The Project Gutenberg eBook ofRoberts' Chester Guide [1858]

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofRoberts' Chester Guide [1858]This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Roberts' Chester Guide [1858]Author: Hugh RobertsEditor: John HicklinRelease date: July 1, 2020 [eBook #62534]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the [1858] Hugh Roberts edition by David Price*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERTS' CHESTER GUIDE [1858] ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Roberts' Chester Guide [1858]Author: Hugh RobertsEditor: John HicklinRelease date: July 1, 2020 [eBook #62534]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Transcribed from the [1858] Hugh Roberts edition by David Price

Title: Roberts' Chester Guide [1858]

Author: Hugh RobertsEditor: John Hicklin

Author: Hugh Roberts

Editor: John Hicklin

Release date: July 1, 2020 [eBook #62534]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Transcribed from the [1858] Hugh Roberts edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERTS' CHESTER GUIDE [1858] ***

Transcribed from the [1858] Hugh Roberts edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

Decorative graphic for Evans & Gresty, Engravers, 71 Eastgate Row, Chester

Chester from Curzon Park

Plan of Chester

WITH

FORTY-SIX ENGRAVINGS.

AND AN

ILLUSTRATED PLAN OF THE CITY.

REVISED BY

JOHN HICKLIN,

Editor of the Chester Courant,and Honorary Secretary of the Chester Archæologicaland Historic Society.

CHESTER:HUGH ROBERTS, EASTGATE ROW.LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO.; AND WHITTAKER & CO.AND OTHER BOOKSELLERS.

PAGE

Abbey Gate

Bars

Bridge Gate

Bridge

Bridge Street

Cab Fares

106

Cathedral

Castle

Cemetery

Chester—Its Ancient History

Chester—Its Ecclesiastical History

Chester—Its Municipal Institutions

Churches

78–90

City Gaol

County Gaol

County Hall

Dissenting Places of Worship

90–95

Distances

108

Eastgate

Eaton Hall

Exchange

Grosvenor Bridge

Hotels

108

House of Industry

Infirmary

Mayors of Chester

Music Hall

Museum

Newgate

Northgate

Old Houses

Pemberton’s Parlour

Phœnix Tower

Population

107

Railway Station

105

Roman Antiquities

Roodeye

Rows

Schools

Streets

Training College

Walls of Chester

Water Gate

Water Tower

Thevisit of the Royal Agricultural Society of England to Chester in July, 1858, seems a fitting occasion on which to present to the public an entirelyNEW EDITIONof the CHESTER GUIDE, which has been carefully revised throughout, with the requisite care and intelligence for securing to strangers a useful memorial of the “old city.” The work is also embellished with a numerous series of engravings, and an illustrated plan, which will facilitate the visitor’s inspection of the interesting remains and modern attractions with which Chester abounds; and also supply a pictorial reminiscence of scenes and places that may perchance excite pleasant memories. In this hope our Manual is committed to public favour, which, the editor trusts, will be so heartily manifested, as to require, at no very distant day, a renewal of his services as a literary “Guide.”

Chester,June24, 1858.

Chester, from Curzon Park

to face page1

Edgar’s Cave

Stone Altars

City Walls

King Charles’s Tower

Water Tower, &c.

Chester Cemetery

Watergate Street Row

Eastgate Street

God’s Providence House

Bishop Lloyd’s House

Old Palace House

Chester Cathedral

Cloisters ditto

St. John’s Church

Chancel Ruins of ditto

Independent Chapel

With a Novel Plan, containing Eight Views ofEaton Hall:—

West FrontGrosvenor LodgeDining RoomSaloon

East FrontEaton LodgeDrawing RoomLibrary

Together with Twenty-One other Illustrations:—

Chester from the DeeEastgate StreetChester CastleChester from Boughton FordBridge StreetWatergate Street Row, NorthSavings’ BankNorthgate Street RowCrypt, Bridge StreetBridge Street Row (West)

Northgate StreetEastgateRailway StationAbbey GateRoman BathDiocesan Training CollegeGrosvenor Bridge ExchangeBlue Coat HospitalEastgate Street Row

and the Bridge Gate.

