.

A few days later, the people of Sandbach were setting up the stalls and spreading their wares in the market-place for the September Fair. A cry was suddenly raised that soldiers were entering the town. They were all that was left of Leslie's Scottish Cavaliers. Weary of war, their horses jaded and lame, they were anxious only to be allowed to reach their homes again in safety. But the townspeople, remembering perhaps the massacre of Barthomley, were not minded to let them off easily. Theforemost troopers, who alone were armed, were allowed to pass through the town. Then with sticks and staves they fell upon the rearguard and cudgelled them. Many were wounded and captured, and placed in the town prison, where perhaps they were not sorry to rest. Others escaped into the open fields. 'Scotch Commons', as the scene of the encounter is still called, reminds us of this last event of the Civil War in Cheshire. The struggle was ended. Charles was an exile, and Cromwell ruled over the land.

One of Cromwell's Acts decreed that all who had any communication with Charles the Second should be held guilty of conspiracy against the State. The Earl of Derby, who escaped from the rout at Worcester, but was captured at Nantwich, was tried under this Act and condemned to death. He escaped from his prison in the castle at Chester, and lay concealed for a time, it is said, in a secret chamber in the Stanley Palace near the Water Gate. The 'Martyr Earl' was, however, recaptured on the banks of the Dee, and beheaded at Bolton.

Brereton was rewarded for his devotion to the Parliamentary cause with the chief forestership of Macclesfield forest. Soon afterwards, however, he left the county of his birth and lived in London until his death in 1661. His body was brought to Cheadle for burial in the Handforth Chapel. There is, however, no note of his burial in the parish registers, and tradition says that during the journey the coffin in which his body was placed was swept away by the swollen waters of a river over which it was being carried.

The Puritans determined to put an end to the government of the Church by bishops, and abolished the Book of Common Prayer from the Church services, putting in its place a new form of public worship. About thirty of the clergy in Cheshire who refused to perform the new services of the Church were turned out of their livings. Children were no longer to be baptized in fonts but from a basin. Hour-glasses were set up in the pulpits, from which long political sermons were preached to the people.

The Puritan mayor of Chester would not permitChristmas and other time-honoured festivals of the Church to be kept, and music, dancing, and games were rigidly put down.

In 1659 an attempt was made by a number of Cheshire gentry to restore Charles to the throne. Oliver Cromwell was now dead, and had been succeeded by his son Richard. But the real power was in the hands of the soldiers, and many people soon became disgusted with military rule. The leader of the revolt in Cheshire was Sir George Booth, of Dunham Massey. He had fought on the side of Parliament in the early years of the war, and was one of the Presbyterian members of Parliament who were turned out of the House by 'Pride's Purge,' just before the execution of the king.

Sir George Booth collected a Royalist force on Rowton Moor, and prepared to attack Chester. He captured the city and the walls, but failed to take the castle, whose governor was Colonel Croxton, of Ravenscroft Hall near Middlewich. Colonel Lambert, however, was summoned with two regiments from Ireland, and he compelled Booth to retire towards Northwich. The Royalist force was overtaken at Hartford, and in the battle which took place near Winnington Bridge on the river Weaver, was completely routed.

But the return of the exiled king was not long delayed. Among the Royalists captured at Nantwich in 1644 was George Monk. After his release he entered the service of Parliament, and won the esteem of Cromwell. General Monk now succeeded in persuading Parliament to recall Charles. Nowhere was the event welcomed more gladly than in Cheshire. Church bells rang merrily, maypoles were set up again upon the village greens, and bonfires lighted on the hill-tops. The long quarrel that had separated father from son and brother from brother was at an end, and many a Cheshire home was gladdened by the return of wearied soldiers. The king had come into his own again.

