THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

cxw.—THE WELSH MARCH :—CHESHIRE.--GENERAL HIS- TORY SINCE THE SAXON CONQUEST.

THE Saxons, or rather the confederated Mercians, probably estab- lished themselves in Cheshire very gradually, and with frequent retrogressions. We can trace twenty-five names of marks or early settlements within the limits of the county. As we have seen, it followed the fortunes of the Mercian principalities, and after the first Northman flood had spent its force, and Alfred had expelled or subdued the invaders, and reduced their conquests in Mercia and elsewhere to a tributary position, Cheshire was included in the Mercian jurisdiction, and was thenceforward governed by the Mercian Ealdormen or "Duces," in subordination to the West- Saxon monarchs. The second great Northman and more strictly Danish invasions, under Sweyn and Canute, reduced the county once more under the Scandinavian yoke, and it fell within that portion of England allotted to the latter prince in his treaty of partition with Edmund Ironside. We have still traces of these Danish occupations in the names of such places as Kirkby. When the Danish rule was once more broken, and the Saxon line restored under Edward the Confessor, we find Cheshire under the govern- ment of the house of Earl Leofric. Henry of Huntingdon calls this celebrated Saxon noble (under the year 1018) " Consul nobilissimus Ce,strim ;" but there is no proof in earlier authorities that either Leofric or his descendants, who in succession governed the terri- tories included within the old Mercian confederacy, ever bore this as a distinctive and separate title. After the Norman Conquest, and when the house of Leofric fell, King William first granted Cheshire to Gherbod, a Flemish nobleman of distinguished gallantry, who shortly afterwards departing into Flanders to look after his possessions there, was made a prisoner by his enemies, and during his captivity the Conqueror bestowed his estates in England on others. In 1070, we learn from Ordericus Vitalis, the King gave to Hugh, surnamed Lupus, the whole county and earldom of Chester. According to the words of the grant, he was to hold this " tam libere ad gladium sicut ipse Rex tenebat Angliam ad Coronam." Domesday Survey tells us, under the title of Cestre-scire, that " the Bishop of Chester holds of the King the lands in Cheshire which belong to his bishopric; all the rest of the lands of the county Earl Hugh held of the King cum suis hominibus." The meaning of these expressions seems to be that the dignity conferred on Earl Hugh was one " inherent in the sword, as purchased by it, and to be kept by it also ; for, as in the Crown of England, there is an inherent right of regality annexed, so here is given an inherent right of

dignity in the sword. This is to hold as freely by the sword as the King holds by the Crown, only inferior to his King. Hence was it that whatsoever we say concerning the pleas of the Crown, or to be done against the King's crown or dignity, the same is also said (but in a more limited sense) concerning the

pleas of the sword of Chester, or to be done against the sword and dignity of the Earl of Chester, as is most evident out of the

records and indictments of those times." This dignity seems to have also conferred the honour of being Swordbearer of England at the coronation of the Kings. Thus we read in Matthew Paris " that when King Henry III. married Queen Eleanor, A.D. 1236, all the great men of the kingdom used those offices and places which had of ancient right belonged to their ancestors at the coronation of the Kings ; and the Earl of Chester then carried the sword of St.

Edward, which is called Curtein, before the King, in token that he was an Earl Palatine, and had power by right to restrain the

King if he should do amiss, his Constable of Cheshire attending on him, and beating back the people with a rod or staff when they pressed disorderly upon him." The expression " with his 21101" seems to mean that the Earl held of the King, besides the lands, " the tenure and services of all his tenants in Cheshire."

The Cheshire which was thus (with the exception of the Bishop's lands) given to Earl Hugh included, besides the modern county, " the lands between the Ribble and the Mersey;" for Lancashire does not appear as a territorial division in Domesday Book ; the northern part of the county, including Amounderness and the hundred of Lonsdale, north and south of the Sands, being comprehended in Yorkshire. The under-tenants in this enlarged Cheshire at the time of the Surrey were 167 in number ; the bordarii, 635; bovarii, 172 ; radmans, 145 ; serri, 193 ; and villani, 797 ; out of a total enumerated population of 2,349. Earl Hugh held in demesne (wholly or partially) the following towns in Cheshire :—Weverham, Kennardaly, Doneham-on-the-Hill, Elton, Trafford, Manly, Helles- bye, Frodsham, Alreton, Alderly Inferior, Done, Edesberig-nigh- the-Chamber-in-the-Forest, Eaton in Broxton hundred, Cotiuton, Lay, Rushton, Upton-juxta-Rushton, Little Budworth, Olton, Over, Estham, Trafford, Edlave, Macclesfield, Adlington, Gowes- worth, Merton, Chelford, Hungerweniton, Henbury, Capesthorne, Henshall, Tingtweezle, Hollinworth, Wernith, Ramiley, Laiton, Alsacher, Sanbach, Clive, Sutton-nigh-Middlewich, Wimboldesly,

Weever, Oeecberston, Stanney, and Anterbus- in-Overwhitley—in all 48.

Earl Hugh was otherwise called D'Acranches. Welshmen or Britons called him Hugh Vras, i.e., the Fat ; Ordericus also in one place calls him Diryare, which is said in Welsh to mean the Gross.