Threeare but few places, if indeed there are any, which can present such varied attractions to the antiquary as this remarkable and ancient city. It is rich in memorable incidents and associations. It has a history chronicled not only in books, but in its walls, towers, rows, and venerable remains.

The origin of Chester is of very remote date. No definite conclusion has been reached respecting the exact time of its foundation. Various hypotheses have been started, some of them grotesque and ridiculous enough, but its origin is lost in those mists of antiquity where history fades into fable.

It is quite clear, as an authenticated matter of fact, that Chester was in very early possession of the Romans. It was the headquarters of the 20th Legion, which, we find, came into Britain before the year 61; for it had a share in the defeat of Boadicea by Suetonius. After that important victory this mighty and intrepid people marched onward towards North Wales, and established their authority in Cheshire.

Scattered through the city, have been discovered many vestiges of their power, which enable us to trace their history with considerable distinctness. Wherever they planted their settlements, they left permanent records of their greatness and skill. Many of these memorials have been discovered, in various parts of the old city; and through the intelligent and zealous investigations of the Chester Archæological Society, these antiquities are now made tributary to the instruction of the inhabitants respecting the history of their own locality.

Not only to the antiquarian, however, is Chester interesting;there is scarcely any order of mind or taste but may here find its gratification. Its noble arched bridge, venerable cathedral and churches, unique rows, and ancient walls encompassing the city, with a considerable number and variety of relics, all combine to make Chester an attractive place of resort. It is the metropolis of the county palatine of that name, and is pleasantly situated above the river Dee, on a rising ground. Its names have been various. Its Roman name was Deva, undoubtedly, because of its being situated on the river Dee. Then Cestriæ, from Castrum, “camp;” and Castrum Legionis, “the Camp of the Legion.” Its British names were Caer Lleon, “the Camp of the Legion;” and Caer Lleon Vawr, or Ddyfrdwy, “the Camp of the Great Legion on the Dee.”

During the brilliant lieutenancy of Julius Agricola,A.D.85, it became a Roman colony; and the place was called from them and from its situation, Colonia Devana. This is clearly demonstrated by a coin of Septimus Geta, son of Severus, which has this inscription:—

Col. Devana. Leg. xx. Victrix.

For two or three centuries after this date, Chester appears to have continued undisturbed in the power of the Romans; during which period “it was a centre of operations while conquest was being produced; a centre of civilization and commercial intercourse when the dominion of the empire was established. The actual form of the city, its division by streets into four quarters, exhibits the arrangement which the Romans established in their camp, and which they naturally transferred to the cities which took the place of their military stations. Traces of the work of that wonderful people still remain on our walls, and on the rocky brows which surround them; and excite the attention, and reward the diligence of the antiquarian. Those pigs of lead, the produce of Roman industry, which are first mentioned, in ‘Camden’s Britannia,’ as being found in the neighbourhood of Chester, and two of which have recently been discovered, are memorials of the early period at which the mineral wealth of this district was known, and of the commerce to which it gave rise.” It is a fact, clearly established by history, that to the Romans we are greatly indebted for the introduction of a much higher order of civilization than that which they found existing when they took possession of the country. They were the pioneers of social and religious progress. Previous to the Roman invasion, the inhabitants were unacquainted with the laws and arts of civilized life;—painted their bodies,—despisedthe institution of marriage,—clothed themselves in skins,—knew very little of agriculture,—were furious in disposition, and cruel in their religious superstitions. We find that the practice of human sacrifices was very general amongst them, and in every respect their social and moral condition rude and barbarous in the extreme. So wedded were they to their idolatrous worship and cruel rites, that the Romans, after their conquest, found it necessary to abolish their religion by penal statutes; an exercise of power which was not usual with these tolerating conquerors. About the year 50, the Emperor Claudius Cæsar subdued the greater part of Britain, and received the submission of several of the British states who inhabited the south-east part of the island. The other Britons, under the command of Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and the Romans made little progress against them until Ostorius Scapula was sent over, in the year 50, to command their armies. This renowned general found the country in a state of great excitement and dissatisfaction, but speedily advanced the Roman conquests over the Britons—defeated Caractacus in a great battle—took him prisoner, and sent him to Rome—where his magnanimous behaviour procured him better treatment than those conquerors usually bestowed on native princes. He pardoned Caractacus and his family, and commanded that their chains should immediately be taken off.