When Charles was restored to the throne the bishops also came back to their bishoprics. The records of the churches of Chester tell of the payments made to the ringers for the ringing of the bells when the citizens joyously welcomed Bishop Walton to the city. A large number of citizens and mounted soldiers went as far as Nantwich to meet him and escorted him to the city gates of Chester, where the mayor and corporation as well as the clergy and gentry of Cheshire received him. Once more a Christmas was kept in the old time way, and the churches were decked with holly and evergreens for one of the greatest festivals of the Church. And truly the bare walls, stripped of everything that was beautiful, needed some adornment after the ravages and desecrations of the Civil War.

But Charles was a foolish king, and spent most of his days in idle and frivolous pleasures. The people were disappointed with him, for he had plenty of brains. One of his favourite hobbies was the study of science. John Wilkins, another Bishop of Chester, was one of a little band of clever men who helped the king to found the Royal Society for the spread of knowledge and the study of science. To be a Fellow of the Royal Society is to this day one of the highest honours that men of science can obtain.

The favourite study of John Wilkins was astronomy, and he wrote a book called theDiscovery of a New World, to prove that there may be another habitable world in the moon. Another book of his was calledMercury; or the secret and swift Messenger, shewing how a man may privately and with speed tell his thoughts to friends at any distance. Thus, had he lived in a later age, he might perhaps have been the inventor of the telegraph and telephone.

Charles secretly favoured the old Catholic religion, and on his death-bed was received into the Catholic Church. During his reign another Act of Uniformity was passed, much more severe than the former one. Sixty ministers of Cheshire churches, who refused to obey the Act, were turned out of their livings. Among them was Adam Martindale, a noted Puritan, who was driven from his church at Rostherne. Adam Martindale wrote the story of his life, with all his trials and misfortunes, in a book which you may read in many of your public libraries.

The Nonconformists were prevented by another Act from holding prayer meetings within five miles of the town or village where they had held a living. The gaol at Chester was soon filled with those who were ready to suffer for the crime of preaching the Gospel in their homes and to their friends. Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, who had been made Governor of Chester Castle for his services in the Civil War, sought them out and persecuted them with great cruelty.

Still there were many who continued to worship in their own way. For a long time they held their services secretly in private houses, but, in 1690, the Toleration Act allowed them to build chapels. These they erected chiefly on the outskirts of towns or in remote villages. During the later years of the seventeenth century these chapels increased greatly in number. The Unitarian chapel at Knutsford and the tiny brick chapel at Dean Row, between the Bollin and the Dean, are among the earliest of such places of worship in Cheshire.

Matthew Henry, a learned commentator of the New Testament, whose father had been turned out of his church at Worthenbury, preached in the chapel in Trinity Street, Chester. You may still see the seventeenth-century pulpit from which he addressed his congregation. During the Civil War the pulpit had become the most important feature of the churches. The Puritans were in the habit of preaching long political sermons which they timed with an hour-glass fixed on the wall near the pulpit. At Shotwick is a pulpit of the kind called a 'three-decker', with a square box-pew beneath it for the parish clerk.

As soon as people were permitted to choose their own form of worship several other religious bodies came into being, each with its own peculiar teaching and belief, often differing but slightly from each other, all bent on practising their religion precisely in their own particular way. Many earnest soldiers in the Parliamentary army of Sir George Booth, when encamped in the neighbourhood of Knutsford and Alderley, had held their services in the barn of a farmhouse at Warford. Their children in after days built the tiny Baptist chapel which still remains in the village.

The Quakers were very numerous in the neighbourhood of Stockport and Wilmslow, and George Fox the founder of their sect, or 'Society of Friends' as it was called, used often to visit them. Some cottages on Lindow Moss were once a Quaker chapel, and there is a Quaker burial-ground in a clump of trees near Mobberley. Many of the gravestones have seventeenth-century dates upon them. Often the Quakers were refused burial in the churchyards, and most out-of-the-way places were chosen for their last resting-place. There are some Quakers' graves in the woods at Burton in Wirral.

James the Second, who succeeded his brother Charles, did not try to hide the fact that he was a Papist. Many people would have preferred the Duke of Monmouth, a bastard son of Charles the Second, as king. He was known to be a Protestant, and the people of Cheshire, who were strongly Protestant, would have welcomed him as they had already welcomed him once in Charles the Second's reign.

