The stranger who perchance for the first time finds himself a worshipper within the ancient church of Cheadle, in Cheshire, may haply have his mind diverted from his devotions by the sight of a curiously-wrought oaken screen which separates an old chantry chapel, at the east end of the aisle, on the south side, from the remaining portions of the church. It is an interesting relic of bygone days, black with age, and carved with many a quaint device, and, withal, of such excellent design and workmanship as to prove that our forefathers were by no means deficient in the higher graces of architecture; the cornice is battered and broken in places, but upon it you may still trace a running figure representing the stem and foliage of the briar, with the figure of a cask or tun, and the letters V and B frequently repeated. In the east window are some fragments of heraldic glass commemorating one of the heroes of Flodden Field, and within the enclosure, placed side by side, is a group of altar tombs of more than passing interest; upon them are the recumbent figures of knights armed cap-À-pie, each with his hands uplifted and conjoined upon his breast as if in supplication. Two of them are of alabaster and of ancient date; whatever there may have been of armorial insignia among their decorations has long since disappeared, but a collar of SS round the neck of each denotes the rank of Esquire of the Body of the Sovereign, and the character of the armour in which they are encased shows that they must have played their parts in the time of that long and bloody struggle between the adherents of the rival Roses which terminated on the Field of Bosworth when the sun of the Plantagenets went down and the flower of English chivalry was destroyed.

The third of these sepulchral memorials, the only one that bears an inscription, is of stone, and perpetuates the name of the last scion of an illustrious house. The verger, if encouraged, will recount, with delight, the valorous deeds of—

and tell you that the grim warriors graven in stone represent some of the earlier lords of Handforth, one of the manors within the parish; that this old chantry was their burial place; and that the letters with the briar and the tun that have attracted your attention are the initials and the punning rebus of Sir Urian Brereton, who, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, of pious memory, acquired the Handforth estate by his marriage with the heiress of that name; "buylded" or rather rebuilt the "haulle" there, and erected the curious piece of carpentry in Cheadle Church for the greater sanctity of the place where repose the remains of his wife's progenitors. Within that little enclosure the gathered ashes of long centuries rest; there many a warlike Honford and many a valorous Brereton sleep in peace; but tabard and helm, sword and buckler, have disappeared, and scarce a relic remains to remind us of their daring and their prowess, or even to perpetuate their names, for—

The frail carving on the screen commemorates the first of the Breretons, who resided at Handforth, and the name of the last of them is written upon one of the altar-tombs, but of that Sir William Brereton whose name figures so prominently in Cheshire history, and who played so conspicuous a part in the great struggle between King and Parliament that preceded the Commonwealth, not a single memento has been preserved. The church registers thus record his death:—

1661. Sir William Brereton, Barronet, died at Croyden ye 7th of April.

This, and nothing more. He died at the Archiepiscopal Palace, which had been granted to him by the Parliament after the execution of Laud, and where he resided during the Protectorate, and his body was sent down into Cheshire for interment in the sanctuary that canopies the bones of so many of his ancestors. Did he find a resting-place there? Old gossips shake their heads mysteriously when you inquire, and relate the strange legend that has shaped itself in the popular mind, and which, through the medium of oral tradition, has floated down through the long avenues of time—how that fate, which had permitted the stern Republican to see the King "enjoy his own again," willed that his body should not, after death, find a resting-place in the church which, in life, he had despoiled; that when those who accompanied the body from London were approaching the village of Cheadle a fearful storm arose in the night; trees were blown down, houses were unroofed, the rain descended in torrents, and the rivers were flooded, so much so that when they came to ford one of them the coffin, with its lifeless occupant, was swept away by the surging current, and never seen again. Such is the legend that has been handed down through successive generations, but which, in this unromantic age, is fast fading from the memory of the inhabitants. For its trustworthiness we fear we can ascribe no higher authority than—

It belongs, we suspect, to that native spirit of romance that gilds to its own satisfaction, and without which the world with all its natural delights would be but a dull reality. Certain it is, that there has not been preserved a single memento of Cheshire's greatest Puritan soldier—the captor of her Cathedral City, and the despoiler of the stronghold of Beeston.

Any particular description of these tombs, or of the individuals whose dust they enshrine, we will defer until after our visit to the ancient and somewhat dilapidated mansion in which their occupants lived and had their being.

From Cheadle the old Hall is distant a good three miles, but from the railway station at Handforth it is only a few minutes' walk. It was a cold December morning when we started upon our quest; the sunshine and the warmth of summer had passed away, winter was upon us, and the year was fast hastening to its close. There was a stillness in the atmosphere and a dull leaden light in the sky that betokened a fall; the meadows far and near were covered with a thin coating of crisp white snow that gathered in heaps about the twisted roots of the trees, and through the haze we could see the umbraged heights of Alderley Edge looming spectral-like, while the hills, forming the eastern boundary of the county, were thickly covered with a fleecy mantle of Nature's weaving; the little pools and runnels by the wayside were congealed, the ice-gems decked the branches of the trees, making them look like so many fairy fountains, and the hoar-frost glittered on every plant and shrub. There were not many signs of human life about; some sheep were vainly endeavouring to find pasturage, and a few stirks stood gazing vacantly in the meadow, their breath visible in the frosty air. As we strode along the sound of our steps reverberated from the hard and frost-bound road, the crisp brown autumn leaves crackled beneath our feet, and the keen air drove the blood from the surface of the skin and sent it back into the heart like freezing water.

Handforth, or Handforth-cum-Bosden, as it is officially called—the manor of Handforth with that of Bosden forming a joint township in the parish of Cheadle—is still only an inconsiderable village, though in its outward aspect it has changed materially since the time when, in 1534-5, Sir William Brereton, then a young man of thirty or thereabouts, recorded his adventures in other lands and made favourable comparisons between his native place and those he visited. Thus, complaining of the scanty provision he had to put up with after a forty miles' ride in Ayrshire, he says: "The entertainment we accepted, in a poorer house than any upon Handforth Green, was Tharck-cake (i.e., oatcakes), two eggs, and some dried fish buttered;"[23] in Ireland he fared no better, for at Carrick, he says, "Here, in this town, is the poorest tavern I ever saw; a little, low, thatched Irish house, not to be compared unto Jane Kelsall's, of the Green, at Handforth."[24] Of poor Jane Kelsall and her humble hostelry, in which, possibly, the lord of Handford, before he went a "colonelling," may have occasionally enjoyed his cup of sack, not even a memory has been preserved, and the village green is now only so called by courtesy, for the railway traverses a part, and what remains has been enclosed, though the name lingers in a meadow which is still known as the "Green" field.

From the railway station a pleasant rural lane that crosses the line descends into a little valley, at the bottom of which a tiny rindle hurries on to add its tributary waters to the river Dean; crossing this the road ascends and presently brings us in front of the old mansion, a quaint half-timbered structure with black beams and a diaper-like pattern traced in places upon the white ground of intervening plaster, and built after the fashion of so many of the Cheshire houses with projecting gables and overhanging chambers. Approaching more nearly we note that much of the old timber work has been removed and replaced with brick painted in imitation of the original oaken framework to deceive the eye of the casual observer; the old mullioned windows, too, have disappeared, and their place has been supplied with others of later date, though of a considerable age, as evidenced by the small latticed panes. Ormerod says the building was originally quadrangular in plan; though there is nothing to indicate that such was the case there can be no doubt it has been shorn of its former proud and graceful proportions; its palmy state belongs to other days, but there is, nevertheless, much left to show what it has been, with the added interest that the halo of antiquity and romance throws around it. The portion that remains has for many years been used as a farmhouse, and the occupants, as may be supposed, have attached but small import to the interest it derives from old associations—alterations have been made to adapt it to its present purposes, and repairs that have been effected have not always been done in the most judicious manner or in the best taste. It is an oblong structure with two gables projecting from the principal front, one of them forming the porch or main entrance, and this constitutes one of the principal features of the exterior. The sideposts and the lintel of the wide open doorway are elaborately carved, and on the transverse beam above is the following inscription in old English characters:—

This haulle was buylded in the yeare of oure Lord God mccccclxii by Uryan Breretonn Knight whom maryed Margaret daughter and heyre of Wyllyam handforth of Handforthe Esquyer and had Issue vi sonnes and ii daughters.

The inner mouldings of the sideposts are enriched with the running figure of the stem and foliage of the briar, similar to that carved on the screen in Cheadle Church, and the same ornament is continued along the under side of the lintel, with the addition of a tun in the centre, and the initials V and B placed one at each angle. The outer face of each sidepost had an arabesque ornament carved in low relief, the one on the left terminating in a shield of arms now so much worn by exposure to the weather as to be scarcely decipherable, though in its perfect state it represented the coat of Brereton impaling Honford or Handforth—the sinister half, quarterly, first and fourth, argent two bars sable, on the upper bar a crescent of the first, between the bars a cross fleury gules, charged with five bezants for Brereton; second and third, argent a chevron between three crescents gules for Ipstones. On the dexter half, quarterly, first and fourth, sable an estoile argent for Honford; second and third gules, a scythe argent for Praers. On the sidepost on the right of the doorway the carved ornamentation terminates in the Brereton crest—a bear's head erased ppr., muzzled or, on the neck a cross patÉe for difference.

The interior in its general arrangement has in the course of years undergone considerable change, alterations having been made from time to time as the requirements or convenience of successive occupants have dictated; but, notwithstanding the altered purposes to which many of the apartments are now applied, it still exhibits a good deal of its ancient character, and happily the oaken panelling and other carvings that remain have escaped alike the common infliction of whitewash and the sacrilegious touch of the painter's brush. The most remarkable feature is the wide and handsome oak staircase that is no doubt coeval with the erection of the building. It is in a perfect state, and furnishes a more than usually good example of the carpentry of the Elizabethan period; the balusters of the same material are flat, the upper portion being enriched with a series of small enarchments and other decorations, with the addition of a broad heavy handrail, bright with the rubbings of successive generations. This staircase communicates with a landing on the upper storey, admission to which is gained by a large panelled folding-door, black with age and ornamented with fleurs-de-lis, &c.

On the slope below the hall the searching eye may still discover traces of the old plesaunce with the fish-ponds and terraces that existed when it was in truth a pleasure ground, when the parterres were garnished with thick borders of yew and thyme and bushes of sweet-smelling briar, and the dainty masses of greenness were bespangled with flowers of every hue, for our forefathers knew the true uses of a garden as well as of a house, and were not restricted by the ideas that guide their successors in the present day.

The hand of improvement, like the "Spectral bunch of digits," in the fairy tale, is fast plucking our ancient monuments from the soil. Handforth remains, but its palmy days have long since passed away, never to return; but even in its present abject state, whether considered as a relic of antiquity or as associated with some of the most important events in the history of the county and the country, it will, while it exists, have strong claims upon attention and call up imaginative fancies as to the fate of those who lived and died within it, for how many a volume of happy or mournful history—of deep affection and patient endurance—of daring deeds and heroic actions—may we not read as we tread its dismantled apartments and gaze upon its venerable walls, for—

The manor of Handforth was owned for many generations by a family who derived their patronymic from their estate. It is not known with certainty when or how they acquired possession, but the name occurs in the local records as early as the reign of Henry III., at which time (circa 1233-6) Robert de Stokeport granted to Henry de Honford the ville or town of Bosden, forming part of the lands of his barony of Stockport. A descendant of this Henry, Roger de Honford, accompanied Edward the Black Prince in his expedition against the King of France, and, as we learn from an entry on the Cheshire Recognisance Rolls preserved in the Record Office, he was rewarded by the Prince, who was also Earl of Chester, for his "services in Gascony, and particularly at the battle of Poitiers." Those were days in which—

The men of Cheshire were noted for their skill in archery. They looked upon the earls of their palatinate as their titular sovereigns, and fighting under their banner gained much renown in the wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and nowhere did they display greater bravery or win more renown for England than on the morning of that memorable Monday in September, 1356—ten years after the fight at Crescy—when the Black Prince, with his small force of 8,000, found himself surprised by the King of France, with an army of 60,000 men. The result we know; rather than beat a dishonourable retreat or yield to superior numbers, the Prince accepted battle, and, ere midday was reached, the red Oriflamme, with its golden lilies, was laid in the dust; the mighty host of France was completely routed, those who escaped with life flying from the fields of Beauvoir and Maupertuis to the very gates of the city of Poitiers; and the French King himself, with his youthful son, Prince Philip, were prisoners in the English camp. In a locality full of the recollections of the glory of France; where Clovis defeated Alaric, King of the Goths, and established the faith of the creed of St. Athanasius—where Charles Martel drove back the host of invading Saracens and saved Europe from Mahometanism—England added to her laurels her proudest and most brilliant victory—Poitiers. In that death struggle the flower of Cheshire chivalry were engaged, and the Cheshire bowmen bore themselves bravely and well. Roger de Honford shared in the glories, and greatly distinguished himself on that memorable day; and it was well for him, perhaps, that he had the opportunity of atoning by his bravery for certain offences that he would seem to have been previously guilty of, for it is recorded on the Recognisance Roll that on the 25th May in the following year (1357) a warrant was granted by Edward the Black Prince for a pardon to him and one William de Neuton or Newton, of all felonies, &c., committed by them in the county of Chester, except the death of the Prince's ministers and of Bertram de Norden and Richard de Bechton.

Mr. Earwaker, in his "History of East Cheshire," tells us that another member of the family, Geoffrey, son of John de Honford, met with his death in 1360 by foul means. In what way is not stated, but in all probability it was in one of the forays that in those days were of such frequent occurrence between the owners of neighbouring lands, when in the case of a feud one or other of the disputants, impatient of the dilatory and uncertain processes of the law, would be tempted to adopt the simpler and less tardy method of taking the adjustment of his differences into his own hands and making a raid upon his adversary's possessions, for on the 23rd November, 35 and 36 Edward III. (1363), Edward Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, granted a pardon to John de Hyde, Knight, apparently the head of the house of Norbury and Hyde; William, son of John de Hyde; John, son of William de Hyde; and Hugh Frensshye, servant of Sir John de Hyde, for the death of Geoffrey, son of John de Honford, on the payment of 200 marks (£133 6s. 8d.). The name of the servant implicated, Frensshye, suggests the idea that he may have been brought over, possibly as a captive, from France by some representative of the house of Hyde.

Geoffrey de Honford left an only daughter, Katharine, his heir, then under age, and as appears by an enrolment of January 13, 1360-1, Robert de Legh, the younger, had a grant of the custody of the lands, together with the wardship and marriage of the said Katharine.