Holinshed is of opinion that Ostorius Scapula was the founder of Chester, and the reasons he adduces are certainly very plausible. He says, “It is not unlike that it might be first built by P. Ostorius Scapula, who, as we find, after he had subdued Caractacus, King of the Ordonices, that inhabited the countries now called Lancashire, Cheshire, and Salopshire, built in those parts, and among the Silures, certeine places of defense, for the better harbrough of his men of warre, and keeping downe of such Britaines as were still readie to move rebellion.”

Passing over the space of a few years, we find Julius Agricola completing the conquest of this island. Such was his formidable power and skilful policy in governing the people, that we are told they soon became reconciled to the supremacy of the Roman arms and language. He quelled their animosity to the Roman yoke, and certainly did very much for the progress of the people in civilization, knowledge, and the arts of peace.

There is perhaps no place in the kingdom that can boast of so many monuments of Roman skill and ingenuity as Chester; but asthese will be described in detail as we proceed, we need not specify them here.

About the year 448 the Romans withdrew from the island, after having been masters of the most considerable part of its territory for nearly four centuries, and left the Britons to arm for their own defence. No sooner, however, had the Romans withdrawn their troops, than the Scots and Picts invaded the country with their terrible forces, and spread devastation and ruin along the line of their march. These vindictive and rapacious barbarians, fired with the lust of conquest, made a pitiless onslaught upon the property and lives of the people. The unhappy Britons petitioned, without effect, for the interposition of Rome, which had declared its resolution for ever to abandon them. The British ambassadors were entrusted with a letter to the legate at Rome, pathetically stating their perilous dilemma, and invoking their immediate aid.

The intestine commotions which were then shaking the Roman empire to its centre prevented the masters of the then world from affording the timely aid sought at their hands.

Despairing of any reinforcement from Rome, the Britons now invoked the aid of the Saxons, who promptly complied with the invitation, and under Hengist and Horsa, two Saxon chiefs, who were also brothers, wrested Chester from the hands of the invaders. The Saxons, perceiving the weakness of their degenerate allies, soon began to entertain the project of conquering them, and seizing the country as their spoil. During the conflict which ensued between the Britons and Saxons, who from allies became masters. Chester was frequently taken and retaken, and suffered severely in various sieges. Ultimately, the Aborigines were totally subjugated under the mightier sway of Saxon arms.

In 607 Ethelfrid, King of Northumbria, waged a sanguinary battle with the Britons under the walls of Chester, whom he defeated.

It is recorded that he came to avenge the quarrel of St. Augustine, whose metropolitan jurisdiction the British monks refused to admit. Augustine is said to have denounced against them the vengeance of heaven, for this reason, three years previously.

Sammes, in his Antiquities of Britain, gives an interesting statement of this celebrated battle: “Edelfrid, the strongest King of the English, having gathered together a great army about the city of Chester, he made a great slaughter of that nation; but when he was going to give the onset, he espied priests and others, who werecome thither to entreat God for the success of the army, standing apart in a place of advantage; he asked who they were, and for what purpose they had met there? When Edelfrid had understood the cause of their coming, he said, ‘If, therefore, they cry unto their God against us, certainly they, although they bear no arms, fight against us, who prosecute us by their prayers.’”