Three years before James became king, the duke had visited Cheshire and raised the cry of 'No Popery!' He stayed at Mainwaring House in Bridge Street, Chester, and supped at the Plume of Feathers Inn. On the following day the little daughter of the mayor was christened, and the duke stood godfather, naming her Henrietta.

The duke then made a triumphal progress through the villages of Wirral. He stayed at Peel Hall, Bromborough, in order to attend the races at Wallasey, where he wona prize, which he sent to his little goddaughter at Chester. Several of the Wirral gentry met in a summer-house at Bidston, and talked of a rising in his favour. But the country people did not show so much readiness as had been expected, and all the duke's doings were secretly reported to the king by Sir Peter Shakerley, the governor of Chester Castle. Monmouth also stayed at Rock Savage and Dunham Massey, and witnessed the sports at Gawsworth. Shortly afterwards, however, he was captured by the king's men at Stafford, and the plot came to nothing. He was lucky not to lose his head. Charles was kinder to him than James was when the duke raised the West of England in 1685.

James was thoroughly hated by the bulk of the people, who grew tired of the mischievous rule of the Stuarts, and made up their minds to depose him. They were also determined that never again should a Catholic king reign over them. James fled to France, and Thomas Cartwright, the Bishop of Chester, who had made the citizens angry by bringing in again the old Catholic services of the Church, followed him into exile.

In the gardens of Gayton Hall are two ancient trees which have been called William and Mary. William of Orange was the new king who was invited by the English to succeed James. All who held office in Church or State were required to take the oath of allegiance to him. Some refused to do this. They were called non-jurors, and among them were several of the clergy of Cheshire who had to give up their churches. James made an effort to regain his lost kingdom, and sailed from France to Ireland, where he hoped to win many adherents. William assembled his forces in Wirral, staying at Gayton Hall, the home of William Clegg, whom he knighted after his visit.

The 'King's Gap', near Hoylake, reminds us of King William's presence in Cheshire. On the Lowlands, between Hoylake and Meols, his army lay encamped, and in the river Dee Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the brave sailor who rose from 'powder-monkey' to admiral, was waiting with the fleet to take the troops across to Ireland. CloudesleyShovel is said to have received part of his education at the Grammar School of Stockport.

On the chancel wall of West Kirby Church is a tablet bearing the name of Baron Johannes Van Zoelen, who died here in 1690. The foreign-looking name is that of an officer of the Dutch troops of the Duke of Schomberg, for William employed Dutch and German soldiers to put down James's rising in Ireland. The soldiers embarked at Hoylake, and a few weeks later the farmers of Wirral, who had had to feed the army, and who, no doubt, were glad to see it depart, heard of William's great victory at the battle of the Boyne. James took refuge again in France.

Many Cheshire men took part in William's Irish campaign. A regiment was raised in Cheshire by Sir George Booth, the old Parliamentary leader who had, after the Civil War, become one of Charles the Second's most devoted followers and received the title of Lord Delamere for his services. The regiment was also accompanied by a troop of horse from Wilmslow and the neighbourhood.

William was never popular with his subjects. They disliked him because he was not English. He was cold and silent, and his manners ungracious; he spoke English with difficulty, and often he seemed anxious to get back to his own country. But he was devoted to duty and a great soldier, and he did much for England in checking the power of the French king who favoured the exiled Stuart.

William died childless, and was succeeded by Anne, the last Stuart who sat on the English throne. She had Cheshire blood in her veins, for she was the daughter of James the Second's wife, Anne Hyde, whose grandfather, the Earl of Clarendon, was a Hyde of Hyde Hall.

Queen Anne's children all died young. Before she came to the throne Parliament had passed an Act of Settlement, by which the crown was settled on a Protestant, Princess Sophia, granddaughter of James the First, and her heirs. When Queen Anne died, George, the eldest son of Sophia, became king.