Subsequently to this time the name is of frequent occurrence in the public records, but the actual relationship of the persons mentioned has not been ascertained, and it is not until near the close of the century that we meet with anything like a continuous record. In 1393 an inquisition was taken after the death of John, the son of Henry de Honford, who had by his wife, Margaret, the daughter and co-heir of William de Praers, who predeceased him, an elder son, John, who succeeded as heir; and in addition a son, William de Honford, who attained to considerable note in the county. In 1402 he was appointed with Robert de Newton, of Longdendale, and others, collector of a subsidy in the Hundred of Macclesfield granted to the King. There appears to have been some irregularity respecting the descent of the land which he inherited from his mother, Margaret, one of William de Praers's co-heiresses, for, in 1407, Henry Prince of Wales granted him a lease of the lands and tenements in Wylaston, near Alvendeston, belonging to Alexander de Venables and his wife, and which were then in the Prince's hands by reason of their having been alienated to William de Praers without licence being first obtained. He married Isabel, the widow of her kinsman, Robert de Legh, of Adlington, who had died of the pestilence at Harfleur, just before the battle of Agincourt was fought, in 1415, and having, in 1420, acquired lands in Chorley, in Wilmslow parish, he founded the line of the Honfords, of Chorley Hall.

In 1397 John de Honford, who, four years previously, had succeeded as heir to the paternal estate of Handforth, had a grant from the Crown of an annuity of 100s., the King having retained him in his service for life. He did not, however, long enjoy it, his death occurring in 1400, when John de Honford, his son, then only nine years of age, succeeded as heir.

This John, on attaining to manhood, well sustained the martial fame of his progenitors, and served with distinction in the French wars in the reigns of Henry V. and VI. In 1424 he took part in the famous battle of Verneuil (August 17), when the Regent, the Duke of Bedford, utterly routed the French army in an engagement that is described on the rolls of Parliament as "the greatest deed done by Englishmen in our days, save the battle of Agincourt," and it is not unlikely that it was here he won his spurs; so conspicuous was he in the battle that in acknowledgment of his bravery a pension of £100 Tournois was granted him for life out of the forfeited possessions of John Tancrope, as fully set forth in an ancient document preserved among the Adlington MSS. in the Chetham Library. The victory at Verneuil was followed by a reverse in 1427. For some time the war was carried on without any decided success on either side, but in the year just named the forces of the Duke of Bedford sustained a severe defeat, which compelled them to raise the siege of Montarges, and it is more than probable that Sir John de Honford, who had participated in the glories of the previous victory, shared in the mortification of that disaster, for his name occurs on the Cheshire Rolls in that year as being "about to depart for France."

From that time misfortune followed upon misfortune. A simple country girl—Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans—had been wonderfully raised up to serve her country's need; victory followed wherever she led, and after several actions the English, in 1429, were compelled to raise the siege of Orleans. No story of ancient heroism reads more like a romance. The English never recovered the blow struck by the maid for the freedom of her country. Their hold upon the soil of France gradually relaxed, and one by one the territories which had been won by the sword were surrendered. The Duke of Bedford gathered a vast force for the prosecution of the war; Sir John de Honford was in his retinue, and in a contemporary document his name occurs as holding, in 1434, the important post of Keeper of the Bridge over the Seine at Rouen for the Regent Bedford, with one horseman, three lance soldiers on foot, and twenty bowmen. ("Pons de Rone super aquam de Sayne: Johannes Hanneford, chevalier locum tenens domini regentis (cum) i lanceam equestrem iij lanceas pedesires et xx archers.") Those were evil times for England; Harfleur, the first trophy of Henry V., had been recaptured in 1432, and in 1435 the peace of Arras was concluded between Charles VII. and the Duke of Burgundy, the news of which caused the young King Henry to weep. At this important crisis in her history England sustained an irreparable loss by the death of the Duke of Bedford, who expired at Rouen September 14, 1435, at the very time the negotiations for the peace were being concluded.

Sir John de Honford must have quitted his post at Rouen, for before the close of the year he with other influential knights and gentry of the shire were summoned to the King's council at Chester for the purpose of granting a subsidy to enable him to carry on the war. Whether he returned to Normandy with the reinforcements or took part in the engagements in which Harfleur was retaken, and the brave Lord Talbot won such renown, is not clear, but his martial spirit could not find happiness in repose, and in 1441 (October 26) we find him entering into an engagement with Humphrey Earl (afterwards Duke) of Buckingham, then owner of the fortified stronghold of Macclesfield, to serve him in a military capacity for the remainder of his life in consideration of an annual fee of £10 chargeable on the manor of Thornbury, in Gloucestershire.

There was no standing army in England then; fighting was done by contract, and such agreements were therefore not of uncommon occurrence. Upon emergencies forces were raised by the King's letters under the Privy Seal; lords, knights, and esquires quickly responded to the summons of the sovereign, and an army was readily got together if the means of paying the adventurous spirits who comprised it were forthcoming. But it must not be supposed that the fighting Englishmen of those days were taken from the plough without any previous military training. The casque and the morion were hung up in the cottage of the serf as well as in the castle of the feudatory chief, and the good yew bow was suspended in the halls of the knights and esquires for the use of their servants and retainers, in accordance with the statute (II Henry IV.) to shoot at the butts on every Sunday and high festival, the municipal authorities at the same time being required to see that the youths in their respective districts were taught to send the "light flight-arrow" to the legal distance of 220 yards, so that when they had grown to lusty manhood they might perform the same feat with the heavy war-arrow. Hence, in those days there were to be found Locksleys in every village to whom the long range offered no difficulty when the King's letter came, whether direct or through the chief landowner to his subinfeudatory tenants and partisans.

Three years after Sir John Honford had entered into the agreement with the Earl of Buckingham he was appointed one of the Justices in Eyre for the three Hundreds of Cheshire, and in 1449 he is again found on active service in Normandy—this time with the army commanded by the Duke of Somerset. The truce agreed to in 1444 had been broken, complications had arisen, the town of Fougiers in Brittann had been seized, and in the month of April Sir John ("Messire Jehan Hanneford, chevalier," as he is styled) was specially commissioned to return to England and report to the King the outrages that had been committed. It was the beginning of the end. One by one the provinces which had been won had been surrendered, and even those which Henry had inherited were given up. In July the French King invaded Normandy, Somerset had to submit to the capitulation of Rouen. Cherbourg was the last town to yield, it surrendered August 12, 1450, and thus in one campaign, almost without a struggle, England lost the large and fertile province of Normandy, containing more than a hundred fortified towns; Calais was the only possession retained in France, and that Queen Mary lost a century later; yet with a strange infatuation the Kings of England paraded the empty title of Kings of France and bore the golden lilies upon their heraldic shield until the first day of the present century, when by Royal Proclamation they were removed.

Of Sir John Honford's subsequent adventures little or nothing is known, and even the time of his death has not been ascertained with certainty; but it must have been about 1461, for in that year the manor of Honford was conveyed to his son, also named John. Mr. Earwaker says it is possible he died abroad; but this is scarcely likely, for there was then little for an English soldier to do abroad, and much to occupy his attention at home; and we can hardly suppose that such a veteran as Sir John de Honford would let his sword remain in the scabbard when in England the storm-cloud of war had burst, and the rival houses of York and Lancaster were in their death struggle—"the convulsive and bleeding agony of the feudal power." It was the year which ended the inglorious and unhappy reign of the "meek usurper" Henry VI., that in which Edward of York was borne to the throne upon the shoulders of the people—the year of Mortimer's Cross, of the second battle of St. Alban's and of Towton, the crowning victory of the White Rose. Though there is no record of the fact, it is more than probable that his remains were interred in the chantry at Cheadle, and from its appearance and general characteristics it would seem likely that the older of the two alabaster effigies there was placed over them to perpetuate his memory. Though the sword has disappeared, the figure of the old warrior, in its rich suit of ornamented armour, still remains comparatively perfect; the uncovered head resting upon his helmet, a pillow not much softer than that which Henry V. regretted that his faithful follower, Sir Thomas Erpingham, had to repose on, when, on the night before the fight at Agincourt, he exclaimed—

John Honford, who succeeded as heir on the death of his father, had married in 1422 Margery, one of the daughters of Sir Laurence Warren, of Poynton. He died in October, 1473, and was succeeded by his son, also named John, who had to wife Margaret, daughter of Sir John Savage, of Clifton. By this lady, who survived him and married for her second husband Sir Edmund Trafford, of Trafford, he had two sons; John, the eldest, predeceased him, and William, the younger, succeeded as heir. He was under age at the time of his father's death in 1487, and, fortunately for him, the wardship of his lands and the sale of his hand in marriage was given to his grandfather, Sir John Savage, who in turn granted them to his stepfather, Sir Edmund Trafford. Of this member of the family but few records have been preserved. In 1513, in the month of May, he appeared in the amiable character of a peacemaker between Sir John Warburton and Sir William Boothe, two neighbouring knights, who had quarrelled over the rights they respectively claimed to cut turf on Warburton Moss; and William Honford, Sir Thomas Boteler, Sir Richard Bold, and Laurence Marbury drew up a deed by which the matters in dispute were amicably adjusted. It was one of the latest acts of William Honford's life, for ere four months had passed, or the warm golden tints of autumn had deepened upon the landscape, he had met a soldier's fate. On the 9th of September, 1513, the battle of Flodden Field was fought, and when night closed upon the scene the moon looked down upon Sir William's corpse as it lay stiffening on Branksome Moor.

There is, perhaps, no event in the annals of the country that has been the subject of so much exultation on the part of Lancashire and Cheshire men, or that has formed the ground-work of so many traditions and furnished so fruitful a theme for ballad writers as the victory of Flodden Field. Contemporary records are full of the achievements of the heroes of that memorable day, and the valiant deeds of those who bore a part in the fight have oft been celebrated in prose and rhyme.

It was an overthrow which spread sorrow and dismay through Scotland; patriots bewailed it, poets sang dirges over it, and long was it remembered as one of the greatest calamities that country had sustained.

Henry VIII. was at the time besieging Terouenne, and the Scottish King, thinking it a favourable opportunity for a descent upon England, mustered a large force, crossed the Tweed, and sat down before the castle of Norham, which surrendered in a few days; three other border fortresses fell in quick succession, when the invading host continued its march southwards. The report of this plundering raid fired the ardour of the English people, and roused the men of Lancashire and Cheshire to enthusiasm. The war note which had been sounded met with a ready response; William Honford prepared himself for the field, and he and many of his neighbours summoned their retainers, and, mustering under the banners of their respective leaders, marched to meet King James of Scotland, their force consisting for the most part of archers and billmen, and, as the tablet formerly preserved in the old church of Bolton-le-Sands expressed it—

On reaching Hornby the Lancashire and Cheshire forces placed themselves under the command of Sir Edward Stanley—

The two armies met on the 8th September, on the banks of the Till, a branch of the Tweed, that flows by the foot of the Cheviot Hills, and the battle began on the afternoon of the following day, the Scots having descended from their position on the heights of Flodden. The Earl of Surrey, who had been entrusted by the Queen Regent with the command, divided his forces into two parts; the vanguard he confided to his son, the Lord Admiral, and the rear he headed himself. Sir Edmund Howard commanded the right wing, and Sir Edward Stanley the left. The fight began about four o'clock, and the contest was fierce and furious. The first report was that the Cheshire men, overwhelmed by a large body of Scottish spearmen, had wavered and fallen back; and, as ill news always travels apace, this report, it is said, was the first that reached King Henry, then at Terouenne. The battle swayed to and fro for some time until the Scottish ranks were thinned by the murderous discharges of the English archers; their King, James IV., surrounded by a strong body of knights, fought on foot, and seeing the English standard almost, as he thought, within his grasp, marched with steady step to secure it. It was the agony and very turning point of the contest, for at the same moment Sir Edward Stanley, heading the Lancashire and Cheshire bowmen, led the famous charge which Scott has enshrined in imperishable verse—

It turned the fortunes of the day. The shock was irresistible, and the Scottish force fell into disorder; 10,000 of the bravest of Scotia's warriors were slain, and her King fell a lifeless corpse almost within a spear's length of the feet of Surrey. Among those who bit the dust that day were the Archbishop of St. Andrews, two bishops, two abbots, twelve earls, thirteen barons, five eldest sons of barons, and fifty other persons of distinction, including the French Ambassador, the King's secretary, and, last and saddest of all, the King himself. "Scarce a family of eminence," says Scott, "but has an ancestor killed at Flodden," as the Scottish minstrel laments:—

The English loss was also very severe, the number slain being estimated at seven thousand; but the men of rank who fell were not nearly so numerous. Cheshire lost many of her sons, among them William Honford, of Handforth, with his neighbours, Thomas Venables, the Baron of Kinderton; Christopher Savage, the valiant Mayor of Macclesfield; and many substantial burgesses of that town.[25] As the ancient poem of "Scottish Feilde," believed to have been written by a Cheshire man—a Legh, of Baguley—expresses it—

Another of the heroes of Flodden, more fortunate than William Honford, we shall meet with anon—Sir John Stanley, who afterwards became lord of Handforth Hall.

With the death of William Honford the direct line of the house of Honford terminated, the estates devolving upon his only daughter, Margaret, a child of ten years at the time her father lost his life. His widow, Sibyl, some twelve years later became the second wife of Laurence Warren, of Poynton, Esquire. William Honford's Inquisition, from some cause or other, was not taken until January, 1516; his daughter Margaret, then twelve years of age, was found to be his heir, and in the interval between the victory at Flodden and the taking of the Inquisition she had been married by her feoffees to Sir John Stanley, William Honford's companion in arms.

Sir John Stanley, who was about seven years older than his youthful bride, was an illegitimate son of James Stanley, warden of Manchester, and afterwards Bishop of Ely, a younger son of that Thomas, Lord Stanley, who according to popular tradition, which, by the way, is in this instance a popular error, placed the crown of the vanquished Richard upon the head of the victorious Henry of Richmond on the field of Bosworth.[29] The mother of Sir John was doubtless the lady to whom Fuller in his quaint fashion refers, when, commenting upon the Bishop's frailty in the infraction of his vow of celibacy, he says that he blamed him not "for passing the summer with his brother (? nephew) the Earl of Derby, in Lancashire, but for living all the winter at Somersham, in Huntingdonshire, with one who was not his sister, and who wanted nothing to make her his wife save marriage."

When the war note had been sounded, and the enthusiasm of the Lancashire men had been roused by the threat of invasion, Bishop Stanley, with ready response, summoned his retainers and dependents, but, unlike the Abbot of Vale Royal, who led his contingent to the field in person, and by his presence gave the sanction of religion to the cause, placed them under the charge of his young son, John Stanley—"that child so young," as Weber calls him in one of his ballads—to whom the writer of the metrical story of the "Scottish Feilde" has incorrectly assigned the place of honour as the real commander in the decisive attack in the battle, instead of his uncle, Sir Edward Stanley, who, as we know, for his bravery, was in the following year created Lord Monteagle.

That the Bishop of Ely raised so large a contingent as 4,000 may be very much doubted, but, whatever their number, his son, who had the command, displayed such prowess that he was knighted upon the field.

About the time of Sir John Stanley's marriage with the heiress of William Honford, his father, the Bishop of Ely, died. While holding the wardenship of Manchester he had built the spacious chapel on the north side of the Collegiate Church, now the Cathedral, known in the present day as the Derby Chapel; this was completed in the year in which Flodden was fought, and at the time of his death, in 1515, he was employed in erecting a smaller chapel adjoining it, in which his tomb is placed. This chapel Sir John, in accordance with his father's directions, completed, and placed over the door the arms of himself and his wife with a supplicatory inscription, prefaced by his favourite motto, Vanitas Vanitatum et omnia Vanitas.

