In the western porch beneath the tower of Prestbury Church are a number of fragments of broken grave-slabs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On nearly all is carved a cross, the head of which is usually enclosed within a circle, the ends of the limbs of the cross consisting of a triple lily, the favourite emblem of the Norman sculptors. One only of these fragments tells us over whose remains the slab was placed. An inscription, in which the letters VIVYN D are clearly seen, tells us that this fragment formed part of the tombstone of Vivian Davenport, Chief Forester of the Forest of Macclesfield. Hunting was the favourite sport of the Normans, and in Cheshire, as elsewhere, large tracts of forest land were enclosed for the protection of deer and game, and the amusement of the Norman knights. The Conqueror himself set the example by making the New Forest in the south of England, and shortly afterwards the Earl of Cheshire enclosed the Forests of Mara or Delamere in the west and Macclesfield in the eastern part of the county.

The forest laws were very strict. William the Conqueror did not indeed punish offenders with death, but he ordained that 'whoso slew hart or hind man should blind him, that none should touch the harts or the wild-boars, and he made the hare go free. So mightily did he love the high deer as though he were their father. His rich men bewailed it and the poor murmured at it, but he was so stark he recked not of them all.' The forest laws of Rufus were far more severe, and caused fierce hatred among his poorer subjects. The forests became the haunt of robbers and outlaws, who clothed themselves in suits of 'Lincoln green', the better to escape being seen in the greenwood. Foresters were appointed, whose duty it was to hunt out these lawless and rebellious men, as well as to preserve the game of the forest.

Hugh Lupus made John Done of Utkinton and his heirs Chief Bowbearer and Forester of his Forest of Delamere. The Dones had the right to kill deer and game, take swarms of wild bees, the fallen trees, and such small game as 'foxes, hares, weasels, and other like vermin'; their badge of office was a black bugle horn tipped with gold. Their hunting-seat or 'Chamber in the Forest' was served by ten keepers and two woodsmen. Some of their descendants were buried at Tarporley, and on one of the tombs you may see the badge of the bugle carved.

Earl Richard, the successor of 'the Wolf', married Matilda, niece of King Henry I and a daughter of Stephen of Blois. He was drowned with his wife on his return from France when the ill-fated White Ship went down in 1119.

The next earl was Randle of Meschines. He was one of King Henry the First's chief fighting-men, and led the van at the Battle of Tinchebrai against the king's elder brother Robert.

His son, Randle the Second, played a great part in the civil war of King Stephen's reign. Stephen was quite unable to curb his barons as his predecessors had done, and the Earl of Chester was unruly and ambitious. In addition to his Earldom of Cheshire, he had succeeded to vast estates in Lincoln and the Midlands. His power and influence was so great that he ruled over an extent of country hardly smaller than the ancient Earldom of Mercia. Stephen refused to add the city of Carlisle to the already numerous possessions of the earl, who in anger declared himself on the side of Stephen's rival Matilda when she took up arms, and became one of Stephen's most bitter and active enemies.

The king took Randle prisoner by a stratagem, and the monks of Pulton Abbey were commanded to pray for the earl's safety. When at length he was set free, the earl in a moment of gratitude gave the monks permission to fish the waters of the Dee, and freed them from the toll which they were accustomed to pay for grinding their corn in the Dee Mills at Chester. Under the Norman rule the use of handmills, such as the Saxons had used, was strictly forbidden, and everybody had to send his corn to be ground in the mill belonging to his lord.

When the Welsh heard of the earl's captivity they took advantage of his absence and ravaged the county of Cheshire, but were defeated in a battle at Nantwich in 1146 by Robert of Montalt.

Randle died in the same year as King Stephen, and was succeeded by Hugh Kyvelioc. This second Earl Hugh enclosed large stretches of forest-land in East Cheshire, and gave the chief forestership to Richard Davenport. It is Richard's grandson Vivian whose grave-slab we have seen in the church at Prestbury.

To Vivian Davenport's office was also joined the office of Hereditary Grand Serjeant of the Hundred of Macclesfield. The Grand Serjeant received twelve pounds six shillings and eightpence a year, and a fee of two shillings and a salmon for the capture of a master-robber, and one shilling for a common thief. Human life was held cheap in those days. The robbers when caught were beheaded, and their heads sent to Chester, where they were publicly shown as a warning to others. Descendants of the Davenports live now at Capesthorne, and their peculiar crest, a robber's head with a rope round the neck, recalls the gruesome duties of their ancestors.