The fallen Stuarts made more than one attempt torecover the British crown. In 1715, when George the First was king, a number of Cheshire gentlemen, among whom were the Leghs of Legh and Lymm, the Grosvenors of Eaton, Warrens and Asshetons, and Cholmondeleys met in the hall of the Asshetons at Ashley to decide whether they should give any help to James Edward, the 'Old Pretender', James's eldest son, who was raising a revolt in Scotland. They decided by a majority of one only to remain loyal to the Protestant King George.

Thirty years later the inhabitants of East Cheshire saw an army of rugged Highlanders in bonnets and kilts pass southwards from Stockport Prince Charles Edward, the 'Young Pretender', had raised his flag in the Highlands of Scotland and gathered together an army of 'Jacobites', as the followers of the Stuarts were called. At Manchester the Scots had been joined by about 200 Lancashire Catholics. But the villagers who cheered the rebels on the Macclesfield high-road saw them returning within a week, for they had hardly crossed the hills at Bosley and descended into the valleys of Derbyshire when the Duke of Cumberland, commanding an army in the Midlands, scattered them and drove them pell-mell northwards again.

In Lyme Hall are some Jacobite wine-glasses, with the White Rose of the Stuarts stamped on one side, and on the other the Latin word 'fiat', which expressed the thought that was in the minds of those who used them: 'May the king come to his own again!' When men were forbidden to drink the health of the Pretender in public, these 'fiat' glasses were made by the Jacobites and the toast drunk in silence.

'Bonnie Prince Charlie' stayed at the house of Sir Peter Davenport in Macclesfield, and his officers at a house in Jordangate which is now the George Hotel. Stuart 'Pretenders' were never seen in Cheshire again.

During the latter part of the seventeenth century the people of Cheshire began to repair the damage done to the churches, mansions, and public buildings during the Civil Wars. It was hardly to be expected that the art of the builder could flourish during that stormy period. Gothic architecture had reached its greatest glory under the Plantagenet and Tudor kings, and when the builders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries took up their work again they cast aside the aims and ideals of the Gothic craftsmen and turned to new models and new sources for their inspiration.

The changes which were now made were one of the results of the Renaissance or Great Awakening of the sixteenth century. The men who visited Italy and brought back with them copies of the works of the old Greek and Roman writers, which they printed and gave to the world, brought also the ideas of Italian architects and plans of Italian buildings, which had been copied from those of ancient Athens and Rome. Englishmen of the eighteenth century took these as their models. Like the Roman workmen, they found it easier tocopythan toinvent.

If you turn back to Chapter VI you will find that the chief feature of the Roman, which we will now call the Italian or Classic style, are the rows of pillars ranged along the front and sides of a building. The Town Hall of Macclesfield, and the group of buildings which now form the Castle of Chester, are good examples of the style of architecture which prevailed during the eighteenth century. The windows are sometimes round-headed, but more often they are rectangular, with low triangles above them.

Unfortunately many ancient buildings, which we would gladly have with us now, disappeared at this time. Someof them, no doubt, were in such a ruinous state that it was impossible to repair them, but, generally speaking, little or no pains were taken to restore them to their former appearance. The people preferred to pull down and destroy and rebuild in the new Classic style, which rapidly became a craze.

The greatest loss was that of the mediaeval castle of Chester, which, with the exception of 'Caesar's Tower', was pulled down in 1788. The front entrance to the new castle is in the Doric style. Round the courtyard are barracks and an armoury, the county gaol and the shire hall with colonnades of Ionic pillars.

Many fine Elizabethan halls were destroyed to make way for mansions in the Classic style. Hooton Hall was built on the site of an old 'black and white' timber house. Poynton, Tabley, Tatton, Ince, and Doddington Halls were built about the same time. Other houses were altered or enlarged. The beauty of Adlington Hall was spoilt by the stone front with its Corinthian columns, which Charles and Hester Legh built. The appearance of Lyme Hall was completely changed by an Italian architect named Giacomo Leoni. His work is adorned with figures of the gods of heathen Rome, Neptune and Venus and Pan. The Leghs of Lyme brought many treasures from Italy. The stained glass in the east window of Disley Church was brought by them.