In 1519 he was appointed with Sir Peter Legh, of Lyme, William Swetenham, of Somerford, and John Holynworth, collector of a subsidy within the Hundred of Macclesfield. Four years afterwards he became involved in a dispute with his neighbour, George Legh, of Adlington, respecting the renewal of the lease of the tithes of Prestbury, a grant of which he had contrived to obtain from the Abbot of St. Werburgh, at Chester, the particulars of which are more fully set forth in the account of Adlington Hall and the Leghs.[32] Sir John, having refused to surrender his lease, was committed to the Fleet at the instance of Cardinal Wolsey, a high-handed procedure that subsequently formed one of the charges in the articles of impeachment exhibited against that ecclesiastic, and it was not until he had undergone a twelve months' imprisonment that he could be induced to yield.

The ardent soldier who had displayed such valour in the field at Flodden on attaining maturer years became somewhat of a religious enthusiast, and while yet comparatively a young man, being little more than thirty, retired from the world, and sought the seclusion of the cloister, from, as has been said, "displeasure taken in heart" at the treatment he had received at Wolsey's hands.

In 1527-8 he obtained "letters of fraternity" from the Abbot of Westminster, and in a volume of MS. pedigrees at Tabley, near Knutsford, there is still preserved the original grant under the convent seal of the abbey, dated January 5th, under which John, abbot of that house, grants to Sir John Stanley and dame Margaret, his wife; John Stanley, their heir; and Anne Stanley, their sister; that they shall be prayed for in that monastery, "in vita pariter et in morte," and all other places in their order through England, and that their names shall be enrolled on the fraternity's martyrology post obitum. Whatever may have been the cause of Sir John's withdrawal from society, certain it is that, having arranged all his worldly affairs, he and his wife, in 1528, prayed for a divorce in order that they might severally devote themselves to a religious life and be quit of the world. The divorce was granted, Sir John and his wife were released from their marriage vows, and put asunder one from the other for ever. He entered the Abbey of Westminster, and assumed the cowl and tonsure of a monk, and it is believed that his death occurred shortly afterwards.

Mr. William Beamont, in his "Notes on the Lancashire Stanleys," thus sums up his character:—"His mind turned towards seriousness if not sadness. He loved the Preacher's motto 'All is vanity,' and where he could he liked to inscribe it openly. This natural tendency was deepened and increased by the stigma of his birth and other circumstances which he could not forget. The stain on his father's life, and his death excommunicated, would not let him, even in the inscription on his grave, where he supplicates for him the prayers of the faithful, call the bishop by the sacred name of father, and in the letters of fraternity all mention of his father's name is avoided. Sir John's mind dwelt too much upon chantries, burial-places, obits, indulgences, and the like. It was his favourite subject, and he crowned this part of his career by retreating from the world and disappearing in the deep shadow of the cloister."

Sir John left an only son, bearing his own baptismal name, who was an infant at the time of his parents' divorce. His father's will provided that he should be placed under the care of the Abbess of Barkyng until he should attain the age of twelve years, when he was to be transferred to the care of the Abbot of Westminster, with whom it was directed he should remain until he was twenty-one, when, and not before, he was to be at liberty to choose himself a wife, with the advice of the Abbot of Westminster and Edmund Trafford, Esq. Of his subsequent career little is known. He attained to manhood, when he married Ellen, daughter of Sir Edward Fitton, of Gawsworth, Knight, but does not appear to have had any issue by her. He was living in 1551, but after that all trace of him is lost, and with him the line terminated.

In the east window of the little chantry chapel in Cheadle Church, to which reference has already been made, there are some remains of heraldic glass, very fragmentary in character, but which still serve to perpetuate the memory of Sir John Stanley and his wife Margaret, the heiress of Handforth. The mantling and the helmet, with a part of the crest, are there; but the shield itself has been much mutilated. Sufficient, however, remains to indicate what the charges have been, and on one side may still be seen a label bearing the words "Vanitas Vanitatum," the other side, doubtless, having had at one time a corresponding label inscribed with the remainder of Sir John Stanley's mournful motto—"et Omnia Vanitas." In its pristine state the shield was divided paleways, the dexter half—or, three eagles' feet erased gules, on a chief indented azure three stags' heads caboshed or for Stanley of Handforth; the sinister half—quarterly first and fourth, sable, an estoile argent for Honford, second and third, gules, a scythe argent for Praers. Crest an eagle's head erased or, holding in its mouth an eagle's claw erased gules. Only the chief of the Stanley coat and the second and fourth quarters of the sinister pale with a fragment of the crest remain.

Dame Margaret Stanley, the wife of Sir John, who appears to have shared in some degree the religious fervour of her husband, had also evidently intended entering a religious house, but when the divorce was obtained and Sir John had been comfortably settled among the monkish fraternity at Westminster her opinions underwent a change. She was still young, being only about five-and-twenty, and the world, it would seem, had not altogether lost its attractions, for she abandoned the idea of becoming a recluse, and again entered the marriage state, choosing for her second husband a scion of the ancient house of Brereton, a family that boasted an antiquity equal to that of any house in Cheshire, tracing its descent back very nearly to the time when Duke William of Normandy parcelled out the newly-conquered country among his warlike followers. The original Breretons, who derived their patronymic from the manor of that name, if we may judge from the arms they bore, were kinsmen, if not actually direct descendants of Gilbert Venables, the first Norman Baron of Kinderton, and from them descended Sir Urian Brereton, who became the second husband of William Honford's daughter and heiress, and the builder of the present Hall of Handforth.

Sir William Brereton, who was lord of Brereton in the reign of Edward III., had by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Henry Done, of Utkinton, a younger son, Randolph, who received the honour of knighthood, and had to wife Alice, daughter and heir of William de Ipstones, through whom he acquired considerable territorial possessions, and became the founder of the line of Brereton of Shocklach and Malpas, in Cheshire. His great-grandson, also a Sir Randle, was Chamberlain of Chester in the reign of Henry VII., and one of the knights of the body to that King. He is mentioned generally as Chamberlain to Henry VII., and he acted in the same capacity to Henry's son and successor, Henry VIII., holding the same office under both sovereigns for the long period of twenty-six years. At the time that William Brereton, of Honford, and his compatriots were engaged in the death struggle at Flodden, King Henry, as previously stated, was with an army at Terouenne; Sir Randle Brereton was with him, and for his distinguished services there and at Tourney he was made a knight banneret. He built the Brereton chancel in Malpas Church in 1522, and carved upon the oaken screen this supplication:—

Pray good people for the prosperous estate of Sir Rondulph Brereton, of thys werke edificatour, wyth his wyfe dame Helenour, and after thys lyfe transytorie to obtegne eternal felicitie. Amen. Amen.

His wife, "Dame Helenour," bore him a family of nine sons and three daughters. Sir Randle, the eldest, continued the Malpas line; Sir Richard founded the line of Brereton of Tatton; Sir William Brereton, the seventh son, succeeded his father as Chamberlain of Chester, and was also made Groom of the Chamber to King Henry VIII., an office that involved him in the ruin that befell the second of that sovereign's wives. He married Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Savage, and the daughter of Charles Somerset, Earl of Worcester; and on the 17th May, 1536, when only twenty-eight years of age, and then recently married, was beheaded along with Lord Rochfort, the Queen's brother; Sir Henry Norris, Groom of the Stole; Francis Weston, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber; and Mark Smeaton, a musician, on the questionable charge of criminal intercourse with Queen Anne Boleyn, the Queen herself submitting to the same unhappy fate on Tower Green two days later; a hideous crime that has found an apologist in a modern historian—Froude—who, in his exuberant admiration of Henry's self-asserting force of character, has sought to prove a "human being sinful whom the world has ruled to be innocent," oblivious of the fact that, while on the one hand there is a total absence of satisfactory proof against Anne, there is undeniable evidence of heartless cruelty, wilfulness, revenge, and shameless lust on the part of her husband. On the morrow of her death the King married Jane Seymour; but getting rid of one wife in order to obtain another was not a solitary act in the life of Henry.

The memory of that cruel wrong long rankled in the mind of the Breretons, and the recollection may not improbably have had its influence on Sir William Brereton, who a century later did so much to accomplish the overthrow of monarchy, and who in this way may be said to have avenged the death of his kinsman, and thus have added one of those retributive parallels of which history furnishes so many instances.

Sir William Brereton, who came to so untimely an end in 1536, had a younger brother, Urian Brereton, who in his earlier life was also one of the Grooms of the Privy Chamber. In 1526 he was appointed Ranger of Delamere Forest, and the same year Escheater of Cheshire, the latter an office he also held in the successive reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, until his death in 1577. On the voluntary seclusion of Sir John Stanley, Urian Brereton married his divorced wife, Margaret, the daughter of William Honford, and thus became the founder of the line of Brereton of Handforth.

The vindictive feeling which Henry manifested towards Sir William Brereton was not extended to the person of his younger brother, for the King, as if to mark the appeasement of his wrath, not only retained him in his position as Groom of the Privy Chamber, but also conferred other offices of distinction upon him. On the 8th July, 1538, he had a grant for life of the office of Attorney of the King in the counties of Chester and Flint; and on the 1st of August following he had a grant for life in survivorship of the office of Sheriff of the county of Flint on the surrender of the same by his kinsman, John Brereton, on whom it had been bestowed four months previously, and on the 16th of June, 1543, he and Randle Cholmondeley had conferred upon them the appointment for life, in survivorship, of the office of Attorney of the Earl of Chester (the young Prince Edward) in the counties of Chester and Flint. In 1544 he accompanied the Earl of Hertford in the expedition to Scotland to demand the infant Queen Mary, who had been promised in marriage to the King's son, Edward Earl of Chester, and he was present at the burning of Leith, where, in acknowledgment of his valorous deeds, he received the honour of knighthood.

Shortly after the expedition to Scotland Sir Urian Brereton had the misfortune to lose his wife, Dame Margaret, who died at Handforth Hall, though the exact date of her decease has not been ascertained, the registers of Cheadle, where doubtless she was buried, not commencing until 1558. Her manors and lands descended to the son by her first husband, John Stanley, who on the 24th May, 1 Edward VI. (1547) entered into a covenant with Sir Urian Brereton under which the estates were settled between them.

On the 7th of July, 1550, Sir Urian and his relative, Richard Brereton, Esq., had conferred upon them for life, in survivorship, the office of Escheater of the county of Flint, and shortly after he commenced the rebuilding of the Hall of Handforth, completing it in 1562, as the inscription over the door, which has been already given, testifies. He also about the same time erected the handsome carved oak screen in the Brereton chantry at Cheadle church, placing upon it his initials, V. B., and his punning rebus, a briar and a tun.

After the death of Dame Margaret Sir Urian again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Alice, the third daughter of Sir Edmund Trafford, of Trafford, Esq., and the widow of Sir William Leyland, of Morleys Hall, in Astley. His death occurred at Handforth Hall on the 19th of March, 1577, and twelve days later his remains were interred at Cheadle. By his first wife he had, as the inscription over the porch at Handforth records, six sons and two daughters, and by his second wife, who survived him little more than a year, one son and four daughters. His Inquisition was taken at Knutsford on the 28th March, 1580, when Randle Brereton, his eldest son, then of the age of forty, was found to be his heir; he did not, however, long enjoy possession, his death occurring on the 30th December, 1583, when, being unmarried, the estates, in accordance with a deed of settlement of 1575, devolved upon his younger brother, William Brereton, who five years previously, had been united in marriage with Katherine, daughter of Roger Hurleston, of Chester, and who was at the time described as "of the Nunneryes, Chester," a house and lands which the "Defender of the Faith" had taken from the fair nuns of Chester and given to his favourite, Sir Urian Brereton, the founder of the Handforth line. This William served the office of Sheriff of the county in 1590, and died at Handforth on the 5th June, 1601, at the age of fifty-three. He was buried at Cheadle, and Mr. Earwaker gives a copy of his funeral certificate transcribed from the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum (879 fo. 18):—

William Brereton of Honford Esquier died the fifth day of June A.D. 1601; he maryed Katherine daughter of Roger Hurlestonne of Chester, gent. and has issue three sonnes and two daughters, viz. Urian first sonne died young, Richard third sonne died young, Jane eldest daughter died young. William Brereton sonne and heire married Margaret daughter of Richard Holland of Denton in the county of Lancaster Esq. Dorothie Brereton only daughter now living.

His widow, Katherine, became the second wife of Sir Randle Mainwaring, of Over Peover, Knight. William Brereton, the second and only surviving son, who succeeded as heir, was only sixteen years of age at the time of his father's death. By this marriage he became allied with a family which had for many generations been resident on their lands at Denton, and who claimed descent from the Hollands of Up-Holland, in Lancashire, a family whose members played an active part in the most picturesque and chivalrous period of English history; who figured among the founders of the Order of the Garter, allied themselves repeatedly with the royal family, attained the highest rank in the peerage, and it may be added, experienced the greatest vicissitudes of fortune; one of them, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, doubly descended from the Plantagenets and the brother-in-law of King Edward IV., being reduced to such extremities that Philip de Commines, as he relates, saw him "walking barefoot after the Duke of Burgundy's train, and earning his bread by begging from door to door." The Denton Hollands from the time of the Reformation had been noted for their leanings towards Puritanism. Richard Holland, the father of William Brereton's wife, when High Sheriff of Lancashire, received the thanks of Queen Elizabeth for his services in prosecuting Popish recusants and zealously promoting the Protestant religion, and his nephew, Colonel Holland, was one of the earliest to take up arms in the Puritan cause in the great struggle between Charles and his Parliament, and had the command of Manchester when it was besieged by the Royalist forces in 1642.

William Brereton died on the 18th February, 1609-10, and was buried at Cheadle on the 26th of the same month, his widow surviving him only a few days, the Cheadle registers recording her burial there on the 14th April following. He left issue—in addition to two younger sons, Richard and Urian, and a daughter, Margaret—a son, William, then only five years of age, who succeeded as heir, and who in after years was destined to play a conspicuous part in his country's affairs, his military exploits becoming inseparably interwoven with the history of his native county.

