the eighth century, when the warlike King Offa, passing the Severn with a
mighty force, expelled them from their fruitful seats on the plains, and
reduced the kingdom of Powis to the western side of the celebrated ditch
still known by his name. The princes of Powis were then constrained to
quit their ancient residence at Pengwern and remove to Mathrafel, in the
vale of Myfod, and the plains of Shropshire became a confirmed part of
the kingdom of Mercia. The Britons shortly after entered into an
alliance with the king of Sussex and Northumberland, and, having made a
breach in the rampart, passed the boundary at early dawn, attacked the
camp of Offa in an unprepared state, and put great numbers to the sword.
In the middle of the following century, we find Roderic, Prince of Wales,
added Powisland to his dominions. He, according to the custom of
gavel-kind, divided his principality among his children. To Anarawd he
gave North Wales; to Cadell, South Wales; to Mervyn, Powisland. Each
wore a talaith, or diamond of gold, set with precious stones; whence they
were styled Y Tri Tywysog Taleithiog, or the three crowned princes.
Bleddyn ap Cynoyn, who ruled Wales jointly with his brother, at the
Conquest re-united the kingdoms of North Wales and Powis. The latter,
however, eventually devolved to his eldest son, Meredydd, and Oswestry
was called Trefred, in honour of this prince. He made the division,
which finally destroyed the potent kingdom of Powis. To his eldest son,
Madog, he gave the part which bore afterwards the name of Powis Madog.
Madog’s chief residence was at Oswestry, where, according to Welsh
historians, he built the castle about the year 1140. He died at
Winchester, and his body was honourably conveyed to Powis, and buried at
Myfod. His widow married Fitzalan, Lord of Clun; who, in right of his
wife, obtained the town and castle of Oswestry. This William was a
descendant of Alan, who came into England with the Conqueror, and was the
first of the Fitzalans that was baron of Oswestry. This honourable
distinction was possessed by the Fitzalans, a powerful race, that existed
with fewer checks than common to dignity for more than five hundred
years. The title of Baron of “Oswaldestre” is now held by the Duke of
Norfolk. His ancestor, Thomas Duke of Norfolk, married Lady Mary,
daughter of Henry, the last Earl of Arundel, of the name of Fitzalan, in
the 13th of Elizabeth, when the lordship of Oswestry was conveyed to the
duke. The Powis family subsequently became possessed of the manor.
Powisland extended from the Broxton hills, in Cheshire, to Pengwerne
Powis, or Shrewsbury, including a large tract of land in both those
counties, and also comprehended a considerable portion of Wales. This
part of England, previous to the reign of Edward II., was termed the
Northern Marches, and was governed by a Lord President, who kept his
court at Ludlow Castle, and lived in a style little inferior to that of
royalty.
The town of Oswestry had various immunities and privileges granted by
different monarchs. In the 12th of Henry III. John Fitzalan obtained the
grant of a fair at his manor of Blancminster, upon the eve, the day, and
the day after the feast of St. Andrew, and for two days following.
Edward I. surrounded Oswestry with walls, that it might be less liable to
plundering excursions, and as a key to his intended conquest of Wales. A
murage or toll was imposed upon the whole county (except the burgesses of
Shrewsbury) for the building of the same for a period of six years. The
walls were about a mile in circumference, with an entrenchment on the
outside, which could be filled with water from the numerous springs in
the vicinity. The remains of this fortification may still be traced.
There were also four gates, the only inlets into the town. These gates,
in process of time, became exceedingly inconvenient for the passage of
carriages and merchandise, and the Blackgate was taken down in 1766, by
the consent of Earl Powis, the lord of the manor. In 1782, the
corporation entered into an agreement for the demolition of the three
remaining gates, and appropriating the materials to the erecting of a
prison. This was carried into effect, and pillars substituted in their
stead. The New Gate was built in the reign of Edward II. It was used as
a prison and guard-room for the soldiers. _Beatrice Gate_ is said to
have been named in compliment to Beatrice, wife of Henry IV., and was
probably erected in that king’s reign. _Willow Gate_ or _Wallia Gate_
took its name from being the thoroughfare into Wales.