The victory was not destined, however, to be an abiding one. The supremacy of Ethelfrid over the Britons was not long in duration. History tells us that a few years after he had achieved his conquest, the united forces of Brocmail and three other British princes rescued from his hands the possession of Chester, and put his armies to flight. In 613, the Britons assembled in Chester, and elected Cadwon their king, who reigned with great honour for twenty-two years.

From this period to the close of the Heptarchy, we have but very scanty materials respecting the history of Chester. The Britons appear to have retained possession of it until about the year 828, when it was finally taken by Egbert, during the reign of the British prince Mervyn and his wife Esylht.

In a few years afterwards (894 or 895) the city underwent a heavy calamity, from its invasion by Harold, King of the Danes, Mancolin, King of the Scots, and another confederate prince, who are said to have encamped on Hoole heath, near Chester, and, after a long siege, reduced the city. These predatory pirates were soon after attacked and conquered by Alfred, who utterly routed them from the military defences in which they had embosomed themselves, and destroyed all the cattle and corn of the district.

After the evacuation of the city by the Danes, it remained in ruins until about the year 908, when it was restored by Ethelred, the first Earl of Mercia, and Ethelfleda, his wife, who, it is said, enlarged it to double the extent of the Roman town. Sir Peter Leycester says that “Ethelred and his countess restored Caerleon, that is Legecestria, now called Chester, after it was destroyed by the Danes, and enclosed it with new walls, and made it nigh such two as it was before; so that the castle that was sometime by the water without the walls, is now in the town within the walls.” All the narratives which have been handed down to us of this celebrated woman represent her as possessed of incomparable talent, great enterprise, and pure mind. She employed the great power and opportunity she possessed with admirable wisdom, and made them subservient to acts of munificence and piety. She died atTamworth in 922, whence her body was translated to Gloucester. Leycester gives a lengthy record of her good deeds, which prepares us for the fact that her loss was deeply and universally regretted throughout the whole kingdom.

Edgar’s Cave

The security of Chester against the Danish invaders was ultimately effected by the victories of Edmund, in or about 942, after which it was occasionally honoured by the residence of the Saxon sovereigns. Pennant says, King Edgar made this one of the stations in his annual circumnavigation of his dominions. About the year 973, he visited Chester, attended by his court, and received the homage of his vassal kings. It is said that one day entering his barge, he assumed the helm, and made his eight tributary princes row him from the palace which stood in the field at Handbridge, opposite the castle (and which still bears his name), up the river Dee, as far as the monastery of St. John’s. In the following century Chester was possessed by the Earls of Mercia, until the Norman Conquest in 1066. The tyranny, violence, and bloodshed which marked the course of William the Conqueror, met with determined resistance in various parts of the country; but in the course of six or seven years he utterly crushed all opposition, and became absolute master of the island. He introduced into England the feudal system, “with its military aristocracy, its pride, its splendour, and its iron dominion. The importance of Chester, as a military station, was shown by its being assigned as a fief to one of the chief leaders in the Norman army, and on his death by its being given to the nephew of the Duke himself, under whom it was invested with privileges which raised it almost to the rank of a separate principality. Under Hugh, the first Earl of Chester, and his immediate successors, we may suppose that most of those castles were built, which form objects of antiquarian research in the neighbourhood, but which are melancholy records of the state of society at the time, since they were evidently built to protect the frontiers from the continued invasions of the Welsh. Some of these still remain, and, from their extent and magnificence, appear to have been the residences of the Earls themselves. Many more have perished, and can only be traced by the banks which mark the outline of their plan. These were probably of an inferior description, and are rather to be considered as guard-houses for the protection of some particular pass than as regular fortresses. There are traces of this kind at Doddleston, at Pulford, at Aldford, at Holt, at Shotwick, beside the larger and more distinguished holdsat Beeston, Halton, Chester, and Hawarden; and probably few years passed but that some inroad of the Welsh carried fire and slaughter to the very gates of Chester, and swept the cattle and produce from the fields.”[7]