It is not known with certainty when the future Parliamentarian General first saw the light, but, as he was baptized at the Collegiate Church of Manchester, the probabilities are that he was born at his grandfather's house, Denton Hall, which is situate within the limits of the ancient parish of Manchester. Of the events of his early life but little is known. They were apparently few, simple, and common-place, and there is nothing in the record of them to foreshadow those strong political and religious prejudices which afterwards developed in his mind, or to indicate the possession of that military genius for which he became so distinguished. He succeeded to the family inheritance at a very early age, and being deprived of the guidance of both father and mother was left to the care of his mother's relatives, and doubtless imbibed from them those strong Puritan sentiments which had then become traditional in the Holland family. He came of age in 1625, and on the 10th March, 1626-7, he had a baronetcy conferred upon him by Charles I., who had only recently ascended the throne, though the gathering clouds were even then heralding a political tempest. Whether he had undertaken to perform the conditions on which the distinction was supposed to be conferred—the furnishing of thirty men at 8d. per day for three years for the settlement and defence of Ulster—or had compounded by the payment of a lump sum, to replenish an exhausted exchequer, is not recorded, but we may be well assured that William Brereton was made of sterner stuff than to have bowed in the ante-room of either the coarse and faithless James or his successor, the proud and dignified Charles. In the following year (1628) he was elected as the representative of his native shire in the Parliament which assembled on the 27th March,—a year famous as that in which the name of Oliver Cromwell for the first time appears, and in which, to secure the voting of supplies for the war, Charles assented to the demands of the Petition of Rights, confirming those liberties which were already the birthright of Englishmen. He also represented the county in the Parliament which met on the 13th April, 1640, to be so speedily dissolved, and, again, in that which assembled on the 3rd November in the same year—the most extraordinary and eventful of any in England's history—the Long Parliament.

William Brereton loved worthily, and, when he had attained to man's estate, he married whom he loved—the daughter of Sir George Booth, of Dunham, "free, grave, godly, brave Booth, the flower of Cheshire," as he was described by writers of the day—a "person," as Clarendon says, "of one of the best fortunes and interest in Cheshire, and, for the memory of his grandfather, of absolute power with the Presbyterians," and the "chief corner stone" of their cause in the county. His lot seemed an especially happy one. Boasting an old and honourable lineage, possessed of an ample estate, which had doubtless been increased during his long minority, successful in his marriage, endowed with every domestic enjoyment, and surrounded by the children of his love, of cultivated taste, too, with a mind stored with knowledge which had expanded and ripened under the experience gained in foreign travel, and, withal, possessing a healthy and vigorous frame that enabled him to enjoy all outdoor pursuits, the cultivation of his lands, and the participation in such harmless sports as country gentlemen in his day were wont to indulge, he could only have been induced to leave the privacy of the home life he so much loved by the stern duties of times in which pleasure and self-gratification must unmurmuringly yield.

Clarendon speaks of his notorious aversion to the Church. This was undoubtedly true, so far as her form of government was concerned, and was in all likelihood heightened by the circumstances under which he received his early training, as well as by the connections formed in later life. Yet he was a professed member, and in 1641 his name occurs in the parish register of Wanstead, in Surrey, with those of about fifty of the principal inhabitants, as signing a protestation expressive of their attachment to the Church of England and their abhorrence of Popish innovations. He was of a sober, serious turn, and imbued with strong religious feelings, but his attachment to the Church could neither have been very strong nor very exclusive; he was fond of "spicy" sermons, and seems to have listened with equal satisfaction and delight to the discourses of a Brownist or Anabaptist as to the ministrations of the most eminent of the preachers of the Church of which he professed himself a member.

In 1634, when the great and awful conflict in which many of the dearest interests of England were involved seemed as yet far distant, Sir William Brereton made a lengthened tour in Holland and the United Provinces, and in the following year he travelled over a great part of England, Scotland, and Ireland. On his return he wrote an account of his journeyings from the brief notes made on the way, and this journal, the original MS. of which is in the possession of Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton, of Oulton, has been published by the Chetham Society. Singular to say, there is nothing in it to lead us to suppose that at that time the writer felt any interest in military affairs; nor is there any reference to the great political and religious questions which were then agitating the public mind in his own country, and in which it might naturally be supposed he would feel much concern. The narrative is, as Mr. Hawkins, the editor, expresses it, "a plain, unimpassioned statement of what he saw and observed. The beauties of nature never warm him into admiration; nor do the feelings, habits, or phenomena of the people, or the countries which he visited, seduce him into any philosophical investigation." He was not a deep thinker, and evidently looked at things from a purely matter of fact point of view; his observations are confined in a great measure to a description of what he saw and heard, and not unfrequently comparison is drawn between the places he visited and those of a kindred character in his own country, generally to the advantage of the latter. He describes pleasantly the "stately city of Rotterdam" and the "fair maiden town of Dort;" Schiedam he describes as a "dainty, sweet, pleasant town, larger than Namptwich," with "a delicate, spacious, market-place, a fine church, and a great channel walled on both sides with free-stone, running along the middle of the street, whereunto their ships come." He descants upon land tillage, tells the prices of dairy and farm produce, and generally expresses his opinion on the system of agriculture pursued; but that which seems most to have attracted his attention was the method adopted in different places of taking wild fowl by decoys, a hobby he appears to have indulged in at his Cheshire home, where he says he also had a decoy, probably in the low-lying grounds, watered by the Deane in the valley below Handforth Hall. At Amsterdam he "dined with Mr. Pageatt," where he had "a neat dinner and strawberries." It is pleasant to find him thus making acquaintance with a noted Cheshire worthy, John Paget, the author of "The Defence of Presbyterian Church Government," who had been minister of Nantwich in 1598, but who, in 1605, the year following that in which Brereton was born, had been compelled to retire on account of his nonconformity, when he settled at Amsterdam, where, in 1607, he had a call to the pastorate of the English church, in which he continued to minister for the long period of thirty years.[33]

In 1635 Sir William Brereton returned from his travels in Ireland. In May of the following year he was in London, visiting, at Westminster and the Temple, his younger brother Urian, whom Mr. Earwaker incorrectly represents as dying in 1631,[34] but who in 1636 was apparently following the law. While there he was laid up with sickness, and "feared a violent, burning fever," but happily was soon restored to health.

In the early summer of the succeeding year a great sorrow fell upon him, and the gloom of sadness overshadowed his house. On the last day of May, 1637, the solemn knell that echoed from the bell towers of Cheadle and Bowdon churches proclaimed to hall and hamlet that the mistress of Handforth, the beloved and cherished wife of William Brereton, had passed away, and on the 6th of June her remains were laid beside those of her progenitors in the quiet old church of Bowdon.

The tender and affectionate wife, the woman of his early love, the mother of his young children, for they were still in their infancy, was taken from him at the time when her counsel was needed most. The trial was a sore one, and his domestic sorrow seemed to have loosened the cords of life; his habits were entirely changed; the green lanes, the wooded uplands, and the bosky dells that surrounded his Cheshire home were no longer pleasant to look upon; his decoys had lost their attractions, and he ceased to find enjoyment in those rural pastimes and pursuits in which he had previously delighted. It was a sorrowful episode in his life, but there was another sorrow deepening in the country that helped to obliterate the remembrance of it. The funeral plumes that waved over the coffin of his wife were stirred by the trumpet blast of discontent that swept over the country. A blow had been struck at the liberty of Englishmen; the writ for the levying of "SHIP MONEY"—that word of lasting memory in the annals of the nation—had been issued; a tax as startling as it was novel, that had been raked up from among the dust of forgotten records, had been reimposed. Hampden had resisted it, and earned for himself thereby a cheap immortality. Ship money was in all men's ears a hated word; Brereton's heart was stirred within him, and he quitted his rural retirement, with its mournful associations, to join in the great struggle against kingly prerogative. It was the levying of this obnoxious tax that first brought him into collision with the constituted authorities. As previously stated, he had inherited an estate in Chester—the Nunneries, given by Henry VIII. to his ancestor, Sir Urian Brereton. He maintained that these lands were exempted from rating. The Mayor of Chester ignored his claim, and much personal animosity between himself and the city was engendered in consequence. The blood of Sir William Brereton, which had been so unrighteously shed by King Henry, had not been avenged; the memory of that cruel wrong still lingered, and when, in obedience to the command of Charles, a levy was made upon his property for the payment of the hated ship money, the slumbering feeling of discontent was fanned into the flame of open resistance; and when the Commission of Array was issued he was the first to incite the citizens of Chester into insurrection.

On the 27th June, 1642, Thomas Cowper, of Overleigh, then Mayor of Chester, the Earls of Derby and Rivers, and Viscount Cholmondeley, were appointed by Charles the Commissioners of Array for the county of the city; and on the Monday, the 8th August, Sir William Brereton, being at the time one of the members for the shire,[35] caused a drum to be beaten publicly in the streets for the purpose of enlisting recruits in the service of the Parliament, in consequence of which he narrowly escaped falling a victim to the indignation of the populace, whose sympathies were on the side of the King. Hemingway, in his History of Chester, thus records the circumstance:—

Information of this treason having been given to the Mayor, Mr. Thomas Cowper, this intrepid magistrate immediately directed some constables to apprehend the leaders of the tumult, but the latter forcibly resisted, and compelled the constables to retire, upon which the Mayor stepped forward in person to expostulate with them on their conduct, and upon being disrespectfully treated, he boldly advanced up to one of the Parliamentarians, and, seizing him by the collar, delivered him to the civil officers, at the same time wresting a broad sword from another of the party, with which he instantly cut the drum to pieces, securing the drummer and several others. The firm and manly demeanour on the part of the Mayor effectually put an end to the tumult, and finally repressed it. During the affray the common bell was rung, the citizens lent their cheerful aid to the chief magistrate, and when they had seen him in a state of personal security the city was restored to peace. Sir William Brereton, a gentleman of competent fortune in the county, and knight for the shire, and who was a strong partizan for the Parliament, was brought before the magistrates at the Pentice, to answer for the part he had taken in the above disturbance, though he owed his rescue from the popular fury to the personal interference of the Mayor; he was, however, discharged.... His subsequent severities are stated to have proceeded from his resentment on this occasion, and [Hemingway adds] it has been a subject of regret to many of his political opponents, that the active interposition of the Mayor had rescued from the popular fury a man who afterwards proved to be so severe a scourge to the city.[36]

If the men of Chester were loyal to their Sovereign, the prevailing feeling in the county was decidedly in favour of the Parliament; the popular party were able to prevent the Commissioners of Array from carrying the Royal proclamation into effect, while at the same time their own levies proceeded with little interruption. The attempt to maintain the neutrality of the county by the Treaty of Pacification, as it was called, which enjoined an absolute cessation of arms and the demolition of the fortifications made by either party in Chester, Nantwich, Stockport, Knutsford, and any other town, having failed, each of the hostile parties set to work to procure military stores in anticipation of the approaching conflict. The Commission of Array established itself at Chester, Nantwich being at the same time made the head-quarters of those in arms against the King. Sir William Brereton was entrusted by the Parliament with the arming of the county, to him was also confided the seizure of the goods and weapons of the "delinquents," as the Royalists were called, and he was subsequently appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentarian forces in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, his kinsman, Colonel Robert Dukenfield, of Dukenfield, and Colonel Henry Bradshaw, of Marple, the elder brother of the future judge of the High Commission Court, being two of his most active officers.

Eager for the conflict, Sir William Brereton was unable to restrain his impetuosity. Before any commissions were issued the sword of the restless and robust Puritan had left the scabbard, and the blast of his trumpet had been heard as he gathered together his dependents and the friends of the "cause," and trained them to the use of arms; staunch and stern enthusiasts they were, who quickly caught the spirit of their leader, whom we can picture in imagination marshalling them in the leafy valley of the Deane, or upon the broad plateau of Handforth Green.

On the 25th of August, 1642, Charles appeared at Nottingham, with a few troops of horse, and about six hundred foot, the mere shadow of an army; the blood-red ensign, blazoned with the royal arms, and bearing the suggestive motto, "Render unto CÆsar the things which are CÆsar's," was set up on the hill adjoining the castle. It was a hasty and imprudent act—a terrible symbol, reviving the traditions of feudality, and virtually proclaiming that the kingdom was in a state of war and the ordinary course of law at an end. Such a ceremony had not been witnessed in England since the time when Richard III. raised his standard on the field of Bosworth, a century and a half previously. The auspices were not favourable; the weather was sullen and tempestuous; the dark clouds heralded a storm, and the gloom of the lowering sky was in harmony with the shadow that lay on men's minds. Scarcely had the streamer been unfurled than a fierce gust of wind swept with wild moan over the hill top and laid the emblem of sovereignty prostrate upon the ground. It was an unhappy omen, and whispered words of sorrowful misgiving passed from man to man. The next day the ceremony was repeated, the trumpet sounded, the herald read the proclamation, and the few friends assembled shouted, "God save the King." Thus the olive branch was cast aside, King and Parliament were divided, and the royal sanction given to the wasting calamity of war—war that was to determine whether the monarchical or the democratic estate of the kingdom should possess the ruling power, and in which the best and bravest blood of England was to be shed.

In that memorable struggle which convulsed the kingdom and drenched it in civil slaughter—a struggle that may be said to have begun with a tumult in Manchester, when a poor linen weaver looking on was accidentally shot,[37] and Parliament, to inflame the people, magnified the event into "The Beginning of the Civil Wars in England, or Terrible News from the North," and which ended with the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles II., when the same old Puritan town, to do honour to the occasion, put on its peacock's feathers, and made the conduit to flow with wine, and the gutters to swell with strong beer—the Lord of Handforth played a very conspicuous part, and there can be little doubt that much of the ultimate success of the Republican party was due to his unwearying energy and military skill. His delight lay in the din of arms, the rattle of musketry, and the clatter of troops; and a record of his doings would be little else than a chronicle of the events that were then occurring in the northern parts of the kingdom. A circumstantial account of his military exploits is given by contemporary writers. Burghall, the Puritan Vicar of Acton, in his "Providence Improved,"[38] makes frequent mention of him, and in Josiah Rycroft's "Survey of England's Champions and Truth's Faithfull Patriots," 1647, and John Vicars's "England's Worthies," published in the same year, are "lively pourtraitures" of Cheshire's famous general.

The rejection of the Bill for regulating the militia, passed by the Commons in February, 1642, and which, if confirmed, would have transferred the power of levying armies to the Republican party, widened the breach between King and Parliament. From that hour the link which bound them together was riven. It was evident that the difficulty could be only adjusted by an appeal to arms, and, as the spring advanced, both sides began in earnest to prepare for the conflict, though each was anxious to avoid the[Pg 209] [Pg 210] [Pg 211] responsibility of commencing it. The fast decaying traditions of the miseries attendant upon the old domestic feuds—the struggles of the Barons, and the Wars of the Roses—were wholly drowned by the loud beating of the warlike pulse; men were suddenly withdrawn from the plough, the anvil, and the loom; the services of foreign mercenaries were eagerly sought, and on every hand the signs of preparation were apparent.

Sir William Brereton, one of the deputy-lieutenants, as well as one of the members for Cheshire, was authorised by the Parliament to put in force the ordinance concerning the militia, and as the harvest-time approached he proceeded to Nantwich for that purpose. The King's Commission of Array, who were at Chester, hearing of his intention, marched with a body of men towards Ravensmoor to prevent him. On the 12th August both parties met on Beam Heath, when an altercation arose, which would most likely have ended in bloodshed but for the mediation of Mr. Werden, of Chester, on the one side, and Mr. Wilbraham of Dorfold on the other. Nantwich commanding, as it did, one of the approaches into North Wales, was an important strategical position, and the inhabitants being for the most part favourable to the Puritan cause, the place was barricaded, and made the head-quarters of the Parliament party, of which, as we have said, Sir William Brereton had the chief command.

