Introduction.—The City of Chester under the Britons.—Chester a Roman Colony.—The City a prey to the Danes and Saxons.—Ethelfleda the Amazon.—Chester under the Romans.—The Palatinate Earldom.—Royal Visits to Chester.—The Plague.—The Siege of Chester.

“Rare old city of Chester!” writes Albert Smith in his “Struggles and Adventures of Christopher Tadpole,”—“Rare old city of Chester! Even in these days of rocket-like travelling, a man might fly all over Great Britain and Ireland, with an extra ‘day ticket’ for Berwick-upon-Tweed, before he saw anything half so fine as the mouldering old walls and towers of that venerable city, or looked upon anything half so fair as the prospect of vale and mountain, wooded headland, and spire-pointed plain, that surrounds it.” Well said, friend Albert;—echoed, too, far and wide, by the thousands of visitors who are annually led to seek entertainment within its Walls!

Situate on the northern banks of the River Dee, the deified stream of the Ancient Britons,—built upon, or, as we ought rather to say, built into the solid rock, for the principal streets within the Walls are almost wholly excavations of several feet in depth—the city of Chester stands forth before the world certainly the most curious city in the British Isles, second to none of its fellows in martial strength or historic importance, and as a faithful and enduring relic of the past, “peerless and alone!”

First a settlement of the Ancient Britons—then a colony of imperial Rome—afterwards a favourite city and frequent resort of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs—now the camp and court of Hugh Lupus the Norman, nephew of the Conqueror—then the key to the subjugation of Wales, and to its union with the English crown—ever a city of loyalty and renown,—no admirer of the curious and remarkable, none who seek after the ancient and honourable, should fail to visit and explore the beauties of “rare old Chester.” The eye of the stranger, be he Englishman or foreigner, European or American, will here find an ample and luxuriant field for admiration: the man of taste, who may linger within its Walls, will not depart ungratified; nor will the antiquary search here in vain for some rich and profitable treasures of investigation: in short, such is the antiquity, the peculiarity of Chester, that the stranger who can pass through without bestowing on it some little share of attention, must have a dull and incurious eye indeed.

Before we proceed to point out to the visitor the numerous objects of interest within the city, we must conform to the fashion prevalent in such matters, and, tedious though it may seem, preface our description with a condensed sketch of the

HISTORY OF CHESTER,

Some historians there are who, dealing largely in the marvellous, have attributed to Chester an existence almost coeval with the Flood. Sir Thomas Elyot, for instance, writing about 1520, gravely asserts that the name of the city was originally Neomagus, and so called from its founder Magus, the grandson of Japhet, the son of Noah, who first planted inhabitants in these islands! Were this statement authenticated, Chester would hold the dignified position of the oldest city in the universe; but, credulous as we undoubtedly are on some points, we confess to a modicum of infidelity upon this. It may have been, and from its commanding position doubtless was, one of the earliest settlements of the aboriginal inhabitants, Ancient Britons or otherwise; but farther than this, no historian, desiring to be accurate, can safely go.

Ranulph Higden, a shorn monk of Chester Abbey, attributes to the city a British foundation, namely, from Lleon Gawr, the vanquisher of the Picts, a giant of mammoth size and stature, who built a city here, chiefly underground, hewn out of the rock, and after a rude and disordered fashion. But let the “barefooted friar” speak for himself, from Wynkyn de Worde’s edition of his Chronicle, published A.D. 1495:—

“The Cyte of Legyons, that is Chestre, in the marches of Englonde, towarde Wales, betwegne two armes of the see, that bee named Dee and Mersee. Thys cyte in tyme of Britons, was hede and chyefe cyte of all Venedocia, that is, North Wales. Thys cyte in Brytyshe speche bete Carthleon, Chestre in Englyshe, and Cyte of Legyons also. For there laye a wynter the legyons that Julius Cezar sent for to wyne Irlonde. And after, Claudius Cezar sent legyons out of the cyte for to wynn the Islands that be called Orcades. Thys cyte hath plente of lyveland, of corn, of fleshe, and specyally of samon. Thys cyte receyveth grate marchandyse, and sendeth out also. Northumbres destroyed thys cyte sometyme, but Elfreda, lady of Mercia, bylded it agayn, and made it mouch more.

“In thys cyte ben ways under erth, with vowtes and stone werke, wonderfully wrought, three chambred werkes, grete stones ingrave with old mannes names there in. Thys is that cyte that Ethelfrede, Kyng of Northumberlonde, destroyed, and sloughe there fast by nygh two thousonde monks of the mynster of Bangor. Thys is the cyte that Kyng Edgar cam to, some tyme, with seven Kyngs that were subject to hym.”