The roundheaded 'Italian' windows in the tower of Rostherne Church tell us that they are the work of eighteenth-century builders and 'restorers'. The ugly tower cuts a sorry figure when compared with the beautiful perpendicular towers of Mobberley, Cheadle, Budworth, Witton, Alderley, Middlewich, and others in the neighbourhood. The tower of Great Barrow Church, with urns in the place of pinnacles, and the porch of Frodsham, are out of keeping with the Gothic character of the rest of the buildings.

The eighteenth-century restorers had little taste or sense of beauty. Within the churches ugly wooden galleries were placed over the aisles, and the walls, pillars, and pews coated with layers of paint or whitewash. Even thecarved woodwork of the choir stalls of Chester Cathedral was painted. The open timber roof of Alderley Old Church was hidden by a flat ceiling of lath and plaster. A portion of the old timber church at Warburton was repaired with common bricks, and sometimes whole churches were rebuilt with the same material.

Entrance to Chester Castle

Rostherne. Eighteenth-Century Tower

In place of the handsome Decorated altar tombs, with their effigies of knights and dames, great tablets of marble brought from Italy were fixed on the walls. On them were carved skulls and cross-bones, sometimes an entire skeleton, with funeral urns like those in which the Romans placed the ashes of their dead. Scrolls with long rambling inscriptions told of the virtues of the dead. These were often written in Latin, as if the homely English of the mother tongue was not good enough for the purpose.

Chancel: Frodsham(Eighteenth Century)

The poets of the eighteenth century imitated the style of the poets of ancient Rome. Their poems are full of the wit and satire found in Horace and Juvenal. Man, not Nature, was nearly always the subject of their poems. Two lines of Alexander Pope, the greatest of the eighteenth-century poets, are carved on the tombstone of Sir John Chesshyre in Runcorn Church:—

A wit's a feather and a chief's a rod:An honest man's the noblest work of God.

A wit's a feather and a chief's a rod:

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Sir John Chesshyre was a lawyer, and built the little library near Halton Castle in 1733 for the books which he left for the use of Cheshire scholars and students.

Clubs were formed by the poets and wits and 'men of fashion' of the eighteenth century. They met in the taverns and coffee-houses of the towns, and scratched their smart sayings on the window-panes with their diamond rings. They rather prided themselves on their eccentric habits and their superiority over other men, who had neither the time nor the money to waste on frivolous amusements.

In a little wood near Gawsworth is a lonely grave with a plain flat stone, beneath which,

Undisturbed, and hid from Vulgar Eyes,A Wit, Musician, Poet, Player, lies.

Undisturbed, and hid from Vulgar Eyes,

A Wit, Musician, Poet, Player, lies.

The grave is that of Samuel Johnson, a dancing master, 'afterwards ennobled with the grander title of Lord Flame,' as the inscription tells us, who was buried here at his own desire.

Neston and Parkgate, twin towns on the southern shore of Wirral, were visited by many fashionable people in the eighteenth century. They spent the summer here for the bathing and the fresh breezes that blow from the Irish Sea and the hills of Wales. It is to be feared that Parkgate was also the resort of less respectable folk, for in some of the old houses you may still see the huge holes in which smugglers stored their unlawful cargoes. It was dangerous work, for the 'King's Yacht', as the revenue cutter was called, patrolled the waters of the Dee, and the officers had orders to shoot down all whom they caught in this illegal traffic. It is from this boat that the 'Yacht Inn' at Chester takes its name.

Neston and Parkgate were the starting-points for the Irish mails. The coaches from London and Liverpool put down their passengers here for Dublin. One of the most beautiful poems in the English language, the 'Lycidas' of John Milton, was written in memory of Edward King, a friend of the poet, who was shipwrecked on his way from Ireland to Parkgate.

The London coaches that brought travellers to Chester and Parkgate frequently got into difficulties in the low-lying parts near the River Dee. The roads were very bad, and the coach often had to be hauled out of the mud by a team of horses borrowed from some neighbouring farm.