For many years previous to the Norman Conquest, Chester was governed by Dukes or Earls; but William, perceiving the danger of entrusting so large a territory in the hands of any one of his barons, curtailed the provinces within narrower limits, and thereby crippled the power which had often proved dangerous to the throne, and at the same time augmented his own, by having a larger number of gifts and emoluments to bestow on his followers. In the first instance, William gave Chester to Gherbodus, a noble Fleming, who, having obtained permission of the king to visit Flanders for the transaction of some private business, there fell into the hands of his enemies, and was obliged to resign the earldom to Hugh Lupus, the nephew of the Conqueror, who was appointed in his stead. The Earldom was now erected into a Palatinate. Camden says, “William the 1st created Hugh, surnamed Lupus, the first Earl of Chester and Count Palatine, and gave unto him and his heirs all the county, to be holden as freely by the sword as the king himself held England by his crown.”

By reason of this grant, the Earls of Chester were invested with sovereign jurisdiction, and held their own parliaments. It is supposed that Lupus was invested with his new dignity at Chester by William himself, when he was present there in person in 1069.

He created several barons to assist him in his council and government, some of whom we find upon record, as Nigel, Baron of Halton; Sir William Maldebeng, of Malbanc, Baron of Witch Malbanc, or Nantwich; Richard de Vernon, Baron of Shipbroke; Gilbert Venables, Baron of Kinderton; Hamon de Massey, Baron of Dunham Massey; Warren de Poynton, Baron of Stockport; Eustace de Monthalt, Baron of Monthalt. He converted the church of St. Werburgh into an abbey, by the advice of St. Anselm.

He continued Earl thirty-one years, died the 27th of July, 1101, and was buried in the churchyard, but afterwards removed to the present Chapter-house of the Cathedral, where his body was found in 1724, wrapped in leather, enclosed in a stone coffin.

His Sword of Dignity forms one of the many valuable curiositiespreserved in the British Museum. His parliament was formed of eight barons, who were obliged to attend him. Every baron had four esquires, every esquire one gentleman, and every gentleman one valet. The barons had the power of life and death. Hugh Lupus was succeeded by his son Richard, who was drowned in his passage from Normandy. He governed nineteen years, and was succeeded by Ranulph, surnamedMechines, son of Margaret, sister to Lupus. Ranulph died at Chester,A.D.1129,[8]and was succeeded by the heroic Ranulph II., surnamedGeronjis, who, having held the earldom twenty-five years, was poisoned in 1153, and was buried at Chester.

Hugh II., his son, surnamed Cyvelioc, succeeded him, and continued in the earldom twenty-eight years. He died at Leek, in Staffordshire, and was buried at Chester.

Hugh was succeeded by his son Ranulph, surnamedBlundeville, who, for his benevolence, was styledRanulph the Good. He served in the holy wars, and was as celebrated as any of the Seven Champions of Christendom. After his return, he built Beeston Castle, in Cheshire, a noble and imposing fortress, which, before the use of fire-arms, might have been deemed impregnable. It is built on an insulated rock, and its summit is one hundred yards above the level of the brook that runs at its base. It endured three sieges during the civil wars. The middle part of the slope is surrounded by towers, which time, however, has dismantled; the well in the upper part was cut through the rock to the depth of one hundred yards; in the course of time it became nearly filled up with rubbish, but within the last few years was cleared, built round, and enclosed, by J. Tollemache, Esq., M.P., to whom the castle belongs. It is ten miles distant from Chester, on the London and North-Western Railway.

This Earl Ranulph was besieged by the Welsh in the castle of Rhuddlan, and was relieved by Ralph Dutton, son-in-law of Roger Lacy, Constable of Chester, at the head of a large body of fiddlers, minstrels, &c., who were then assembled at the fair of Hugh Lupus. A remarkable privilege of this fair was, that no thief or malefactor that attended it should be attached or punished, except for offences then and there committed. With this motley crew Dutton marched into Wales, and raised the siege; for which Ranulph rewarded himwith full power over all the instruments of his preservation, and the privilege of licensing the minstrels. The anniversary of this achievement was formerly celebrated on the festival of St. John the Baptist, by a regular procession of the minstrels to the church of their tutelar saint, St. Werburgh, in honour of whom Hugh Lupus granted to the minstrels, &c., the above-mentioned privilege, which is recognized in all subsequent vagrant acts, by a special exception in favour of the minstrel jurisdiction of the Duttons, of Dutton, in Cheshire. The last Earl Ranulph died in 1232, and was buried at Chester.