The delectable style of building above described is also thus commented upon in that poetical curiosity, the “Lyfe of St. Werburgh,” by Henry Bradshaw, another monk of Chester Abbey, who flourished in sackcloth and ashes sometime previous to 1500:—

The founder of Chester, as saith Polychronicon,
Was Leon Gauer, a mighty strong giant;
Which builded caves and dungeons many a one,
No goodly buildings, ne proper, ne pleasant.
But King Leil, a Briton sure and valiant,
Was founder of Chester by pleasant building,
And of Caerleil also named by the King.

Among the ancient Britons, the city was known from time immemorial as Caerlleon Vawr, and Caerlleon ar Dyfyrdwy, and was certainly with them a city of great importance, long before the advent of the Roman invaders to these shores. Equally certain is it that our primitive forefathers, unable to stem the onward current of the victorious Romans, fled in disorder from the city of Caerlleon (Chester), to the mountain fastnesses of Wales, and there concentrating themselves, defied for many a long and eventful century alike the wiles and encroachments of their enemies.

Chester, resigned to the tender mercies of the conquerors, rapidly lost its first estate;—rising again, however, under the shade of the imperial eagles, like a phoenix from its ashes, to be the chosen camp and colony of the Twentieth Legion of CÆsar. Stirring times were these for old Chester; the rude huts of the Britons, the temples and altars of the ancient Druids, the mud walls and other defences of her former possessors, all vanished like a dream, while in their place arose the proud PrÆtorium, the pagan temples, the stately columns, the peerless masonry, the noble statues, the massive Walls, and all the other elements of civilisation which usually followed in the wake of proud old Rome! Perhaps of the many Roman settlements in Britain, none have retained to our own time so many enduring proofs of their energetic rule as Chester. Surrounded by Walls, which for almost their entire length rest upon Roman foundations,—nay, which still exhibit to the naked eye of truth and time the evident impress of their mechanical genius,—we fancy, while we look thereon, that we see the sturdy warriors pacing to and fro, keeping watch against the enemy; while, within the city, the soldiers and inhabitants are plying the pickaxe, trowel, and spade,—here piling stone upon stone in the erection of a forum, and there planning and building the tesselated floors, the baths, and the sudatories of domestic life. Eighteen hundred years have rolled away since Julius Agricola and his Legion held sway over the city, and yet ever since then, notwithstanding that they have long lain in the dust, scarce a year has passed without the encroachments of the builder, or the researches of the antiquary, bringing to light some long hidden, but valuable relic of this extraordinary people. Time and space alike forbid us to give anything like a summary of the records existing, under our very eyes, of Rome’s sojourn within these walls. Other and more antiquated guide-books have long ago exhausted and worn out these topics of interest, as well as the miserable woodcuts that illustrated them; it only remains therefore for us, in the body of our work, to enumerate a few of the more prominent and accessible of these remains.

But another epoch was now rapidly dawning upon the world. Rome had passed the meridian of her splendour, and she who, so short a time before, was acknowledged mistress of the world, felt the tide of conquest and prosperity visibly ebbing away. Insurrections abroad, divisions, tumults, and murders at home, served but to aggravate and complete her fall. After the departure of the Romans from this island, Chester appears to have been alternately possessed by the Britons, the Saxons, and the Danes; by the latter, however, it was held but a very short period, being restored to the Saxons by the valiant daughter of Alfred the Great, Ethelfleda, the wife of Ethelred, Prince of Mercia. This lady is said to have repaired the city and rebuilt the walls in 907, and, as some affirm, considerably added to their former extent. After her death, the city again fell into the hands of the British princes, from whom it was recovered in 924 by King Egbert, whose death almost immediately followed this event. National affairs were then conducted according to that

good old-fashioned plan,
That they shall take who have the power,
And they shall keep who can.

From this period to the Conquest, Chester has nothing of a tale to tell; but on the accession of William the Conqueror, he created his nephew Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, at the same time investing him with supreme authority throughout the county and city, so that he held as absolute a regal sway within those limits as the king himself had in his dominions. For one hundred and sixty years did Hugh Lupus and his successors, the seven Norman Earls of Chester, exercise their petty sovereignty over the city and county, until the death of Earl John Scot, in 1237, when Henry III. took the earldom, with all the powers annexed to it, into his own hands; and from that period to the present it has been held by the English Crown. The title of Earl of Chester was conferred by Henry upon his eldest son, afterwards Edward I. It has ever since been vested in the reigning monarch’s eldest son, and is now enjoyed by his Royal Highness, Albert, Prince of Wales, the hopeful heir of our beloved Queen.

