In that memorable struggle which convuls_Historic Sites of Lancashire and Cheshire A Wayfarer's Notes in the Palatine Counties, Historical, Legendary, Genealogical, and Descriptive.

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 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men were suddenly withdrawn from the plough, the anvil, and the loom;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.

[Illustration: NANTWICH.]

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

When fanatic Brooke

The fair cathedral stormed and took,

But, thanks to heaven, and good St. Chad,

A guerdon meet the spoiler had.

Hearing of the attack on

Moated Lichfield's lofty pile,

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,

[Illustration: Handwritten signature]

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--

The noblest Roman of them all,

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:

li s d

Itm. When Sr William Brereton Kt. marched wth his fforces

towardes Yorke there was quartered wth mee Seaven score

horse whereby I was dampnified 8 0 0

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 13 6 8

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.

On Marston Heath

Met front to front, the ranks of death;

Flourished the trumpets fierce, and now

Fired was each eye, and flushed each brow;

On either side loud clamours ring,

"God and the cause!"--"God and the King!"

Right English all, they rushed to blows

With nought to win and all to lose.

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.

Upon his royal face there is no note

How dread a peril hath enrounded him;

Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour

Unto the weary and all-watched night;

But freshly looks, and overbears attaint,

With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty.

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

Lent his life the dignity of woe.

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, accommodated 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."

Thus restless souls send to eternall rest!

And active spirits in a righteous way

Find peace within, though much with war opprest;

This bravest Brereton of his name could say.

And now triumps, maugre those Nimrods dead,

_Aston_, _Capell_, _Byron_, and _Northampton_ dead.

The slaughter'd Irish, and his native soile

Now quiet show his courage, love, and toile.

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

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

With dread of death to flight or foul retreat.

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.

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM BRERETON.]

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.

[Illustration: THE "SWAN," NEWBY BRIDGE.]

Historic Sites of Lancashire and Cheshire A Wayfarer's Notes in the Palatine Counties, Historical, Legendary, Genealogical, and Descriptive. · 第 6 / 13 章

In that memorable struggle which convulsed the kingdom and drenched