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PREFACE
PREFACE
The aim of the present volume in the Oxford Series of County Histories for Schools is to assist the study of the progress of the English people by an examination of local antiquities, visits to ancient sites and buildings, and suggestions of big national movements from local incident. An attempt is made to foster the powers of observation in children by showing them how to connect various styles of architecture, for instance, with successive stages in the story of their county, and to construct
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CHAPTER I POSITION AND NATURAL FEATURES OF CHESHIRE
CHAPTER I POSITION AND NATURAL FEATURES OF CHESHIRE
Few English counties owe more of their history to their geographical position and surroundings, and to the character of their natural features, than Cheshire. Not only in the past have the rocks and rivers of Cheshire helped to make history, but even to-day they have a very direct bearing upon the fortunes of Cheshire men and women. How many of us reflect, as our eyes travel over the plain to the distant hills, that on the wise and orderly arrangement of mountain and valley, forest and winding s
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CHAPTER II THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE. I The Newer Rocks
CHAPTER II THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE. I The Newer Rocks
Nearly every Cheshire boy has visited at some time or another a quarry in the neighbourhood of the town or village where he dwells. He will probably have noticed that beneath the two or three feet of soil at the top of the quarry the rocks are arranged in beds or 'strata' piled one upon another in horizontal rows, or sometimes sloping in parallel lines towards the bottom of the quarry. When and how were these beds of rock formed and laid down? If our quarry is in the central or western parts of
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CHAPTER III THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE (cont.). II The Older Rocks
CHAPTER III THE MAKING OF CHESHIRE (cont.). II The Older Rocks
Let us now visit some quarries in East Cheshire. We shall find considerable difficulty in reaching some of them. It will be necessary to get permission from the owners of the quarries, put on a special suit of clothes, enter an iron cage, and descend many hundred feet perhaps into the depths of the earth's surface until we find ourselves—in a coal-mine! Section of Rocks from Knutsford to Buxton Unlike the New Red Sandstones, which are found for the most part in flat horizontal beds, the coal bed
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CHAPTER IV EARLY INHABITANTS OF CHESHIRE
CHAPTER IV EARLY INHABITANTS OF CHESHIRE
A few years ago some workmen digging on the high ground of Alderley Edge came across a number of flint stones, which from their shape and the marks of chipping upon them had clearly been fashioned by the hand of man. Some of the flints were shaped like a knife blade with a sharp edge on their entire length, and others of a more or less oval shape had a keen edge on one of their curves. The former were the knives with which the earliest men of Cheshire cut the flesh of animals for food; the latte
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CHAPTER V THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE. I
CHAPTER V THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE. I
In the previous chapters all that we know of Cheshire and its people has been learned from unwritten records, 'stories in stones', and from such scanty remains as have been brought to light by excavation and careful examination of the soil. From this time onwards our knowledge will be much more extensive and sure, for we shall have written records left by men who lived in the times of which they wrote. Fifty-four years before the birth of Christ the British inhabitants of Cheshire must have hear
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CHAPTER VI THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE. II
CHAPTER VI THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE. II
A piece of leaden water-piping discovered in Eastgate Street, Chester, bears the name of Julius Agricola. Agricola was made Governor of Britain in A.D. 78. Tacitus, a Roman historian, who married Agricola's daughter, wrote a life of his father-in-law and a narrative of his work in Britain. From his writings we learn that Agricola first turned his attention to the fierce tribe of the Brigantes who inhabited the hilly districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and North-East Cheshire. Agricola made the p
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CHAPTER VII SAXONS AND ANGLES COME TO CHESHIRE
CHAPTER VII SAXONS AND ANGLES COME TO CHESHIRE
As the Romans retreated southwards, tribes of Picts, a fierce race inhabiting the northern parts of Britain followed in their wake plundering and destroying the cities built by the Romans, and everywhere falling upon the defenceless Britons. We know little of the doings of this terrible time, for with the departure of the Romans there descended upon Britain a veil of darkness that was not to be lifted for 150 years. In the latter part of the fifth century the tide of Pictish invasion was rolled
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CHAPTER VIII THE CROSS IN CHESHIRE
CHAPTER VIII THE CROSS IN CHESHIRE
During the latter years of the Roman occupation there must have been many among the Roman soldiers stationed in Cheshire who had heard the message of the Gospel, and, following the example of their emperors, professed the faith of Christ. But, as we have before stated, there is no proof that a Christian church existed in Cheshire in those days, though tradition says that where the cathedral church of Chester now stands there was a church dedicated to S. Peter and S. Paul, which had previously be
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CHAPTER IX THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN
CHAPTER IX THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN
With the capture of Chester (Chap. VII) Ecberght's conquest of Mercia was complete. Northumbria, Kent, and East Anglia also submitted to him. But neither Ecberght nor the kings that came after him were to be allowed to enjoy the blessings of peace, for a new and terrible enemy now appeared on our shores. In the ninth century, the coasts of Britain were ravaged by the Northmen or Vikings, those The word Vikings or 'wickings' means creek-men, from a Scandinavian word 'wick', 'a creek'. These Scand