Charles remained at Nottingham after the Royal standard had been erected until his army had been increased by reinforcements from various quarters, when he set forward, marching across Derbyshire in the direction of the Welsh borders, intending to establish his head-quarters at Shrewsbury, where considerable promises of support had been given. About the same time Lord Grandison, on behalf of the King, presented himself at Nantwich, and on the 12th September, accompanied by Lord Cholmondeley and a considerable body of horse entered the town, the inhabitants, fearing the approach of the royal army, which was then at Shrewsbury, having quickly made terms for the surrender of the same, as well as of their arms, ammunition, and accoutrements; and at the same time Woodhay, Doddington, Haslington, Baddiley, and other houses in the neighbourhood, the owners of which were known to be disaffected, were subjected to the same treatment. Two days later the king, having advanced from Shrewsbury, entered the ancient city of Chester, where he received a welcome as enthusiastic as that accorded to his father, five-and-twenty years before. The mayor and corporation entertained him sumptuously at the Pentice and presented him with £200, bestowing at the same time £100 upon the Prince of Wales, their titular Earl, who accompanied him. His Majesty took up his abode at the Episcopal Palace, whence a summons was issued through the sheriff requiring Sir Richard Wilbraham of Woodhay, Sir Thomas Delves of Doddington, Mr. Mainwaring of Peover, and Mr. Wilbraham of Dorfold, to await the King's pleasure. They repaired to Shrewsbury in charge of the sheriff, and remained there for three weeks in the hope of being discharged, but the two Wilbrahams were detained prisoners, Sir Richard dying in April of the following year, while still in confinement there.

The King returned to Shrewsbury, and thence proceeded towards London. On the 23rd October, when the morning dawned, he saw from the brow of the wild ridge of hills that overlook the vale of the Red Horse, near Kineton, in Warwickshire, the army of the Earl of Essex drawn up in order of battle upon the plain below. On that day Edgehill, the first great battle of the great civil war, was fought; thirty thousand of the best and bravest of Englishmen were put in array against each other, and on that cold autumn night, as the keen searching wind sighed through the heath and furze and along the unsheltered slopes of Edgehill, darkness closed upon the field of carnage, where five thousand men lay in their death agony—so many sacrifices to the Moloch of intestine strife—without any substantial advantage having been gained by either side.

After the battle, the King continued his march southwards; but Colonel Hastings, who had also taken part in it, repaired into Cheshire with a small force, and occupied himself during the winter months in harassing those opposed to the Royalist cause. On the 23rd of December a kind of peace—the Treaty of Pacification, as it was called—was entered into at Bunbury, but was immediately afterwards broken. In January, 1642-3, a skirmish took place outside Nantwich between a small force of Royalists, led by Sir Thomas Aston, and a company of Parliamentarians, commanded by Captain Bramhall, the former being compelled to retire, when Sir William Brereton followed in hot pursuit, took one hundred prisoners, and pillage to the value of £1,000; at the same time, as Vicars affirms, "making Sir Vincent Corbet fly in a pannick feare for his life." In the same month a list of instructions was drawn up by Parliament and transmitted to Sir William for his guidance in relation to the conduct of military affairs in the county, and in accordance therewith he sent out his warrants requiring the train bands and other forces of the shire to muster at Tarporley and Frodsham on the 21st of February, hearing of which the Royalists issued from Chester with two pieces of ordnance, and entrenched themselves at Ruddyheath, when, on the morning of the 22nd, the opposing forces met. A few shots were fired on both sides, but little or no harm was done. What, however, was of more importance occurred on the preceding night, when a small force of Parliamentarians from Nantwich, taking advantage of the darkness, scaled the lofty eminence of Beeston and took possession of the castle, which was at once repaired and put in a state of defence. Some of them coming down to Brereton's assistance were met by a troop of Royalist horse on Tiverton Town field, when a slight skirmish took place, and lives were lost on both sides.

The army at Nantwich had by this time been largely reinforced, Colonel Mainwaring, Captain Dukenfield, Captain Hyde, Captain Marbury, with other gentlemen, and their companies of horse and foot, having joined. On the 10th of March, Sir Thomas Aston having made a descent upon Middlewich and plundered the town, Sir William Brereton advanced from Nantwich to give him battle; an engagement ensued, the Royalists were driven out of the town, and many prisoners taken. A characteristic account of the attack, from the pen of a Puritan writer, who appears to have been present and to have taken part, is thus given in a pamphlet published at the time:—

Sir Thomas Aston and his partie, recovering strength after their late overthrow, exercised the same in mischiefe, and all wicked outrages; for besides their plundering and wasting of all the countrie neere Chester, they laid such intolerable taxes both on the citie and countrie thereabout, that their own partie was embittered against them; yea, before we secured Northwich, whiles some of our forces were in that countrie, they plundered Weverham and the county about; they carried old men out of their houses, bound them together, tyed them to a cart, drave them through mire and water above the knees, and so brought them to that dungeon, where they lie without fire or light, and now through extremities are so diseased, that they are ready to yield up the ghost. On the Sabbath, March 12, having a little before advanced to Middlewich, they plundered all that day, as a most proper season for it, commanded the carts in all that countrie about to carrie away the goods, kept a faire that day neere Torperley to sell these goods. In Over when they had plundered they left ratbane in the house wrapt in papers, for the children, which by God's providence was taken from them before they could eate it, after their parents durst returne to them; and being a considerable body they sent for more strength, and by their warrant to the churches about, commanded all the countrie to come in with such insolent and imperious expressions, that they were hatefull to some malignants, and concluded to give no quarter to any roundheads, and were confident quickly to carry all downe before them. Sir William (Brereton) was at that time at Northwitch with a considerable partie; many gentlemen of his partie were at Namptwich, with about seven or eight hundred armed men; their generous spirits were enrag'd to see such outrages committed; it wrought alike in all Sir William's forces to provoke us for to fall upon the enemy, though wee could not easily communicate our purposes one to another. At Namptwich we agreed to assault them the next morning, signified the same to Sir Will(iam). He was as forward as we. Our gent. desired a minister to come to their Chambers, upon the alarum to be given at twelve o'clock, that commending them to God in prayer, they might speed the better. Some ministers and others fell to the worke that day by prayer and fasting, though not as Moses, Aaron, and Hur, in prospect of the armies, yet wrestling as Jacob did, and putting their mouthes in the dust, if so bee there might be hope, of which they had a gracious returne by three o'clock. The business of that day was carried thus:—Sir William being foure miles from the enemy, assaulted that side of the towne by eight o'clock, March the 13th, and continued the fight for about three or foure houres before we came to his help; in which time this accident fell out, that his powder was all spilt, excepting about seven pound they tooke councell upon it, and it was concluded they must retreite because their partie from Namptwich was not come in to their assistance, but Sir William was resolute not to retreit but to send to Northwitch for more powder, and to keep them in play as well as they could till the powder came, which accordingly they did; betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock we came to their assistance, which they knew not of till they heard us in hot service on the other side of the town; when we began their powder came.

The enemy had chief advantages, their ordinance planted; we had none; they layd about 150 musquetiers in an hole convenient for them. They layd their ambuskadoes in the hedges, musquetiers in the church and steeple, and had every way so strengthened themselves that they seemed impregnable; but God led on our men with incredible courage—Captaine George Booth fac'd the towne with his troope whilst they plaid on with their ordinance, which once graz'd before them, and then mounted cleare over them in another; in another that it dash't the water and mire in his and two other captaines faces, but there it dies. This was no discouragement to our men; they marched upon all their ambuskadoes, drave them all out of them into the towne, entered the towne upon the mouths of the cannon and storme of the muskets, our major (a right Scottish blade)[39] brought them up in two files, with which he lined the walls and kept the street open, went up to their ordinance, which he tooke; then the enemy fled to the church; Sir Thomas Aston would have gone after them but they durst not let him in, lest we should enter with him: then he mounted his horse and fled with all speed by Kinderton, and divers others with him, for that way only was open, all the rest we had surrounded; we slew divers upon the top of the steeple, and some, they say, within the church.

In this encounter 400 Royalists were taken prisoners, among them several officers of rank, including Captain Massie, of Coddington, Captain John Hurleston, Colonel Ellis, Major Gilmore, Captain Corbet, Captain Starky, of Stretton, and Captain Morris; a Lancashire man was also numbered among those captured—Sir Edward Mosley, of Hough End and Aldport Lodge, in Manchester, at that time sheriff of Staffordshire, who for his "delinquency" had to compound for his estates by the payment to the Committee of Sequestrations of £4,874, which greatly impoverished him.

By the defeat at Nantwich the Royalist army was greatly weakened, and Brereton found himself free to turn his attention in other directions. Hearing that the Earl of Northampton was marching northwards, he immediately set out to the assistance of Sir John Gell, who was then in the neighbourhood of Stafford.

It was a short fortnight after the siege of Lichfield Close, whither Sir John, with a body of fighting men, had gone to reinforce the army of Lord Brooke, who had himself fallen a victim to the unerring aim of the keen-eyed Dyott, a bullet from whose arquebus had passed through the visor of his helm and pierced his brain—the time

Hearing of the attack on

the Earl of Northampton hastened with a strong party of horse to relieve the beleaguered city, when Gell, knowing himself to be in no condition to cope with him, retired towards Stafford. Brereton, whose new strung vigour and eager impetuosity seldom permitted him to leave the saddle or let his sword rest in the scabbard, marched at once with 1,500 horsemen from Nantwich, by way of Newcastle and Stone, until he reached Salt Heath, a place about three miles north-east of Stafford, where, on the 19th of March, a week after the fight at Middlewich, he joined the forces of Sir John Gell. At Hopton Heath, adjoining Salt Heath, the Earl of Northampton fell upon their rear, and an engagement ensued. The Parliamentarians numbered in all 3,000 horse and foot, and the Royalists about half that number. Brereton posted his horse in two bodies in front of the infantry, and awaited the attack from the Earl, who charged the main body and dispersed them, the second attack being followed by the same result; but the Royalist victory was quickly turned to mourning. The Earl's cavalry, pursuing their advantage with rash precipitation, threw themselves among the ranks of Sir John Gell's foot; in this encounter the Earl of Northampton had his horse shot under him, and while on foot was quickly surrounded by his foes. Quarter was offered but refused, when a trooper with his heavy matchlock smote off his helm, and another from behind dashed his halberd into his brain. Sir Thomas Byron, who commanded the Prince of Wales's troop, followed up the attack, but night coming on both armies drew off, each claiming the victory. The advantage, however, would appear to have remained with the Parliamentarians, who were enabled to drive their opponents out of the county. Sir William Brereton, in the fanatical phraseology so characteristic of the time, thus concludes his account of the transaction:—

In the success of this battle the Lord was pleased much to shewe himselfe to bee the Lord of Hosts and God of Victory; for, when the day was theirs and the field wonne, he was pleased mightily to interpose for the rescue and deliverance of these that trusted in him. And, as my lord generall (Essex) said concerning Keinton (Edge-hill) battle, soe may it bee said of this, that there was much of God and nothing of man, that did contribute to this victorie. To him I desire the sole glory may be ascribed, and that this may be a further encouragement to trust in him, and an engagement to adhere unto this cause, as well in the midst of daungers and streights as when they are more remote. To this end I beseech you assist with your prayers those who often stand in neede thereof; and believe that there is none that doth more earnestly pray for and desire the encrease of all comfort and happiness then Your most faithfull frend,

Apart from the horrors inseparable from fratricidal strife, or the results which civil war may ultimately secure, there are attendant circumstances that make such an upheaval of the national life not altogether an unmixed evil. If in the great social convulsions of the past there has been much that we must deprecate and condemn, much that must lead us to rejoice that our lot has been cast in more peaceful times, there has been also much that is morally good and dear to our every feeling of existence. If there were barbarism and selfishness and ruthlessness, there were also high achievements and flashes of heroism that will not be forgotten while great qualities find a sanctuary in the human heart, even though we may not be able to approve the ends to which they were devoted. While the coarser passions may have found vent in heartless violence, honour has been as often roused from the embrace of luxury, and a spirit of patriotism evoked that might never else have struggled into light. Through the fissures caused by such dislocations of the social strata, genius and virtue and devotion have forced their way; men have struggled for principles as men struggle for life, and have renewed their nobility in something nobler than in name.

Accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, upholding the Puritan doctrines in which he believed, and watching, it may be from afar, the widening breach between King and people, William Brereton had taken but little active interest in public affairs; but when the trumpet-blast of war sounded in his ears his courage, promptitude, and zeal were instantly aroused. Forced by the troublous times from the lethargy of security and passionless ease, he quickly evidenced the possession of qualities of which he had never given even a crude or ostentatious promise. In what he conceived to be the path of duty he was prodigal of his personal safety, and in that great struggle against prerogative no man was less mindful of the hardships and the dangers inseparable from a soldier's life. It was no boyish enthusiasm that led him to take down the spear and the arquebus from the ancestral wall and to don the armour of his forefathers; for, when he entered the arena of civil strife, he was verging upon forty years of age, and the blaze of youth had sunk into the burning fire of middle life. Noble was the idea he had set before him. To contend with the oppressor and to battle for right and justice was a high work. It is not our province to enter upon the merits of the great civil war of the seventeenth century; we reverence the principles of civil and religious truth for which the Puritans professed invincible attachment, but we cannot close our eyes to the fact that some of those who pleaded so loudly for conscience, and offered such uncompromising resistance to despotism, when they got the power into their own hands, instead of righting the wrongs of which they had complained, merely changed the venue and transferred a grinding social tyranny from the hand of one faction to that of another. As old Fuller, in his quaint way, observes, "they girt their own garment closest about the consciences of others." We can sympathise with the Puritanism of Brereton in the effort for the advance of civil and religious liberty and the purity of moral life, but we cannot sympathise with the Puritanism that manifested itself in fanatical excesses and the profane handling of things that ought to have been sacred, even to fanatics, if they believed in the cause for which they contended.

Sir William Brereton could no longer find happiness in repose; his new-born zeal knew no restraint. Scarcely had he returned from the fight at Hopton Heath than he was again in the saddle, and marching with his troops to Northwich. On Easter Monday, April 3rd, he advanced from that place towards Warrington, with the object of assisting the Manchester men in wresting that town from the Earl of Derby, who then held it for the King. An engagement took place at Stockton Heath, when the Earl, being worsted, fell back upon Warrington, which was shortly afterwards invested; but as he destroyed some of the buildings, and threatened to lay the remainder in ashes rather than surrender, the siege was raised, and Brereton with his army returned to Nantwich.