John Scott succeeded Ranulph, who died without issue; not without suspicion, Leycester says, of being poisoned by the contrivance of Helene his wife.

The Earls of Chester continued to exercise their local sovereignty for about one hundred and sixty years. They held that sovereignty, it is true, as the representatives of the paramount sovereignty of the King of England, and as owing allegiance to him in all things; but so far as the government of the Palatinate was concerned, their rule, though nominally mediate, was actually absolute, for the King does not appear to have thwarted their jurisdiction, or in any way to have exerted his supreme authority, beyond retaining a mint at Chester.

After the death of the seventh Earl, in 1237, Henry the Third united the Earldom to the Crown; he afterwards conferred it upon his eldest son, Prince Edward, aboutA.D.1245, who, two years after this, received the homage of his military tenants at Chester. From that period to the present the title of Earl of Chester has been vested in the eldest son of the reigning sovereign, and is now held by His Royal Highness Albert, Prince of Wales.

In 1255 Llewellyn ap Gryffid, Prince of Wales, provoked by the cruel injuries his subjects had received from Geffrey Langley, Lieutenant of the County under Prince Edward, carried fire and sword to the gates of Chester. In 1257 Henry the Third summoned his nobility and bishops to attend, with their vassals, at Chester, in order to invade Wales; and in 1275 Edward the First appointed the city as the place for Llewellyn to do him homage, whose refusal ended with the ruin of himself and his principality; for in 1300 Edward of Carnarvon here received the final acknowledgment of the Welsh to the sovereignty of England; and in a few years afterwards, Llewellyn was brought hither a prisoner from Flint Castle. Richard the Second visited this his favouritecity in 1397, and in 1399 he was brought a prisoner from Flint Castle to the castle of Chester, which Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry the Fourth, had seized.

In Owen Glendower’s wars this city was aplace d’armesfor the English troops in the expeditions against the Welsh, who, ever tenacious of their independence, were as unwilling to submit to the Norman as the Saxon yoke.

In 1459 Henry the Sixth, with Queen Margaret and her son Edward, visited Chester, and bestowed little silver swans on the Cheshire gentlemen who espoused her cause.

It appears that Henry the Seventh and his Queen also visited Chester in 1493. In 1554 George Marsh, the pious martyr was publicly burnt at Boughton, for his steadfast adherence to the Protestant faith. In the year 1617 the city was honoured with the presence of James the First, when Edward Button, the then Mayor, presented the King with a gilt cup containing one hundred jacobuses of gold.

From this time no event of any great importance appears to have transpired, until the city was involved in the calamities of a siege, in consequence of its loyalty to Charles the First. The city stood the siege for some months; but the inhabitants at last, reduced to the extremity of famine, so that they were compelled to eat horses, dogs, cats, and other animals, abandoned their resistance, made honourable terms of capitulation, and yielded the city on February the 3rd, 1645–6.

Chester was, probably, in the time of the Romans, or earlier, a thriving port. The Saxon navy was stationed here, and it was also the seat of the Mercian kings. About the time of the Conquest the imports and exports appear to have been considerable. But as an illustration of the times we may mention, that one article of the latter was slaves, obtained, it is conjectured, from the captives which were made in the frequent wars with the Welsh. It is quite clear that Chester was, in ancient days, a busy and nourishing port, because of the perfectly navigable condition of the Dee. All the early writers of its history unite in bearing testimony to this point. It may here be mentioned as a curious and interesting fact, that some centuries ago, Flookersbrook was covered with water, and that a deep and broad channel flowed through Mollington, Stanney, and that direction, which emptied itself into the estuary now called the Mersey. Holinshed, after tracing minutely the course of the Dee through Flookersbrook upto Stanney, distinctly states that it “sendeth foorth one arme by Stannie Poole, and the Parke side into Merseie arme,” &c. Speed distinctly marks out this course in his map; and it is still more broadly defined in an old Dutch map, of a much earlier date, printed at Rotterdam.