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CHAPTER X THE NORMANS COME TO CHESHIRE
CHAPTER X THE NORMANS COME TO CHESHIRE
In the early months of the year A.D. 1070 the Saxons of Cheshire fled before the approach of an army of discontented and almost mutinous troops who had cut their way through the deep snowdrifts of the Pennine Hills. But neither the severity of the weather nor the hardships of the march seemed to have any effect upon the stern and indomitable Norman warrior at their head, who, like the Vikings whose blood flowed in his veins, set an example of energy and endurance to his half-starved fainting fol
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CHAPTER XI THE NORMAN ABBEYS AND CHURCHES OF CHESHIRE
CHAPTER XI THE NORMAN ABBEYS AND CHURCHES OF CHESHIRE
Among the friends of Earl Hugh who visited him at his castle at Chester was Anselm the great churchman, who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm was at the time prior of the Abbey of Bec, which was close to Avranches, the earl's own Norman home. Now if there was one thing on which the Normans justly prided themselves, it was the founding and building of churches, and the heart of Earl Hugh was set on building in his own city of Chester a monastery that should rival in splendour tho
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CHAPTER XII THE EARLS OF THE COUNTY PALATINE
CHAPTER XII THE EARLS OF THE COUNTY PALATINE
In the western porch beneath the tower of Prestbury Church are a number of fragments of broken grave-slabs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On nearly all is carved a cross, the head of which is usually enclosed within a circle, the ends of the limbs of the cross consisting of a triple lily, the favourite emblem of the Norman sculptors. One only of these fragments tells us over whose remains the slab was placed. An inscription, in which the letters VIVYN D are clearly seen, tells us that
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CHAPTER XIII THE CHURCHES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER XIII THE CHURCHES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
The greatest churches which the Normans planned were on such a scale that they could not be finished in the lives of their designers. The work was carried on more or less continuously by the builders and architects who came after them. But, as time went on, various improvements were made in the art of building, and new fashions came into being, and the original plans had often to be altered to meet the growing needs of the day, or to allow the newest features of style to be introduced. The inter
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CHAPTER XIV GROWTH OF TOWNS IN CHESHIRE
CHAPTER XIV GROWTH OF TOWNS IN CHESHIRE
Earl Randle 'the Good' had no son to succeed him, and when he died the earldom passed to his nephew John the Scot, the son of Randle's eldest sister. John married the daughter of Llewellyn the Prince of Wales, so that peace was secured for a time between the Welsh and the earl's subjects. He did not live to enjoy his earldom long, however, and he too died without an heir. His wife was suspected of causing his death by poison. Henry the Third was at this time King of England. He had looked with a
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CHAPTER XV EDWARD THE FIRST AND CHESHIRE
CHAPTER XV EDWARD THE FIRST AND CHESHIRE
Simon of Whitchurch received the Abbey of S. Werburgh from the hands of another and a greater Simon, the powerful Earl of Leicester, who was engaged in a grim struggle with the king on account of the king's extravagance and misgovernment, and the rule of foreign favourites. Both Henry and his son Edward were, in fact, at this very time prisoners of the earl, for the battle of Lewes, which ended so disastrously for the king, had just been fought. In the same year Earl Simon summoned the famous Pa
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CHAPTER XVI THE COMING OF THE FRIARS
CHAPTER XVI THE COMING OF THE FRIARS
Three streets in Chester in the neighbourhood of the Church of S. Martin bear the names of Grey Friars, Black Friars, and White Friars respectively. During the thirteenth century numbers of begging friars, clad in simple grey or black or white tunics, came to Chester and settled in the poorest quarters of the city. Like the early disciples of Christ, whose lives of poverty they sought to imitate, they carried with them neither gold nor silver, and walked unshod, begging their food and shelter as
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CHAPTER XVII A DEPOSED KING
CHAPTER XVII A DEPOSED KING
When Edward the First completed his conquest of North Wales, and the Welsh chiefs swore fealty at Chester to the first English Prince of Wales, the fighting squires of Cheshire found themselves without any occupation. Edward the Third, ambitious of recovering the French dominions of the Norman and Angevin Kings of England, provided the Cheshire men with a fresh field of adventures, with far greater opportunities of performing deeds of valour and satisfying their thirst for warfare. A number of C
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CHAPTER XVIII THE RIVAL ROSES
CHAPTER XVIII THE RIVAL ROSES
Henry the Fourth belongs partly to Cheshire, for a Duke of Lancaster had married the heiress of the Lacys, who were descended from Nigel, Baron of Halton and Constable of Chester. John of Gaunt, the king's father, was a frequent visitor at Halton Castle, which he used as a hunting-lodge. The French wars broke out again in the reign of Henry the Fifth. Once more the loyal Leghs and other Cheshire knights followed their king. In fact the king's body-guard was composed of Cheshire men, among them b
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CHAPTER XIX CHURCHES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
CHAPTER XIX CHURCHES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Many of the largest and finest churches in Cheshire were built during the Wars of the Roses, and in the reigns of the early Tudors. This fact shows us more than anything else perhaps that the wars did not greatly interfere with the progress and prosperity of the inhabitants of Cheshire. During this period the churches of Mottram, Malpas, Great Budworth, Nantwich, Astbury, Grappenhall, Tarvin, Bunbury, Wilmslow, Witton, Gawsworth, and many others were built or completed. Astbury, West Front. Perp
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CHAPTER XX THE REFORMATION AND THE GREAT AWAKENING
CHAPTER XX THE REFORMATION AND THE GREAT AWAKENING