The passengers sometimes found themselves without their purses and their jewels at the end of their journey. The roads were frequented by highwaymen—'gentlemen of the road', they called themselves—who held up the coach and demanded money. With pistols levelled at their heads, the travellers were generally glad to escape with their lives.

One of the most famous of these highwaymen was Dick Turpin, whose escapades, I imagine, are known to most Cheshire boys, though I hope they have no wish to follow the career of this rascally thief.

Once it happened in Cheshire, near Dunham I poppedOn a horseman alone, whom I speedily stopped;That I lightened his pockets you'll readily guess—Quick work makes Dick Turpin when mounted on Bess.

Once it happened in Cheshire, near Dunham I popped

On a horseman alone, whom I speedily stopped;

That I lightened his pockets you'll readily guess—

Quick work makes Dick Turpin when mounted on Bess.

The robbery spoken of in these lines was committed on the high-road between Altrincham and Knutsford, and Turpin rode so fast to the inn at Hoo Green, where he showed his watch to some Cheshire squires, that he was never suspected of the crime. This and many other stories of Turpin are told by Harrison Ainsworth, the novelist, whose father lived at Rostherne.

Knutsford claimed a highwayman of its own, one Higgins, who lived on Knutsford Heath as an ordinary gentleman of means, and was very friendly with the sporting squires of the neighbourhood. His favourite amusement was to waylay the ladies who went to the county balls and 'assemblies' at the George Hotel, and rob them of their diamonds. But he, like most others of his profession, was found out at last, and paid with his life the penalty of his crimes.

The people of Cheshire were not all thieves and robbers in the eighteenth century. If the rich and the idle were given to folly and extravagance, and poorer men also too often lost the little they possessed through gambling and cock-fighting, the heart of the people was sound, and only waiting to be stirred to newer life and better ideals.

In the latter half of the century a great preacher came to Cheshire, and stirred deeply the hearts of men by denouncing the follies of the age, and the lack of religious feeling which had spread over all classes of society. His name was John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan and Methodist bodies. At first he met with much opposition, and his meetings were broken up by the mob, but in time the people were struck by his earnestness and flocked to hear him. The chapel at Chester where he preached was so crowded that it could not hold all who wished to listen to him. In his Diary he tells us of his visits to Knutsford, Stockport, and other Cheshire towns. But Wesley and his followers often found themselves unable to preach in the churches, so they built for themselves chapels, little square brick buildings, all over the county.

Another fervent preacher of the time was Captain Scott, who left the army to be a missionary among his own countrymen, whom he gathered round him in the streets or the inn-yards of the villages where he stayed. The Mill Street Chapel at Congleton is one of the many chapels founded by him in Southern Cheshire.

Many Cheshire men were fighting in the wars into which England was drawn in the eighteenth century. In the reigns of Anne and the three Georges war succeeded war, and the intervals of peace were few and short. France and Spain were our enemies, each of whom looked with jealous eyes upon the growing power ofEngland, and, still more, her vast colonial empire. From Canada in the West to India in the East battles were fought on land and on sea to maintain for England the supremacy of the sea and her colonies.

Many churches in Cheshire tell the story of Cheshire soldiers and sailors who distinguished themselves in these wars. In the church of Pott Shrigley you may see a memorial tablet of Peter Downes, whose ancestors were foresters of the forest of Macclesfield. Peter Downes entered the navy and was killed in a fight between theLeander, an English man-of-war, and the French shipGénéreux.

Peter Dennis, who was born at Chester and was a scholar at the King's School, became an Admiral of the Fleet. He was in command of the battleshipCenturionin a battle fought off Cape Finisterre. Afterwards he was knighted and made commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet.

The battleships in which these sailors fought were very different to the monster ironclads of the present day with which you are familiar. The eighteenth-century vessels were the old 'wooden walls' of England, big sailing ships called 'three deckers', with three rows of guns pointing outwards from their sides. There is a model of one of them, theRoyal George, over the inner door of Vernon Park Museum.