He held lands in twenty counties of England, and notwithstand- ing his corpulence was one of the most active and skilful soldiers of the period. The chroniclers tell us that, " with Robert de Rothelent, and Robert de Malpas, and other cruel men of power, he spilt much of the Welshmen's blood." Of course, indeed, the

great and independent jurisdiction given to him was held as a

Lord Marcher against the unsubdued Britons, as well as a lord- ship over the conquered Saxons. Ordericus says of him,—" He was not liberal, but prodigal, and carried not so much a family as an army still along with him ; he took no account either of his receipts or disbursements ; be daily wasted his estate, and delighted more in falconers and huntsmen than in the tillers of his soil, or in Heaven's orators, the ministers ; he was given much to his belly, whereby in time he grew so fat that he could scarce crawl ; he had many bastard sons and bastard daughters, but they were almost all swept away by sundry misfortunes." He was, although not fond, according to Ordericus, of the company of ecclesiastics, when ill, at least, a devout man after the fashion of the age. Under such circum- stances, he founded the monastery of St. Werburge, in Chester, and he founded other religious houses, and left or gave rich benefactions to others. In 1098, along with Hugh de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, he conquered Anglesey, slaying many of the Welsh- men, and mutilating others in a horrible manner. Earl Hugh died July 27, 1101, after holding the earldom of Chester one-and- thirty years. Richard, his son and successor, was drowned with Prince William, in 1119, in returning from Normandy, leaving no children. The earldom palatine then passed to Randle do Meschines, said to be the son of an aunt of Earl William. His son and successor, Randle, surnamed De Gernon, is said to have been poisoned by his wife and William Peverel in 1155. This line of Earls became extinct in 1232, when John le Scot, Earl of Huntingdon, son of the sister of the last earl, obtained the

earldom ; but dying without children in 1237, Henry III. first annexed the earldom to his Crown " for ever ;" but in 1253 con- ferred it on his younger son, Edmund Plantagenet, who surrendered to his elder brother Edward. Simon de Montfort extorted a grant

of the earldom from the latter prince, after the battle of Lewes, in exchange for that of Leicester, with confirmations from King Henry ; but, of course, these were nullified by the result of the battle of Evesham.

In 1301 Edward of Carnarvon, the heir to the Crown of England, had a grant from his father of the principality of Wales and county of Chester. This prince, as Edward II., gave by two charters to his son Edward the counties of Chester and Flint, &c., to him and his heirs, Kings of England, and he was summoned to Parliament as Earl of Chester in 1320. His son, the Black Prince, was created Earl of Chester, and by charter, in 1333, invested with the county of Chester and the castles of Chester, Rhyddlam, and Flint, with the same limitation. //is son Richard was created Earl of Chester in 1376 ; and by an Act in the twenty-first year of his reign, as Richard II., the earldom of Chester was erected into a Principality, and it was limited strictly for the future to the eldest son of the reigning king ; and though the Act was annulled by one of the first year of Henry IV., the Earldom of Chester has ever since been granted in conjunction with the Principality of Wales. The county continued to be governed by its Earls as fully and independently as it had been under the Norman Earls, till Henry VIII., by Act of Parliament, made it subordinate to the Crown of England. Yet, " notwithstanding this restraint, all pleas of lands and tenements and all contracts within the county are to be heard and determined within it, and all determinations out of it are deemed void et coram non fiance, except in cases of error, foreign plea, and foreign voucher ; and for no crime but treason could an inhabitant of this county be tried out of it." Being an independent principality, Cheshire never sent representatives to the National Parliament till the year 1549, when, on the petition of the inhabitants, two representatives were allotted to the shire and two to the city of Chester. The Grosvenor family, Marquises of Westminster, now represent, to a certain extent, in position, if not in descent, the old Earls of Chester.

The inhabitants of Cheshire took a part in the rebellion of the Percies, and the greater part of its knights and esquires, to the number of 200, with many of their retainers, fell in the battle of Shrewsbury, July 22, 1403.

During the Civil Wars of the reign of Charles I., Sir William Brereton took possession of and fortified Nantwich for the Parlia- ment, making it their head-quarters in the county ; while Sir Nicholas Byron as commander for the King in Shropshire and Cheshire made Chester (of which he was the governor) the head- quarters of that party. The nephew of the latter, Lord Byron, defeated the Parliamentary forces under Sir William Breretou at Middlewich in December, 1643, and Nantwich was besieged by the Cavaliers in January, 1644. It was relieved, however, by the Parliamentary forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Sir William Brereton, who defeated Lord Byron and shut him up in Chester. Prince Rupert, iu his march towards York, took Stockport without resistance on the 25th of May in the same year, but the Cavaliers were defeated after a severe fight at Castle Heath near Malpas on the 25th of August. Next year, ou the advance of King Charles to Chester, with a considerable army, the Parliamentarians concentrated their forces, abandoning all their garrisons in the county except those in Nantwich and Tarviu, and on September 27th the battle of Rowton and Hooleheatli, near Chester, was fought, in which the Royalists were thoroughly defeated. This led to the sur- render of the garrison in Chester in February, 1646, and the sub- mission of the whole county to the Parliament. In the period between the death of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, and the Restoration, in August, 1659, Sir George Booth raised the standard of the Presbyterian-Royalists in Cheshire, with a force of 3,000 men. He was encountered, however, by the Commonwealth soldiers under Lambert, at Winnington Bridge, near Northwich, on the 16th of August, and completely defeated, and Chester, which had been occupied for the King of Scots by Colonel Croxton, surrendered immediately on the approach of the vic- torious army. At the Revolution, Henry Booth, Lord Delamere, rose in arms for William of Orange, and in 1690 was rewarded with the title of Earl of Warrington.