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 misdeed
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CHAPTER XXI ELIZABETHAN CHESHIRE. I
CHAPTER XXI ELIZABETHAN CHESHIRE. I
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 Chev
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CHAPTER XXII ELIZABETHAN CHESHIRE. II
CHAPTER XXII ELIZABETHAN CHESHIRE. II
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 an
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CHAPTER XXIII THE RULE OF THE STUARTS
CHAPTER XXIII THE RULE OF THE STUARTS
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
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CHAPTER XXIV CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE. I The Battles of Middlewich and Nantwich
CHAPTER XXIV CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE. I The Battles of Middlewich and Nantwich
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 modern industrial 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 n
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CHAPTER XXV CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE. II A Memorable Siege
CHAPTER XXV CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE. II A Memorable Siege
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
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CHAPTER XXVI CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE. III The Protectorate and the Restoration
CHAPTER XXVI CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE. III The Protectorate and the Restoration
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: '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 sentenc
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CHAPTER XXVII THE FALL OF THE STUARTS
CHAPTER XXVII THE FALL OF THE STUARTS
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 Christ
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CHAPTER XXVIII THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. I
CHAPTER XXVIII THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. I
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 G
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CHAPTER XXIX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. II
CHAPTER XXIX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. II
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 o
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CHAPTER XXX THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. I
CHAPTER XXX THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. I
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
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CHAPTER XXXI THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. II
CHAPTER XXXI THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. II
In the year 1785 cotton was brought into the Mersey from the United States of America. Long before that time so-called 'cotton' stuffs had been made in Cheshire villages. But these fabrics were not really cotton at all, but a mixture of wool and flax. The flax was brought from Ireland, and woollen manufacturers tried for a long time to keep it out. In the parish records of Prestbury you may read of an Act passed in Charles the Second's reign forbidding any one to be buried in anything but a wool
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CHAPTER XXXII THE RAILWAYS OF CHESHIRE
CHAPTER XXXII THE RAILWAYS OF CHESHIRE
After the making of canals came the railways, and the mighty power of steam, that had wrought such a vast change in the cotton industry, was to be the moving force of the new invention. Late in the summer of 1830 the people who lined the river banks from Runcorn to Latchford saw a trail of smoke travelling slowly across the nine arches of Sankey Viaduct and the peaty plains of the Mersey. The smoke was that of Stephenson's 'Rocket', the steam locomotive that was drawing one of the first passenge
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CHAPTER XXXIII PROGRESS AND REFORM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER XXXIII PROGRESS AND REFORM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Twenty years before steam locomotives were used to draw passenger trains over the earliest railways in Cheshire, a steam packet boat had been built to ply between Liverpool and the Cheshire port of Runcorn. This boat was called simply 'The Steam Boat', and was the first steamer ever seen in the River Mersey. The sailing packets were frequently becalmed, but the new ship could make her voyage in all weathers. A number of steam-tugs were built soon afterwards to tow the big sailing-ships that ente
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CHAPTER XXXIV THE REIGN OF A GREAT QUEEN
CHAPTER XXXIV THE REIGN OF A GREAT QUEEN
Many of the changes described in the last three chapters were but partially accomplished in Cheshire, when a young princess of eighteen years became Queen of England. The power of steam was known, but the Cheshire railways were not yet laid, and those who wished to attend the coronation of Queen Victoria had to use the stage or the family coach and take a day and a half over the journey. Telegraph and telephone were also quite unknown, and the penny post had not yet come into being. That was to
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CHAPTER XXXV FAMOUS MEN AND WOMEN OF CHESHIRE
CHAPTER XXXV FAMOUS MEN AND WOMEN OF CHESHIRE
Throughout the Middle Ages, until the end of the Wars of the Roses, war was the chief, almost the only occupation of the leading men of Cheshire. A few entered the Church, Richard de Vernon, for instance, who was Rector of 'Stokeport' early in the fourteenth century (his tomb is in the chancel of Stockport), and William de Montalt, Rector of Neston. One of the Bebingtons, William de Bebyngton, even became Abbot of S. Werburgh's Abbey. The descendants of the barons who settled in Cheshire in the
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Some Oxford Books on HISTORY
Some Oxford Books on HISTORY
❡ General. THE TEACHING OF HISTORY, by C. H. Jarvis . Pp. 240. 5s. 6d. net. 'My aim has been to deal simply and clearly with the problems which often perplex those teachers who have had no definite historical training and do not specialize in History teaching.'— From the Preface. HISTORY AS A SCHOOL OF CITIZENSHIP, by Helen M. Madeley . With a Foreword by the Master of Balliol. Pp. 106, with 15 illustrations. 3s. 6d. net. ❡ Civilization. THE LIVING PAST. A Sketch of Western Progress. By F. S.
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