In consequence of the uncertain and imperfect state of the river, the once thriving commerce of this ancient port has dwindled into comparative insignificance, and Liverpool has reaped the advantage. Spirited efforts have latterly been made to improve the navigation and port of Chester.

With regard to the ecclesiastical history of Chester, it may suffice to observe that, according to King’s ‘Vale Royal,’ Theodore, the first Anglo-Saxon Primate, ordained at Rome in 669, appointed St. Chad the first Bishop of Chester, who fixed his seat at Lichfield. “After him one Winifred was bishop, who, for his disobedience in some points, was deprived by Theodore, who appointed in his place one Sexulph. The said Theodore, by authority of a synod held at Hatfield, did divide the province of Mercia into five bishoprics, that is to say, Chester, Worcester, Lichfield, Cederna in Lindsey, and Dorchester, which after was translated to Lincoln. After Sexulf, one Aldwin was Bishop of Lichfield, and next to him Eudulfus, who was adorned with the Archbishop’s pall, having all the bishops under King Offa’s dominions suffragans to him.”

The diocese of Chester seems to have continued one with that of Lichfield to the time of the Conquest, when Pennant says a Bishop of Lichfield, in the year 1075, removed his episcopal seat to Chester, and during his life made use of the monastery of St. John’s for his cathedral.

His successor was Robert of Lindsey, chaplain of Wm. Rufus, who removed the see to Coventry; St. John’s church, however, continued collegiate up to the time of the Reformation, at which period it had a dean, eight canons or prebends, and ten vicars choral. The prelate and his successors, although having seats at Lichfield and Coventry, as well as Chester, continued to have the designation of Bishop of Chester, until the appointment of John Ketterich, in 1415, who was not so styled, nor any of his successors until the time of the Reformation. “The bishops that were before that time (although they were commonly called Bishops of Chester) were Bishops of Lichfield, and had but their seat or most abidingin Chester.” Henry the Eighth erected Chester into a distinct diocese in the 33rd year of his reign, “turning the monastery of St. Werburgh into the Bishop’s palace; unto which jurisdiction was allotted Cheshire, Lancashire, Richmondshire, and part of Cumberland; and was appointed to be within the province of York.”

John Bird, D.D., “formerly a fryer of the order of the Carmelites, was the first bishop of this new foundation.” He was deprived of his bishopric by Queen Mary,A.D.1544, because of his adhesion to the Protestant faith. He was succeeded by George Cotes, who survived his consecration only about two years. He died at Chester, and was buried in the Cathedral near the Bishop’s throne. His memory is stained with the blood of George Marsh, who, during his episcopate, suffered martyrdom at Boughton. The next Bishop was Cuthbert Scott, who was vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1554 and 1555, one of the delegates commissioned by Cardinal Pole to visit that University, and one of the four Bishops who, with as many divines, undertook to defend the Church of Rome against an equal number of reformed divines. He was deposed by Queen Elizabeth, for some abusive expressions uttered against Her Majesty. William Downham, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth before she came to the crown, was consecrated Bishop of Chester,A.D.1561. He died Nov., 1577, and was buried in the choir of the Cathedral, having sat Bishop sixteen years and a half: from that time to the present there has been a regular succession of Bishops of the Reformed Church.

John Graham, D.D., formerly Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, was consecrated to the see of Chester in 1848, in succession to the present Archbishop of Canterbury, and is at present fulfilling the duties of his high office with pious earnestness, diligence, and general approbation.

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