The period which followed was one of considerable activity. Before the month had closed he was again in Staffordshire, and at Drayton encountered Sir Vincent Corbet, whom he a second time defeated, Sir Vincent, as Burghall tells us, escaping "in his shirt and waistcoat, leaving his clothes behind him, which Captain Whitney took, with all his money and his letters found in his pockets." On the 15th May, Brereton's dragoons, having been joined by some companies from Leek and Newcastle-under-Lyme, entered the town of Stafford in the middle of the night, while the people were in their beds, took possession, and made several prisoners; among them Captain Biddulph, probably of the family of Biddulph Hall, and Captain Legh, of Adlington. From Stafford the victorious Parliamentarians proceeded to Wolverhampton, which was speedily taken; they then returned into Cheshire, and advanced to Warrington to join the Manchestrians in renewing the attack upon the town, which had been left by the Earl of Derby to the care of Colonel Edward Norris, of Speke; and on Saturday, May 27th, "after a week's siege, the Royalists were obliged to surrender this key of the county," when, as we learn from Burghall, "Sir George Booth (Brereton's brother-in-law), being lord of the town, entered it, and was joyfully entertained by the inhabitants." Sir William knew no rest. Two days later we find him marching at midnight from Nantwich with a force of eight hundred men to Whitchurch, where Lord Capel had fixed his head-quarters, arriving there at three o'clock in the morning; when, after two hours' sharp fighting, the place surrendered, and the victors returned to Nantwich laden with "cheese, malt, wheat, bacon, and ammunition," and other spoils of war.

During the preceding months the Vale of the Weaver had been harassed and made the scene of many a predatory descent from Capel's forces, aided occasionally by the Royalists from Cholmondeley; the country round, but Nantwich more especially, had been plundered, the rich meadows and pasture lands which had been brought under cultivation in pre-Reformation times by the monks of Combermere being more productive than other parts of the county offered a strong inducement; whilst the inhabitants, having for the most part sided with the Republican party, were accounted as fitting subjects for Royalist vengeance. Moss House, near Burley Dam, Dorfold Hall, Acton, Ravensmoor, and Sound are named as being plundered of horses, cows, young beasts, and household stuffs during the occasional absences of General Brereton from head-quarters. In retaliation, Cholmondeley Hall was itself attacked, the Nantwich troops issuing from their entrenchments by the north road; then, passing Mr. Wilbraham's house at Dorfold, they quitted the Chester Road and proceeded by Monk's Lane, passing Acton Church and Vicarage—the latter at the time the residence of Edward Burghall, the Puritan diarist—and thence over Ravensmoor to the stone cross near where stood the entrance to Woodhay, the owner of which, Sir Richard Wilbraham, had died only a few days before, a prisoner in the castle at Shrewsbury. Soon Cholmondeley was reached. The Royalists, being apprised of their intention, turned out to meet them, and an engagement took place, when the Cavaliers, having sustained some loss, withdrew to the shelter of the hall, and their opponents returned to Nantwich with a booty of six hundred horse.

Shortly after this some of the Nantwich men sustained a severe reverse. The troops left in possession of Whitchurch, having imprudently advanced beyond Hanmer into Wales, were met by Lord Capel and the Welsh forces of the King, who had been lying in ambush. They were attacked and dispersed, several of their number being killed or wounded, and many taken prisoners. It was a sorrowful day for them, and Burghall laments that it was "the worst day's work the Nantwich soldiers did from the beginning of the war." It was a sorrowful day elsewhere, for on the preceding day John Hampden—

received his death wound on Chalgrove Field, the avenging ball of a Royalist having shivered his vigorous right arm on the very spot where he had first executed the ordinance of the militia and engaged his tenantry and serving men in rebellion, and he then lay at Thame, where, with the grace and dignity of the old Roman, but with the fortitude and trusting faith of the true Christian, he died after six days' agony.

It does not appear that Sir William Brereton was present at the disaster which befell his troops in the Welsh Marches; had he been, it is possible the result might have been different. A few days before, he was at Liverpool, directing the unlading of a ship which had arrived freighted with ordinance and ammunition from London. This misfortune was, however, speedily made up for by an attack on Eccleshall Castle, which surrendered with all its ordinance, arms, and ammunition on the 26th June, and on returning to Nantwich he was, we are told, "received with much joy." On Thursday, July 17th, having received reinforcements from Staffordshire and Manchester, he set out for Chester; but there his usual good luck failed him; an assault was made, but the city was found to be strongly fortified, and learning that Lord Capel, with the Shropshire forces, was advancing, he deemed it prudent to withdraw his men and return to Nantwich. He did not long remain there, for, hearing that Colonel Hastings had marched with four hundred horse from Lichfield to relieve the Royalists, who were then holding out at Stafford Castle, he set out with 1,000 men to the help of the besiegers, bivouacking for the night at Stone. On his approach the garrison fled in dismay, when the castle was taken and demolished, except the keep. Taking advantage of his absence, the Royalists, who, though driven out of Whitchurch, still hung about the Welsh border, determined upon attacking Nantwich. Lord Capel advanced with a considerable force by way of Baddington-lane, when the Parliamentarians, fearing they might be outnumbered, prudently retired within the town, having sustained but slight loss. On that warm summer's night, August 3rd, the Royalists lay on Ravensmoor, and the next morning, taking advantage of a thick mist that hid them from view, set upon the town, directing their fire from the meadows lying between Marsh Lane and the left bank of the Weaver. The attack lasted from six o'clock in the morning until nine or ten, when the sun dispelled the mist, and Capel, finding himself too near, withdrew his men. The report that Capel had threatened the town caused reinforcements to be sent from Lancashire and Staffordshire to the aid of the Cheshire men, but finding he had fallen back they returned to their respective counties, the "Moorland Dragoons" from Staffordshire marching by way of Aslington, where they quartered on the night of the 5th of August, and then, continuing their march, "they gave," as the Puritan Vicar of Acton relates, "a strong alarm to Mr. Biddulph's house (Biddulph Old Hall) in Staffordshire, where was a garrison. This Biddulph," he adds, "was a great Papist," a name of reproach applied by the Presbyterians to many a good Protestant.

At the time of Capel's descent on Nantwich, Brereton was with the Parliamentary army in the neighbourhood of Wem, where he remained for some time, having fortified the town, and being thus enabled to make frequent predatory incursions from it into the surrounding country, to the alarm of the Royalists who then garrisoned Shrewsbury. Taking advantage of his prolonged absence, Lord Capel resolved once more on attacking the great Puritan stronghold of Nantwich. On the 14th of October, he set out with a force of 3,400 men and artillery, moving by way of Whitchurch, Combermere, and Marbury; his men reached Acton at noon on the 16th, when, finding that some of the Nantwich troops were approaching, they took up a position in the church, which they fortified along with the neighbouring mansion of Dorfold, but hearing that Brereton was returning from Wem they deemed it unsafe to hazard an engagement, and, during the night, withdrew.

Brereton did not remain many days at Nantwich. On the 7th November, accompanied by Sir Thomas Middleton, he set out for Wales. When night closed on that short November day they had got no further than Sir Richard Wilbraham's house at Woodhay, where they bivouacked for the night. On the following day they were joined by the Lancashire forces, when an attack was made upon Holt Castle, the Royalists were driven out, and the victors then marched to Wrexham, whence they would seem to have directed their march towards Chester, for on Saturday, November 11, Sir William, in company with Alderman Edwards, who had been mayor of the city in 1636, and a small force, set out for Hawarden Castle, which surrendered on their approach without so much as a shot being fired. On the Thursday following Brereton sent a summons from Hawarden to Sir Abraham Shipman, the governor of Chester, demanding the surrender of the city, and threatening severe punishment in case of refusal. To this demand the gallant old Royalist sent a curt and characteristic reply assuring Sir William that he was not to be terrified by words, and that if he wanted the city he must first come and win it. In the meantime, in anticipation of any attack that might be made, he caused the Handbridge suburbs to be destroyed to prevent the Roundheads sheltering in them, and at the same time demolished Overlegh Hall, Bache Hall, and Flookersbrook Hall, with their outhousing, lest enemies from other quarters might effect lodgments therein.

Happily for the inhabitants the landing at Mostyn of a body of the King's troops, returning from employment against the rebels in Ireland, saved the city from immediate danger. Brereton returned to his quarters at Nantwich, and the Lancashire men hastened homewards. Burghall says "it was a wonder they made such haste to relieve Hawarden Castle, a stronghold, lately taken, only they left one Mr. Ince, an able and faithful minister, and about 120 soldiers in it, with little provision, and in great danger. It was also thought strange, that they should leave Wales, which in a manner, was quite subdued a little before, and so many good friends who had come to them, were left to the mercy of the enemy." Brereton was doubtless a better judge of the exigencies of the case than the Puritan divine whose ideas on military tactics were in this instance at fault. Retreat had become necessary, for had the Royalists with the large reinforcements from Ireland have moved on Nantwich in his absence they would in all likelihood have been successful, and not only have deprived the Parliamentarians of that important position, but also have cut off the retreat of their army, and have forced them to fight under great disadvantage in the rocky defiles of the Welsh border, which at that season of the year would have been all but impassable for troops encumbered with heavy ordinance.

Hawarden Castle, being left comparatively unprotected, was, as Burghall says, "in great danger," but the little garrison held out bravely. On the 21st of November Colonel Mann sent a trumpeter to demand the castle for his Majesty's use; the demand was refused, and a week latter Captain Standford, who commanded the Irish force then just landed, sent the following peremptory summons:—

Gentlemen,—I presume you very well know, or have heard, of my condition and disposition, and that I neither give or take quarter; I am now with my firelocks, who never yet neglected opportunity to correct rebels; ready to use you as I have done the Irish, but loth I am to spill my countrymen's blood; wherefore, by these, I advise you to your fealty and obedience towards his majesty, and shew yourselves faithful subjects by delivering the castle into my hands for his majesty's use; in so doing you shall be received into mercy, &c. Otherwise, if you put me to the least trouble, or loss of blood, to force you, expect no quarter for man, woman, or child. I hear you have some of our late Irish army in your company; they very well know me, and that my firelocks used not parly.—Be not unadvised, but think of your liberty, for I vow all hopes of relief are taken from you, and our intents are not to starve you, but to batter and storm you, and then hang you all, and follow the rest of that rebel crew. I am no bread and cheese rogue, but as ever a loyalist, and will ever be whilst I can write or name

Nov. 28th, 1643. Tho. Sandford, Cap. of Firelocks.

I expect your speedy answer this Tuesday night at Broadlane hall, where I now am your near neighbour.

To the officer commanding in chief at Hawarden castle and his consorts there.

On this summons the stout-hearted defenders of Hawarden also refused to surrender. The besiegers then made application for assistance from Chester, and a force of 300 of the citizens and trainbands having arrived, the attack commenced on the 3rd December; on the following day a white flag was hung out and the garrison capitulated; the castle being surrendered early on the next morning on the condition that its defenders should be free to march out with half arms, and two pairs of colours, one flying and the other furled, and to be safely conveyed either to Wem or Nantwich.

The Cheshire men who sided with the Parliament party appear to have had a wholesome terror of Captain Sandford and his notorious firelocks. An assailant whose cardinal principle is neither to ask or give quarter is not a pleasant person to encounter, and hence the Cestrians were by no means desirous of cultivating acquaintance with a soldier who had not only declared his intention of putting to the sword all who presumed to offer opposition to his demands, but who, on previous occasions, had shown that he could be as good as his word.

Following up their success at Hawarden, the Cavaliers advanced to Beeston; the garrison there, having heard of Brereton's retreat, had become demoralised, and surrendered the castle to Sandford without even the semblance of a struggle. Burghall thus relates the story of the capture:—

December 13th (1643) a little before day Captain Sandford (a zealous Royalist) who came out of Ireland, with eight of his firelocks, crept up the steep hill of Beeston Castle, and got into the upper ward and took possession there. It must be done by treachery for the place was most impregnable. Captain Steel, who kept it for the Parliament, was accused and suffered for it; but it was verily thought he had not betrayed it wilfully; but some of his men proving false, he had not courage enough to withstand Sandford to try it out with him. What made much against Steel was he took Sandford down into his chamber, where they dined together, and much beer was sent up to Sandford's men, and the castle after a short parley was delivered up; Steel and his men having leave to march with their arms and colours to Nantwich, but as soon as he was come into the town the soldiers were so enraged against him that they would have pulled him in pieces had he not been immediately clapped in prison. There were much wealth and goods in the castle belonging to gentlemen and neighbours, who had brought it thither for safety, besides ammunition and provisions for half a year at least; all which the enemy got.

The surrender of Beeston was a great discouragement to the Parliamentarians, and so exasperated were the Nantwich men at what they believed to be the treachery of Steel, that shortly after he was "shot to death" in Tinker's Croft, by two soldiers, according to judgment against him. Whether Steel was actuated by treachery or cowardice is a matter of doubt, but, in any case, an example was required to be made, and the stern Puritans could hardly have pronounced a milder sentence; for the dining with Sandford, and the regaling of his men with "much beer" must have told greatly against him. With the loss of Beeston the way lay open from Chester; the garrison at Nantwich had in consequence a busy time of it, being kept in a state of perpetual alarm by the oft repeated rumours of the approach of Sandford and the much-dreaded firelocks. The town, we are told by an old chronicler, had no rest day or night, and a guard had to be kept continually upon the walls to give warning in the event of the enemies coming. Danger increased on every hand, the Royalists had been reinforced by the Anglo-Irish contingent sent over by the Marquis of Ormond, and the whole district lay at the mercy of Lord Byron, who had the chief command, and who, elated with his successes, advanced without much loss of time with the intention of attacking Brereton in his own quarters. On the Sunday following the capture of Beeston, "during sermon time," as we are told, news came that the Cavaliers were at Burford, a place about a mile distant. Sergeant-major Lothian, with a company of soldiers, went out to meet them, but the sergeant got the worst of it, and in the encounter was made prisoner, when his men took to their heels. Immediately after Stoke, Hurleston, Brindley, Wrenbury, and the country round was ravaged, and much injury was inflicted. On the 22nd December the Royalists crossed the river to Audlem, Hankelow, Buerton, and Hatherton; on the Saturday they reached Barthomley and dispersed a number of Brereton's men, who had established themselves in the church; and on Christmas day and the day after they plundered Barthomley, Crewe, Haslington, and Sandbach. On the last-named day Brereton, having left a guard at Nantwich, marched with a considerable force towards Middlewich, Holmes Chapel and Sandbach, and at Booth Lane, about a mile from the last mentioned town, he was overtaken by the Royalists, when a fierce battle was fought, and he had to retreat to Middlewich, whither he was pursued, again attacked, and finally compelled to seek safety in flight, leaving his magazines behind him and two hundred prisoners. After this disaster he made his way northwards, when, as we learn from the "Briefe Summary" of the troubles Mr. William Davenport had to undergo, he was on New Year's Day "about Stopport, when with Captain Sankey, Captain Francis Dukinfield and a few soldiers, he made a raid upon Mr. Davenport's house at Bramhall, helped himself to what he could find, took away all the horses, about twenty in number, and all the arms he could lay his hands on. Meanwhile the victorious Cavaliers were by no means inactive; Crewe Hall was captured, but surrendered again the next day; Dorfold was taken on the 2nd of January (1643-4) and on the 4th Doddington yielded without a struggle. Nantwich had been invested and subjected to intermittent attacks, and on Thursday, January 17," after being besieged for five weeks and suffering great privation, it was assaulted on all sides; in the attack Captain Sandford met a soldier's death under the guns of his own hot battery, and within a few days of that on which Captain Steel was led out to execution. The siege lasted for more than a week, when General Fairfax, fresh from his victories in Yorkshire, passed through Manchester, and, being joined by the forces of Sir William Brereton, marched to the relief of the beleaguered town. The advancing army mustered in all three thousand five hundred and fifty horse, and five thousand foot; after a slight skirmish in Delamere Forest, in which forty prisoners were taken, their progress was arrested for a while at Barr Bridge, where a small force of Royalists had posted themselves behind Hurlestone Brook, the main body of Byron's army, however, remaining in the neighbourhood of Acton Church. The frost which had continued for some time, suddenly broke up, and the flooding of the Weaver, consequent upon the rapid thaw, placed the Royalists at a considerable disadvantage; a temporary bridge which they had constructed was swept away; communication between the cavalry and the infantry was thus cut off, and the former, being confined in deep lanes with great high hedges, were unable to sustain or relieve the suffering infantry, and, in fact, could only reach them by a detour of five miles. About half-past three in the afternoon of the 25th of January the two armies were put in array against each other in the fields lying between Acton Church and Ravensmoor, and on that raw winter's afternoon, before darkness had closed upon the scene, the Royalist infantry had given way and sought refuge in Acton Church, where they were surrounded and compelled to surrender. About one thousand six hundred of their number were made prisoners, among them Colonel Monk, who was sent to the Tower, the same who, after he had brought about the Restoration, developed into the Earl of Albemarle. The slain were very few, considering the large number of men engaged, only about fifty in all; their bodies were buried in a field belonging to Sir Thomas Wilbraham of Woodhay, which to this day retains the name of the "Dead Man's Field." The relief of the town was an occasion of much rejoicing; thanksgivings were held, and for many years after, on St. Paul's Day (January 25th), the anniversary of their deliverance, the townsmen wore sprigs of holly in their hats in commemoration of the event.