Robert Clive was the son of a Shropshire squire, and was educated at the little school in the Cheshire village of Allostock. Clive went to India and became a soldier. The English and French were fighting for the mastery of India, and it is to Clive's victories that we owe in a great measure our Indian Empire.

In the last few years of the eighteenth century the dangers which threatened England from France were much nearer home. In 1794 King George the Third was obliged to ask Parliament for a large increase in our home army. Cheshire raised a regiment of six troops, with Colonel Leicester, of Tabley Hall, as its commander.

Shortly afterwards a call for Volunteers was made in Cheshire, as in other parts of the country, to defend theshores of our own land from attack. The armies of Napoleon were conquering everywhere, and an invasion of England was expected. Knutsford Heath presented the same busy scene that it had done 150 years before, when Lambert's troops were encamped upon it. For Knutsford was the appointed meeting-place of all the Cheshire forces—Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers—and the beacon that was kept in readiness on Alderley Edge was to give the signal.

The danger was not over for many years, for the war lasted well into the nineteenth century, ending only when Napoleon and the French were defeated by Wellington at the battle of Waterloo. Duke Street and Wellington Street in Stockport keep alive the memory of the 'Iron Duke', Napoleon's conqueror.

A friend of the Duke of Wellington was Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, whose statue stands in front of the gates of Chester Castle. He was a descendant of the Cotton to whom the Abbey of Combermere was given when Henry the Eighth plundered the Cheshire monasteries. The Duke of Wellington frequently stayed at Combermere; on one of his visits he planted an oak tree which you may still see in the Park. On the tomb of Stapleton Cotton in Wrenbury Church you may read the names of the many battles in which this gallant soldier took part.

The wars of the eighteenth century and the final struggle with Napoleon would have ruined this country but for a great increase in the wealth of the people, which made them able to bear the cost.

To understand the sources of this wealth, and the way in which it was made, we shall have to go back again to the middle of the eighteenth century, and tell the story of a great Industrial Revolution, a revolution without war and bloodshed indeed, but one that brought with it the greatest changes perhaps that Cheshire had yet seen. What these changes were, and how they affected the lives of Cheshire men and women, you will read in the succeeding chapters.

The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century laid the foundation of modern manufacturing England. With remarkable rapidity great industries came into being, and new methods of making all kinds of manufactured goods. And the first cause of this revolution was the discovery of coal, or rather the discovery of what you could do with coal. For coal was all at once in great demand to provide the power of steam, and in 1769 James Watt, the discoverer of the power of steam, showed that the steam engine could be used to drive machinery hitherto worked by hand.

Coal was first found in Cheshire about the year 1750. A colliery was opened at Denhall in Wirral, where coal is worked to this day. In East Cheshire coal was found by an accident. A farmer near Poynton had to fetch his water from a considerable distance, and asked his landlord, Sir George Warren of Poynton Hall, to sink him a well on his land. While the workmen were boring the well they came across a seam of fine coal quite near to the surface. Many other collieries have since that time been started in the same neighbourhood, and now coal is taken out of the earth nearly all the way from Stockport to Macclesfield. There are pits at Norbury, Middlewood, and Bakestonedale. The coal-field extends northwards also, and all along the Tame valley there are pits, and especially in the neighbourhood of Dukinfield, where some of the workings reach a depth of over two thousand feet below the surface of the land.

The earlier Cheshire canals were made as a result of the discovery of coal. The Duke of Bridgwater, who owned rich coal-mines at Worsley near Manchester, made very little profit out of them on account of the expense of carrying the coal by carriage to the shipping ports. A clever engineer named James Brindley was the firstto suggest to him the making of a canal by which barges might take the coal to the river Irwell. This was the first canal made in England, and was finished in the year 1761.

The Bridgwater Canal was afterwards extended and carried over the Irwell by an aqueduct. It enters Cheshire at Stretford, and passing through Altrincham and Lymm extends a distance of twenty-four miles to Runcorn, where it descends by a series of locks to the tidal waters of the Mersey.

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