A portion of the Forest was held by the Venables in return for providing thirty-three huntsmen on hunting days. The Downes of Taxal held their land more cheaply on the northern limits of the Forest, which is now Lyme Park, 'by the blast of a horn on Midsummer Day and one pepper-corn yearly.' Near Overton is a spot still called Gallows Yard, where the Downes had power to execute robbers and criminals. In Lyme Park you may see to this day the red deer that are descended from their wild ancestors of Macclesfield Forest.

When Hugh Kyvelioc was Earl of Chester, Henry the Second ruled England and the greater part of France. He also received at Chester the homage of the King of Scotland. But in the later years of his reign he found it hard to keep together the widely scattered parts of his empire. Rebellions were frequent, and his wife, his sons, and his barons all took up arms against him. Among his discontented barons none was more unruly than Hugh Kyvelioc, who stirred up Brittany against Henry, but he was captured in battle and brought to England. In the great rising of 1173 Geoffrey of Costantin, one of Henry's sons, held the castle of Stockport against the king. Not a stone of this castle is to be seen now, but it stood in the highest part of the town near the Parish Church.

After Hugh Lupus, the greatest of the Earls of Chester was Randle the Third, or Randle Blundeville. Like his predecessors, he was constantly engaged in fighting against the Welsh, on one occasion being besieged in Rhuddlan Castle until he was relieved by a rabble of vagabonds hastily gathered from Chester Fair. This Randle was earl for over fifty years, and was high in favour with three successive kings of England whom he steadfastly supported. Henry the Second gave him in marriage his own daughter-in-law, Constance, the widow of his son Geoffrey. The English historian, Matthew Paris, says that the earl carried the crown at the coronation of Richard the First, and he was present at the signing of the Great Charter by King John, whose side he took in the quarrel with the barons.

The earl ruled Cheshire wisely, favouring especially the towns in his earldom. To Chester, Macclesfield, and Stockport he gave charters by which these towns were freed from certain payments and duties, and were permitted to govern themselves under a mayor of their own choosing. In the new Town Hall of Stockport is a stained glass window commemorating the earl's grant to his baron Sir Robert de Stokeport of the town's first charter of freedom.

His gifts to the Church and the founding of abbeys won for him the title of the 'Good' earl. He did not neglect the poor, for he built and endowed the hospital of S. John, near the North Gate of Chester, for the support of thirteen poor people, with three chaplains to minister to their religious needs. At Boughton, outside the city walls, he founded a hospital for lepers, whose terrible disease was brought to this country by travellers returning from Eastern lands.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries men's minds were deeply stirred by the hardships and cruelties put upon pilgrims to the Holy Land. Men of every Christian land and race joined in the Crusades or Holy Wars to win back Jerusalem, which had fallen into the hands of the Saracens, enemies of the Christian faith. Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, came to Chester and preached from the High Cross the duty of all Christian men to rescue the Holy City and the Holy Sepulchre from the power of the unbelievers. Crowds flocked to hear him, and he did not preach in vain. Men of all classes dedicated their lives or their wealth to the service of the Cross. King and baron, soldier and priest, rich and poor alike put on the sign of the Cross, and sailed to the Holy Land, where they vied with one another in deeds of chivalry and valour.

Randle Blundeville joined the Crusades in 1219, and set out with a number of other English knights for Jerusalem. He distinguished himself greatly in Egypt, and when he returned the fame of his brave deeds made him a popular hero, and his adventures were recited or sung in many a stirring ballad.

The stone effigy of Sir William Boydell in Grappenhall Church will give you some idea of a crusading warrior. He is clad in chain armour with a plain surcoat. His legs are crossed, a sign perhaps that he had taken the vows of the Cross, and his head rests on his helmet. A shield is on his left shoulder, by his left side a sword.

Many Crusaders bound themselves by sacred vows and joined different 'Orders' or companies to which the names Knights Templars, Knights Hospitallers, or Knights of Saint John, and so on, were given. The last-named founded a house where the brethren of the Order might live in their old age at Fulshaw, near Wilmslow.

When Randle returned to Cheshire he built in the heart of his earldom the strong castle of Beeston, on the summit of Beeston Rock, from whose walls he could survey nearly every portion of the county over which he ruled. He entertained Henry the Second at Chester Castle when Henry made an expedition against the Welsh, the troops encamping on Saltney marshes. Henry the Second had high views of the duties of kingship, and was always busily occupied at home or in his continental dominions. But Cheshire saw little or nothing of his son Richard, greatest of all Crusaders, for he spent the greater part of his reign seeking adventures abroad, and left his people to take care of themselves.

Earl Randle lived long enough to see the boy king Henry the Third dismiss his guardians and rule on his own account. Almost his last act was to refuse to allow the clergy of Cheshire to pay the tenth part of their incomes to the pope to aid him in his private wars. In 1232 he died, and was buried with his forefathers in the Abbey Church of Chester.