Clarendon, in his History of the Rebellion, observes that Nantwich was the only garrison which the Parliament had then left in Cheshire, and that from the beginning of the troubles it had been the only refuge for the disaffected in that county and the counties adjacent. He adds that the pride of the late success, and the terror which the Royal soldiers believed their names carried with them, led them before this place at the most unseasonable time of the year, but that "it cannot be denied that the reducing of this place at that time would have been of unspeakable importance to the King's affairs, there being between that and Carlisle no one town of moment (Manchester only excepted) which declared against the King; and those two populous counties of Chester and Lancashire, if they had been united against the Parliament, would have been a strong bulwark against the Scots." With the disaster at Nantwich the power of the Anglo-Irish army which the Marquis of Ormond had sent over to the help of the Royalist cause in England was wholly destroyed, and Fairfax was free to return to Yorkshire, where some months after he took part in the decisive battle of Marston Moor.

Shortly after the raising of the siege of Nantwich Brereton's men made an assault on Crewe Hall, which surrendered on the 4th of February. Three days later Doddington Hall was given up, and on the 14th Adlington Hall, after bravely holding out for a whole fortnight, was delivered up to Colonel Dukinfield, who, a month later, in accordance with an order of Parliament, handed over the possession to Colonel Brereton, who pillaged the house, and seized the family possessions into his own hands.

While these events were transpiring a kinsman of Sir William Brereton's, Lord Brereton of Brereton, who had been collecting arms and ammunition for the King's service, became alarmed, forsook his own residence, Brereton Hall, and, with his wife and son, took up his abode at Biddulph Hall, a fortified manor-house on the confines of Staffordshire, which was at once put into a state of defence. Angry at this proceeding, Sir William Brereton determined on its reduction, and at once set out with an armed force to accomplish that object. On the way one of the unlovely elements in the Puritan character manifested itself—the fanatical soldiery broke into the church at Astbury, one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical edifices in the county, defaced the costly architecture, broke the painted windows, demolished the carved screen-work, turned the fabric into a stable, and carried the organ away to a field close by, where they set it on fire—the spot retaining the name of the "Organ Field" to this day. Having performed these exploits, Brereton and his men resumed their march towards Biddulph, passing over Congleton Edge on the way. On the 20th of February the siege began, but the besiegers held out for a lengthened period—three months, it is said. Mr. J. Eglinton Bailey, in a paper recently read before the members of the Manchester Literary Club, gives the following interesting particulars:—

The ordnance was first planted on Congleton Edge, but little or no mischief was done from that standpoint. A fragment of an old song is remembered in which Lord Brereton, seeing Sir William on the Edge, is made to say—

"Yonder my uncle stands, and he will not come near,
Because he is a Roundhead, and I a Cavalier."

... During this time the investment was pretty close. Communication with the neighbourhood is said to have been held by means of a servant appropriately named "Trusty," who had nightly egress by an underground passage, through which victuals were taken in. The Parliamentary army frequently changed the position of their camp. Meanwhile the garrison became expert marksmen. A person riding through Whitemore Wood towards the army at Congleton Edge had his horse struck by a shot, and the rider took to his heels, not staying to remove the horse's bridle. It is also said that when Mr. Bowyer, of Knypersley Hall, was galloping over Bradley Green a ball from Biddulph took off the heel of his boot. At length the besieging party fetched from Stafford a large cannon, bearing the feminine name of "Roaring Meg," which was planted on the west side. The gun was next tried on a battery on the rising ground on the east side, the country people having informed the general that that was the weakest side of the hall. The old record is that from this site the artillerymen battered furiously for some time; that at last a ball accidentally struck the end of a beam supporting the hall, thus giving the building such a shake that its defenders thought it would have fallen down; and that thereupon Lady Brereton was so much affrighted that at her earnest entreaty the place was surrendered.

A number of prisoners were taken, including Lord and Lady Brereton and their son and heir; three hundred stand of arms, with ammunition, also fell into the hands of the victors, who sacked the mansion and bore off the plunder to Stafford Castle.

In the accounts of the old corporate town of Congleton there are several entries of moneys expended on the occasion of the visit of Sir William Brereton and his followers while on their way to Biddulph. They appear to have had a fondness for the good cheer for which the place was even then noted; thus we read of "Meat and drink to Sir William Brereton's men on the way, £1 13s. 3d.;" "Paid in meat and drink to Sir William Brereton's men, £0 18s.;" "More, £0 18s. 3d.;" "Spent on Captain Manwaring and Captain —— from London in burned ale and victuals, £0 10s. 0d.;" "Burned ale to Colonel Duckenfield, £0 1s. 8d." "Burned ale" was a beverage the Puritan soldiers seemed to have been rather partial to, and they had almost an equal fondness for Congleton sack[40], if we may judge from the frequency with which they were regaled with it.

The attack made by Sir William Brereton upon his relative, Lord Brereton, at Biddulph, furnishes a characteristic picture of the social disorder and confusion that prevailed in every rank and station of life during that unnatural struggle; the ties of consanguinity were forgotten in the bitterness of party strife, and relationship was no longer recognised as influencing families or individuals, except in so far that men oftentimes found their most inveterate foes were those of their own household.

In the depth of the inclement winter, after the relief of Nantwich, Sir Thomas Fairfax, in obedience to the orders of the Parliament, marched back into Yorkshire to join his father, Lord Fairfax, who was hastening to unite his forces with the Scottish army, which, led by Lesley, Earl of Leven, had crossed the border and marched knee-deep in snow upon the soil of England, preparatory to an attack upon York. Brereton, after the fall of Biddulph, would appear to have followed him, for in a contemporary document which Mr. Earwaker discovered among the Harleian MSS.—"Accompts made and Sworne unto by Sev'all Inhabitants of the Towneshippe of Hollingworth in the p'ish of Mottram in Longdendale and County of Chester"—the following entry occurs:—

In the "Accompts" of Mr. John Hollingworth, of Hollingworth:

		lisd
Itm.	When Sr William Brereton Kt. marched wth his fforces towardes Yorke there was quartered wth mee Seaven score horse whereby I was dampnified	800
Itm.	When Sr William Brereton marched towards Yorke wth Cheshire fforces ffor ye assistance of that County, there was 250 horse and rydrs quartered at my house; the damage I had by them in eatinge my meadowe, killinge my sheepe and plunderinge some of my goods privily, and consuminge my victuals they found in my house, to ye value att ye least of 20tie markes	1368

These particulars give some idea of the losses and annoyance the people were then subjected to, and furnish some interesting details of the way in which the war was conducted.

Ere the month of June was ended, the fiery Prince Rupert, in obedience to the King's command, had marched from Lathom House, in Lancashire, and effected the relief of York. On the 2nd of July 50,000 subjects of the King met upon the heath and among the corn fields on Marston Moor, almost within sight of the walls of York city, where the boom of the distant cannon would strike upon the inhabitants as the death knell of friend or brother. For two long hours they remained gazing with silent, yet settled determination, each waiting from the other the signal of battle. The sun was sinking in the west on that warm summer's evening when the strife began. By the time it had set, and the twilight had deepened into night, the carnage was ended, and five thousand dead bodies of Englishmen lay heaped upon the fatal ground. The distinctions that in life had separated those sons of a common country seemed as nothing now. The plumed helmet and the rude morion, the glistening corslet and the buff jerkin, embraced as they rolled on the heath together, and the loose love-lock of the careless Cavalier lay drenched in the dark blood of the stern and uncompromising Roundhead.

It was the first great battle in which Cromwell and his invincible Ironsides had borne a part, and it was their irresistible bravery that decided the day. Rupert was fairly swept off the field, and the hopes of Charles were completely wrecked. It was the greatest achievement of the war, and left the whole of the northern counties open to the Parliament's sway.

The discomfited Rupert, with the wreck of his army, retreated towards Chester, and thence into Lancashire, where he had the mortification to see all the strongholds he had recently gained speedily retaken, and among them the castle of Liverpool. Brereton was quickly marching in the same direction. Halton Castle still held out for the King, though, as we learn from a letter addressed by Goring to Prince Rupert, it was then threatened by the garrison of Warrington. It shortly afterwards surrendered, and on the 22nd July was taken possession of by the Parliamentary troops under Brereton. A few weeks later Colonel Marrow, the governor of Chester, with a small force marched from that city towards Northwich, "plundering some poor men's cattle by the way;" when near Hartford he was met by a party of Brereton's men. Marrow retreated towards Sandiway, and there faced about, when a skirmish took place. Fifteen of Brereton's soldiers were captured, but the victory was dearly bought, for Marrow himself, "a most pestilent Atheisticall Royalist," as Vicars calls him, received a shot, from the effects of which he died the following day. This was on Sunday, the 18th of August. A few days later the Nantwich men, with the assistance of Brereton's cavalry and some troops from Halton, attacked the Royalists in their quarters near Tarvin, and defeated them, and on the 26th they were again engaged near Malpas, when the Cavaliers sustained some serious losses.

Hearing that Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, was besieged in Montgomery Castle, Brereton, with Sir Wm. Meldran, Sir Wm. Fairfax, and thirty-two troops of horse out of Lancashire, and other companies out of Staffordshire, in all about three thousand men, set out to relieve him. On Tuesday, the 17th September, they compelled the Royalists to raise the siege, which led to a desperate encounter on the following day, when the King's troops were defeated with a loss of five hundred slain and fourteen hundred prisoners, among the latter being that "Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche," Major-general Sir Thomas Tyldesley. Among the slain on the Parliament side was Sir William Fairfax. A week after this exploit Brereton and his forces returned to Nantwich. In the scattered but authentic records of the period we get frequent glimpses of him hurrying hither and thither during the dark winter months. In February, 1644-5, the town and castle of Shrewsbury, with the ordnance, arms, and ammunition, and a considerable body of prisoners, surrendered to him, and, as the spring advanced, his forces began to gather by degrees round the castle of Beeston and the city of Chester, which still held out for the King; but news coming that the Princes Rupert and Maurice were approaching to the relief, his men fell back upon Nantwich, and the relieving force of Royalists, having accomplished their object, retired, first plundering Bunbury and burning Beeston Hall. Scarcely had they departed, however, when the siege of Chester was renewed. On the 7th of May the King left Oxford, and marched with his forces in the direction of the city, but when within twenty miles of it Brereton, hearing of his advance, raised the siege and retired into Lancashire. This movement left his Majesty free to commence operations in another direction, and he suddenly appeared before Leicester and carried the town by storm.

On the 14th of June the battle of Naseby was fought—the most decisive and disastrous to the King of all his military engagements—the Royalists losing all their artillery, baggage, the King's private cabinet, and eight thousand stand of arms, while the Parliamentarians were put in possession of nearly all the chief cities of the kingdom. The siege of Bristol followed; on the 9th of September the city was stormed and taken, and victory seemed everywhere to attend the movements of the King's opponents. Charles, who was now at Hereford, resolved on proceeding to Chester, hoping to reach it by a circuitous route over the Welsh mountains, and intending thence to make his way northward by Lancashire and Cumberland, to join Montrose. The march through that wild and inhospitable region occupied five days, the King and his party being exposed the while to many hardships and privations. He had arranged his plans in the full belief that Chester was safe from any meditated attack, but, to his dismay, on approaching the city he found the people in a state of excitement and alarm, Sir William Brereton having collected a powerful body of troops, including the force with which Colonel Jones and the redoubtable Adjutant-general Lowthian had been investing Beeston Castle, and was then preparing to attack it, having, indeed, on the very day his Majesty left Hereford, surprised and possessed himself of the mayor's house, and with it the sword and mace of the corporation, as well as of St. John's Church, Boughton, and some of the eastern suburbs.

On learning the position of affairs, the King ordered Sir Marmaduke Langdale—he who had fought so gallantly at Naseby—to cross the Dee eastwards above Chester, whilst himself, with his guards, Lord Gerard, and the remainder of the horse, would enter the city by the west, intending thus to dislodge the republican soldiers by a simultaneous attack upon their front and rear. But these plans were disconcerted by the unexpected appearance of Major-general Poyntz, who had been following in the King's track, and had advanced from Whitchurch to the help of Brereton's forces.

The King reached the city, on the night of Wednesday, the 24th of September, 1645, Sir Marmaduke Langdale having in the meantime crossed the river at Holt Bridge, and drawn up his men on Rowton Heath, some two miles distant. On the following morning Poyntz came upon the scene, when he was attacked by Langdale and repulsed with considerable loss, but a party of Brereton's men, headed by Colonel Jones and Lowthian, hastened to their assistance, when Langdale was in turn overpowered and compelled to seek shelter beneath the city walls, where the Royal Guards, commanded by the young Earl of Lichfield and the Lords Gerard and Lindsey, were ready to support them. The contest now became fierce and general. From the leads on the Phoenix Tower on Chester walls the ill-fated Charles watched the fluctuating progress of this last effort for the maintenance of the Royal power; amid the broken surges of the battle he saw his own battalions alternately retreating and rallying until at length, overpowered by numbers, they were compelled to retreat, and he saw, too, his gallant kinsman, Bernard Stuart, Earl of Lichfield—the third brother of that illustrious family who had sacrificed their lives in the cause—with many a gentleman besides fall dead at his feet, and all that had hitherto survived of his broken remnant of a host either taken prisoners or driven in headlong rout and ruin from the fatal field. "Thenceforward the King's sword was a useless bauble, less significant than the 'George' upon his breast."