“In 1255, the Welsh, under their Prince, Llewellyn, made an irruption into this neighbourhood, carrying fire and sword to the very gates of the city. The following year Prince Edward, who had recently been created Earl of Chester, paid a visit to the city, and received the homage of the nobles of Cheshire and part of Wales.” The hostile inroads of Llewellyn remained unrevenged until King Henry, in 1257, summoned his nobility and bishops to attend with their vassals at Chester, in order to invade the Principality.

“In 1272, Edward I. ascended the throne, and soon gave indications of his determination to subject Wales to the English crown. This monarch was at Chester in 1276 and 1277; in the former year he came for the purpose of summoning Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, to do him homage; who having refused to comply, he returned the next year with an army, and marching from Chester, took Rhuddlan castle, and made it a strong fortress. In 1282, we again find Edward I. in the city, where he resided from the 6th of June to the 4th of July. The following year, having been victorious in his expedition against the Welsh, he was at Chester with his Queen, and attended mass in St. Werburgh’s Church, on which occasion he presented the Abbey with a cloth of great value. In September, 1284, the King was at Chester for four days, and again passed through the city in 1294, on his march to Wales, to suppress the rebellion of Madoc.

“In 1312, Edward II. came to Chester to meet Piers de Gaveston, on his return from Ireland.

“In 1399, Henry of Lancaster, in arms against Richard II., mustered his troops under the Walls of Chester, whence, on the 19th of August, he marched for Flint, and returned on the following day with Richard, whom he lodged in a tower over the outer gateway of the castle, opposite to Glover’s Stone, from whence he was conveyed prisoner to London.

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

“On the 13th of July, 1494, Henry VII., with his mother and the Queen, came to Chester with a great retinue, from whence they proceeded to Hawarden; the Earl of Derby, and a number of ‘Chester gallants’ attending.

“The summer of the year 1507, was memorable here from the awful visitation of the ‘sweating sickness,’ which raged for a short time with great violence. It is recorded that 91 householders were carried off in three days by this distemper; but it is worthy of remark, that the female sex were generally exempt from the plague, only four having fallen victims to the disease. Cats and women have each nine lives! In 1517, the sweating sickness again proved fatal to many of the inhabitants; and the city was also infected with the plague, probably to a more serious extent. It is recorded that ‘many died and others fled out of the city, insomuch that the streets were full of grass;’ and ‘that for want of trading the grass did grow a foot high at the Cross, and in other streets of the city.’ In 1550 the city suffered severely from the sweating sickness, and to this affliction was added a great scarcity of provisions; corn selling in Chester at sixteen shillings a bushel. From the year 1602 to 1605, with few intermissions, the dreadful effects of the plague were experienced in the city. It is stated to have begun in the month of September, in the former year, at the house of one Glover, in St. John’s lane, in whose house alone seven persons died. The contagion was particularly fatal in 1603 and 1604; 650 persons died in the former year, and 986 in the latter; at one period 55 died weekly.—During this dreadful visitation, the fairs of the city were suspended, the court of exchequer was removed to Tarvin, and the county assizes were held at Nantwich. The plague had abated in the month of February 1605.”

From this time to 1642 no event of any great importance appears to have transpired. In the autumn of that year, however, the Cestrians found themselves embroiled in the civil war which then broke out in England; and as this was one of the proudest and most memorable epochs in our city’s history, a condensed sketch of the part she and her sons played therein may not be uninteresting.

On the 25th of August, 1642, the commons being then in open rebellion against his majesty, King Charles hoisted his standard at Nottingham, and proclaimed war between himself and the parliament. “Three weeks after this, the king came to Chester, accompanied by a numerous train: the incorporated companies of the city received him and conducted him to the Pentice, where he and his suite were entertained. After the banquet, 200l. were presented to his majesty, and half that sum to the Prince of Wales. On the 28th of September, the king proceeded to Wrexham, escorted by the corporation to the city boundary.

“War being declared, Chester was deemed a place of great importance; and his majesty sent hither Sir Nicholas Byron, with a commission as Colonel-General of Cheshire, and Governor of Chester. A levy of 300 men was ordered by the citizens, independent of the trained bands, and a rate was made for their maintenance. The outworks and entrenchments were carried on with such vigour, that in the beginning of the summer, 1643, the mud walls, mounts, bastions, &c. were all completed, and several effective batteries planted.”

Upon Thursday, the 19th of July, 1643, Sir William Brereton, general of the parliamentary forces, made an assault upon the works, but they were so resolutely defended, that he was beaten off, and forced to retire. On the 11th of November, the town and castle of Hawarden was surrendered to Sir William Brereton, who sent a summons to Chester, requiring the surrender of the city under pain of condign punishment in case of refusal. Governor Byron sent him for answer, that he was not to be terrified by words, but bade him “come and win the city, if he would have it.” The authorities busied themselves in perfecting the defences of the city: three troops of horse were raised, for the maintenance of which the citizens assessed themselves according to their abilities, and converted 100l. worth of the city plate into coin, some of which pieces, stamped with the city arms, still exist in the cabinets of numismatists.

On the 13th of February, 1644, a battle was fought near Boughton, in which the enemy were forced to retire. About 100 of the royalists, chiefly Chester men, fell in this engagement.

On the 19th of September, the parliamentary forces from Beeston Castle advanced to Chester, and immediately transmitted a peremptory summons. Ere an answer could be returned, the enemy made a brisk attack upon the city, but were repulsed with loss: the city walls now constituted the only defence of the besieged. After various skirmishes on each side, the besieging commanders opened a correspondence, which, however, terminated without leading to any result.

“By the end of February, 1645, the enemy had succeeded in surrounding the city, and placed garrisons at Hoole, Rowton, Eccleston, Iron-bridge, Upton, &c. In this position affairs remained until the middle of September, when the garrison were gladdened by the news that the king was on his march for the relief of the city. The exultation of the citizens was beyond all bounds: but there is reason to believe, that in their excess of joy, measures of prudence were grievously neglected.

“On the 27th of September, his majesty, with his guards, and Lord Gerard, with the remainder of the horse, marched into the city, amidst the acclamations of the soldiers and citizens. The condition of the garrison now presented a promising appearance. Sir Marmaduke Langdale, as previously arranged, passed the river at Holt, and marching in the direction of Chester, drew up his forces upon Rowton Heath, about two miles from the city, where, on the afternoon of the same day, the decisive battle took place; the parliamentary forces, under Major-General Poyntz, totally routing the royalists. His majesty, attended by Sir Francis Gamull, and Alderman Cowper, had the mortification to witness the rout of his army from the leads of the Phoenix tower. On the following day the royal fugitive took his departure for Denbigh Castle.”

On the 29th of September, the besiegers effected a breach near the Newgate, and at night made an assault, but were repulsed. On October 7th, the city was surrounded by their horse, and a violent assault made in several places. For a long time the conflict was doubtful; at length the assailants, having gained the top of the Walls, were again beaten off, thrown down, and killed. From this time the parliamentary commander despaired of taking the city by assault, and immediately converted the siege into a close blockade—a high compliment to the gallantry of the inhabitants of Chester.

“The beginning of 1646 found the garrison in want of the common necessaries of life, being so reduced as to be compelled to feed upon horses, dogs, and cats. In this extremity the garrison rejected nine different summonses, nor, till they received assurances that there was no hope of succour, did they answer the tenth. The negotiations occupied six days, when conditions were agreed to—that the garrison should march out with the honours of war, and that all the ammunition, stores, &c. in the castle, be delivered up without injury to the besieging army.

“In conformity with these articles, the brave and loyal city of Chester, which had held out twenty weeks beyond expectation, being reduced by famine to the utmost extremity, was, upon the 3rd of February, 1646, surrendered up to the parliamentary forces. For two years, nothing had been heard but the sound of warlike preparations, and during most of that time the citizens were inclosed within their Walls, the victims of starvation and constant apprehension. The incessant drains upon their property for the maintenance of the garrison, and the support of their fugitive prince, had levelled the different classes of the community to one common condition of beggary. The whole suburbs presented an undistinguishable mass of ruins, while the Walls and edifices within the city were defaced or battered down by the destructive cannon. In addition to this, the city lands were all mortgaged, the funds quite exhausted, the plate melted down, and the churches, particularly St. John’s, being so long in possession of the enemy, greatly damaged.”

From this eventful period down to the present day, saving a few royal visits, no circumstance has occurred of sufficient import to deserve especial mention here. So now, kind reader, having in our own way, and as briefly and modestly as possible, told our historic tale, we will close the present chapter, and in our next be ready to accompany you in your wanderings about the city.