Charles bore his misfortune with a dignity and composure that reminds us of his valorous predecessor, the fifth Harry, when in similar peril.

Chester still held out, and its preservation was of the utmost importance to the Royal cause, for it was the only place at which the King could hope to land the reinforcements expected from Ireland. It was inexpedient, however, for him to incur the risk of being shut up within the beleaguered city, and so at the close of that fatal Thursday when the fight on Rowton Heath was ended, and the grey twilight of the autumn evening was deepening into the sombre gloom of night, the ill-starred monarch—a monarch only in name—accompanied by a small guard and a few faithful followers, passed over the Dee Bridge a fugitive on his way to Denbigh.

Everything which Charles or his friends attempted seemed to bear upon it the impress of a failing or utterly fallen cause. The defeated, powerless, almost friendless monarch was as unsuccessful in the business of diplomacy as he was in that of war; and whatever was indiscreetly planned was sure to be as rashly undertaken. Power had passed from his grasp; but suffering had hardly as yet wreathed its halo round his discrowned brow or

While at Denbigh, whither he had sought refuge on the discomfiture of his troops before Chester, he received the mortifying intelligence that Montrose had been surprised near Berwick by Lesley's steel-clad troopers, and that his men, after a brief but gallant resistance, had laid down their arms on the promise of quarter. All hope from that direction was now at an end, and the idea of moving northwards was abandoned. Turning his steps southwards, the fallen monarch, accompanied by a few broken squadrons, retreated by way of Chirk, Bridgenorth, and Lichfield to Newark: whence the march was continued until the evening of the 5th of November, when the tired fugitives entered the city of Oxford, Charles having, as his affectionate historian writes, "finished the most tedious and grievous march that ever King was exercised in."

On the 16th of November, three weeks after the defeat of the Royalist army on Rowton Heath, the garrison of Beeston, after bravely holding out for well-nigh twelve months, and undergoing the severest privations, surrendered to Sir William Brereton. The loss of the great Cheshire stronghold was a severe blow, but the hopes of Charles had not entirely vanished. Chester still held out, and through the long months of that dreary winter its gallant defenders persistently refused to yield. On the 10th of December Brereton's army was reinforced, in accordance with an order of the Parliament, by the Lancashire forces commanded by Colonel Booth, who were then flushed with their recent successes at Lathom House; but rather than surrender the loyal citizens elected to keep a "Lenten Christmas," and, as the old chronicler has it, "to feed on horses, dogs, and cats." On the 1st of January, 1645-6, Brereton sent a preliminary summons to the governor, Lord Byron,[41] demanding that the city should be immediately given up; but the summons was disregarded; and subsequent demands were treated with the same contumely, until at last, on the 3rd of February, when the brave defenders had become reduced to the last extremity by famine, the city and castle were given up to Brereton, after having withstood a close siege for fully twenty weeks.

The following extract from a letter preserved among the MS. collection of Walker, the historian, of "The Sufferings of the Clergy," in the Bodleian Library, in which the writer, Mr. Edward Seddon, a native of Chester, describing the sufferings his father had to endure during and after the siege, gives a vivid picture of the hardships our forefathers had to face in that great struggle:—

In pursuance of a promise I formerly made in a letter to Mr. Webber, I have here sent you the following account of my most honoured father's sufferings in the late times of rebellion and confusion, wherein, though, perhaps, I may be under some mistakes, in not adjusting every passage to its proper time, or mis-nomen of some persons mentioned in it, yet I have not willingly and knowingly trespas'd upon ye truth in any material part of my relation, which I hope you'l therefore peruse with candour as follows;—The Reverend Mr. William Seddon M.A. of Magdalen Coll. in Camb., being about the year of our Lord 1636, setl'd a preacher in one of ye parish Churches, I think St. Maries in ye City of Chester, was then also possess'd of a Vicarage at Eastham (about six miles distant from ye City, value 68li. per annum), where he liv'd with his wife and family in a very happy condition, till ye Civil Wars breaking out, and ye Parliament forces drawing on to besiege Chester, he was compel'd to withdraw his family and effects into ye City for succour, where his great and good Friend and Pastor, ye Lord Bishop Bridgman, then Lord Bishop of Chester, accomodated him with several rooms and lodgings in his own Palace; and yet the aged Bishop dreading the hardships of a siege, voided the place, leaving my father in his Palace, who continued diligent in his ministry, and frequent Preaching to ye Garrison there. And the City being closely besieg'd and frequently storm'd, my Mother was on ye 12th day of Octob., 1645, delivered of me, her 9th child (all the 9 then living) and said to be ye last yt was publickly baptiz'd in ye Font of yt Cathedral there before ye restoracion in 1660. The City being surrendred upon Articles my Father was shortly apprehended and made Prisoner, and after some short durance was demanded by ye prevailing Powers, why he had not, according to ye Articles of surrender, march'd off with ye Garrison to ye King's Quarters, to which he reply'd, yt he thought his Cassock had vnconcern'd him in those Articles, being a Minister in ye City, but above all he had a wife, and many small children there, which if he could see tolerably dispos'd of he would, not vnwillingly, accept the Articles. But many complaints being made against him, yt he had in his preaching reflected upon the proceedings of the prevailing party, had animated ye Garrison to resist even unto blood, &c., he was remanded to Prison again, and his house permitted to be plunder'd by ye souldiers, who despoil'd him not of his goods only, but of his books and papers, which they exposed to sale at a very low rate; and so by private directions to some of his friends, he repurchas'd some of the most necessary for his own use. But then an order was drawn up to export his wife and children out of ye City to Eastham (which accordingly was done, several of ye younger sort being put into a wagon with other goods which had escap'd the pillage) where though they had only ye bare walls of a Vicarage house to resort to, yet they found a hearty welcome from ye loial part of the parishioners there, amongst whom they dispers'd themselves, and in a short time after, my Father's confinement was somewhat enlarg'd and his escape conniv'd at, which gave him ye liberty of going in quest of his wife and children, whom he found in pretty good circumstances among his loial friends. But another minister (whose name and character I have utterly forgot)[42] being despatch'd with orders from ye ruling powers at Chester to supply the vicarage at Eastham, and a rumour dispsd, yt my father must be apprehended again, and reduc'd as prisoner to Chester, he scamper'd about privately to the houses of ye loyal Gentry, to whom his character and condition were well known, and then despatched a letter to his elder Brother Mr. Peter Seddon of Outwood in Lancashire (ye place of my Father's nativity) who was then, at that rate of ye times, turn'd zealous Presbiterian too, and had a son a Captain in ye Parliament's army, acquainting him with ye storm he was under, and requesting him to cover either all or part of his ffamily, till he could weather ye storm; to which letter ye main of ye answers he had was yt would he conform himself to ye Godly party, his own merits would protect and prefer him, which so incens'd my Father yet he never more held any correspondence with him.[43]

After the reduction of Chester, Brereton was free to turn his attention in other directions. Lichfield surrendered to his arms on the 5th of March; on the 21st of April Tutbury was delivered into his possession; seven days later Bridgewater yielded, and on the 12th of May Dudley Castle was taken. "These, with many other victories," says Rycroft, "hath this valiant knight performed which will to after ages stand a monument to his due praise."

The Parliament was not slow in rewarding him for the important services rendered to the cause. In addition to being made Commander-in-Chief of the Parliament's forces in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, he had conferred upon him the chief Forestership of Macclesfield Forest, as well as the Seneschalship of the Hundred; he received other rewards, too, in the shape of grants of money and lands out of the sequestered estates of "delinquent" Royalists and Papists, and on the termination of the war had bestowed upon him the archiepiscopal palace of Croydon, in which he fixed his residence during the Protectorate.

Brereton, though professedly a Churchman, was notorious for his aversion to the episcopal form of Church government; anxious that his country should enjoy the blessings of the kirk discipline, he busied himself in the brief intervals he could snatch from his military engagements in the direction of the ecclesiastical affairs of his native county, and the accounts and other memoranda preserved in the parish chest of many a village church in Cheshire bear testimony to the suffering and misery inflicted on many a worthy clergyman by his rough and ready method of effecting reforms. Poor William Seddon was not the only one who felt the weight of his displeasure, for the Cheshire parsons had in many instances the mortification of seeing their churches and rectory houses sacked, their livings sequestered, and themselves driven from their flocks and their homes, and, being non-combatants, left powerless to help themselves or their families. Liberty had been clamoured for, but those who clamoured when they got the power, as Fuller says, "girt their own garment closest about the consciences of others." Presbyterianism was as bigoted as Episcopacy, and Independency, which followed, was as intolerant as either.

Brereton lived to see the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles II., but he did not long survive that event, his death occurring at the palace of Croydon, April 7th, 1661. His remains were brought down into Cheshire for interment in the Honford Chapel attached to Cheadle Church, where many of his progenitors lie, but there is no record of his burial there, though curiously enough in the parish register there is an entry of his death at Croydon. As previously stated, there is no memorial of him in the church, and tradition accounts for the absence by the story that while the body was being conveyed to what was intended to be its last resting place a river that had to be forded had become swollen by a storm during the night, and that, when endeavouring to cross, the coffin, with its ghastly occupant, was carried away by the surging waters and never recovered. Whether the deft and inquiring local antiquary will ever discover any genuine metal by the smelting of the rude ore of this old wife's fable remains to be seen.

That Sir William Brereton possessed great natural talents and abilities no one can doubt, for without any proper military training he rapidly rose to distinction, and was incontestably one of the greatest military characters that his county has produced. The exigencies of those times demanded military rather than political celebrities, and Brereton was one of the few men possessing the genius needed. It was the great upheaval in the national life that brought him into prominence and gave him the opportunity, and but for that it is more than probable he would never have attained to any special pre-eminence. His character exhibits a happy blending of adroitness and force, and illustrates in a strong degree the prodigious but coarse energy which marked that unhappy age. His thirst for freedom hurried him into open resistance to prerogative, while his religious feelings deepened into something approaching very nearly to fanaticism. The gospel as exhibited in Presbyterianism, and liberty as exemplified in the Parliament, constituted, in his belief, the cause of God and truth, and this was the secret of his influence. His discernment enabled him to gather around him those in whom the same sentiments were blended—stern, dogged, self-reliant Puritans, who believed in God and in the destinies of their leader—and by the master-power of his energy and zeal he succeeded in moulding them to his will. Clarendon speaks of the devotion of the lower orders to "Sir William Brereton and his companions, and their readiness to supply them with intelligence;" and, though he allows their education had but ill-fitted them for the conduct of a war, praises their execution of "their commands with notable sobriety and indefatigable industry (virtues not so well practised in the King's quarters), insomuch as the best soldiers who encountered with them had no cause to despise them." Brereton shared the opinion which Cromwell expressed to his cousin Hampden that an army of "decayed serving men and tapsters" would never be able to encounter "gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them," and therefore he chose only "such men as had the fear of God before them and made some conscience of what they did." Such enthusiasts knew no fear, and had small respect for rank and power so far as outward demeanour was concerned; they had an ever-present belief that they were doing "the Lord's work," and, whether starving in a fortress or ridden down by men in steel, they would not be moved

Brereton was their chief, but he was their comrade also; if he trained and disciplined them he shared also their hardships, their dangers, and their privations. He was prodigal of his own safety, and his prodigality increased their faith and inspired their confidence, and thus enabled them not only to withstand the reckless daring—the chivalrous bravery of the Cavaliers—but eventually to overcome and scatter those who counted their lives as nothing in defence of their sovereign's cause.

Both Rycroft and Vicars[44] give what purport to be portraits of Brereton, but they are rude and unsatisfactory, and there is a doubt as to their authenticity. An unfriendly hand ("Mysteries of the Good Old Cause," 12mo., 1663, p. 3) has described him as "a notable man at a thanksgiving dinner, having terrible long teeth and a prodigious stomach to turn the archbishop's chapel at Croydon into a kitchen, also to swallow up that palace and lands at a morsel."

The subsequent history of Handforth Hall is soon told, As previously stated, Sir William Brereton lost his first wife—a daughter of Sir George Booth, of Dunham—before the breaking out of the Civil Wars; he again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Cicely, daughter of Sir William Skeffington, of Fisherwick, in Leicestershire, the widow of his former comrade in arms, Edward Mytton, of Weston, in Staffordshire, but as no mention is made of this lady in his will the presumption is that she also predeceased him. At the time of his death there were living four daughters, two by the first and two by the second marriage, and one son, Thomas Brereton, the sole heir, who succeeded to the baronetcy, and who was then married to the Lady Theodosia, youngest daughter of Humble, first Baron Ward, of Birmingham, ancestor of the present Lord Dudley. This Sir Thomas, who was born in 1632, died childless on the 7th of January, 1673, and was buried on the 17th of the same month in the Handforth Chapel, at Cheadle, where there is now a handsome altar tomb to his memory with his recumbent effigy resting thereon. He is represented in the plate armour of the period, with the hands uplifted and conjoined as if in supplication; the figure is bareheaded, with the long-flowing hair characteristic of the later Carolinian period, and the head rests upon a helmet surmounted with a plume of feathers. At one end is a shield, representing the arms of Brereton impaling those of Ward, and on the side are two shields—Brereton with a crescent as a mark of cadency and the badge of baronetcy, and Ward, and between these on a tablet is the following inscription:—

Here Lyeth the Body of Sr Thomas Brereton of Handforth, Barronett, who Married Theodosia Daughter to the Right Honourable Humble Lord Ward and the Lady Frances Barronesse Dudly. hee Departed this Life the 7th of January Anno Dom: 1673

Ætatis SuÆ 43.

With the death of Sir Thomas Brereton the line once so firmly established in Cheshire terminated, and nothing now remains but the old ancestral home, the recollections of the name, and the memories that surround it. After the decease of his widow, who remarried Charles Brereton, and died in childbed, February 23, 1677, frequent disputes respecting the disposition of the estates arose between Nathaniel Booth, of Mottram-Andrew, who claimed as heir under a deed of trust executed in the lifetime of Sir Thomas, and William Ward, the eldest son of Frances Lady Ward, who claimed on the ground of kinship. Eventually they descended to Nathaniel Booth, of Hampstead, heir to Nathaniel Booth, of Mottram-Andrew, who succeeded to the baronetcy, and also to the barony of Delamere. On the 14th of June, 1764, the manor, &c., passed from this Nathaniel by purchase to Edward Wrench, of Chester, and his nephew and heir, Edward Omaney Wrench, sold the same in 1805, to Joseph Cooper, of Handforth, yeoman, whose trustees in turn resold it in 1808 to William Pass, of Altrincham, from whom it was purchased by the late Stephen Symonds, then of Handforth, but subsequently of Broadwater Hall, Worthing, the father of the present rector of Stockport, and James Cunliffe, who held the manor jointly until the dissolution of their partnership in 1875, when it continued in the sole possession of Mr. Symonds until the year 1878, when he resold it to Edward T. Cunliffe, who is the present lord of the manor.

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