The governing charter, previous to the date of the municipal act, was one
of 25th Charles II., styling the corporation the “Mayor, Aldermen, Common
Council, and Burgesses, of the Borough of Oswestry, in the County of
Salop,” and appointing a mayor, fifteen aldermen, fifteen common
councilmen, a steward of the lord of the manor, recorder, coroner, or old
mayor, town clerk, &c. The mayor, steward, coroner, and recorder, were
appointed to act as justices of peace for the borough. A court of
quarter sessions for the criminal jurisdiction within the borough was
appointed to be held by the mayor, as president, and one to three of the
magistrates. The boundaries were from the beginning restricted to a
certain district within the parish, and in the maps of the municipal
boundary commissioners they are still further restricted to the more
immediate vicinity of the town. Under the new municipal act, the borough
is divided into two wards, and appointed to be governed by six aldermen
and eighteen councillors, under the usual corporate style. It is
included in schedule A among the boroughs to have a commission of the
peace, which has accordingly been granted. The following is a list of
persons who have served the office of mayor since the new municipal act
came into operation:—1835, John Croxon, Esq.; 1836, Francis Campbell,
Esq.; 1837, Charles Thomas Jones, Esq.; 1838, George Dorsett Owen, Esq.;
1839, Griffith Evans, Esq.; 1840, Thomas Penson, Esq.; 1841, John
Hayward, Esq.; 1842–3, William Williams, Esq.; 1844, William Price, Esq.;
1845, Thomas Rogers, Esq.; 1846, John Miles Hales, Esq.; 1847, Thomas
Hill, Esq.; 1848, John Jones, Esq.; 1849–50, Edward Morris, Esq. The
magistrates who act in the Oswestry district are Joseph V. Lovett, Esq.,
Thomas Lovett, Esq., Richard H. Kinchant, Esq., W. W. E. Wynne, Esq., the
Hon. Thomas Kenyon, and Viscount Dungannon.
_Recorder_: John Robert Kenyon, Esq. _Coroner_: John Miles Hayes, Esq.
_Town Clerk and Clerk to Magistrates_: Richard Jones Croxon, Esq. _Clerk
of the Peace_: Robert Simon, Esq. _Surveyor_: Mr. Thomas Hughes.
_Treasurer_: Mr. George Cooper. _Superintendent of Police and Clerk and
Inspector of Markets_: Mr. Jacob Smith. The police force consists of a
superintendent and six constables. The income of the borough for the
year ending September, 1st, 1850, was £706. 8s. 5d. The principal items
of expenditure were for salaries, £180; police constables and watchmen,
£143; prosecutions, £65; gaol expenses, £144; conveyance of prisoners,
£29; and miscellaneous expenses, £152.
For upwards of two hundred years the Welsh webs were brought to Oswestry,
as the common market, and there bought by the Shrewsbury drapers. The
Welsh wished to draw the trade more into their own country, but the
English purchaser could not be persuaded to follow them, on account of
the unsettled state of the Principality; and thus Oswestry was
constituted an emporium of merchandise, in consequence of its contiguity
to Wales. The “Company of Drapers” in Shrewsbury made a weekly visit to
Oswestry to purchase the cloths. The peril attending these pilgrimages
must have been considerable, if we may judge from an order appearing in
the records of the Shrewsbury corporation, where, in the 25th of
Elizabeth, 1583, it was ordered, that “no draper set out for Oswestry on
Mondays before six o’clock, on forfeiture of 6s. 8d., and that they shall
wear their weapons all the way, and go in company.” The corporation paid
yearly the sum of £20 to the vicar of St. Alkmund for reading prayers;
6s. 8d. for the light; and 6s. 8d. to the clerk for ringing the bell on
Monday mornings, before the drapers set out for Oswestry market. In
1621, it was agreed by the drapers to buy no more cloths in Oswestry.
The then recorder of Oswestry regarded this withdrawment as inevitably
ruinous, and says, “Oswestry flourished and was happy indeed by reason of
the market of Welsh cottons. A thousand pounds in ready money was left
in the town every week, sometimes more; but now, since the staple of
cloth is removed to Shrewsbury, the town is much decayed and
impoverished, Shrewsbury having engrossed the said market.” For the
defence of the rights secured to the burgesses by the various municipal
charters, the members of each trade formed themselves into a guild or
company, whose duties it was to guard the monopolies of the brotherhood.
Thus we have notices of the company of hatters, glovers, butchers,
corvsers, bakers, hucksters, and ale sellers. The charter of Richard II.
directs “that the bailiff should treat as well the poor as the rich, and
that the burgesses within the town and liberty should be quit of tolls
and stallage. That none but burgesses should buy any fresh hides or new
cloth in the borough. That they should not be bound to keep any fugitive
coming to the church or churchyard, except only for one day and one night
next after such flight, within which time they should give notice to the
bailiff of the hundred, who should take such fugitive into custody. That
the burgesses should be discharged from all fees of the constable, usher,
and door-keeper of the castle, for any felonies committed within the
town, for which such burgesses might be imprisoned in the castle, except
that the constable at the feast of St. Stephen should receive from every
mansion of the burgesses one loaf, from every hall one penny, and from
every cottage one halfpenny. That the penalty of 6s. 8d. should be
imposed for selling Shrewsbury ale in the town, half of such fine to go
to the burgesses, and half to the lord. That no such ale should be sold
in the town of Chirkslound, Melverdeley, and Kinnardeley, except in the
town of Chirk, under the like penalty. That none of the inhabitants of
those lordships, or of Oswestry, Edgerley, and Ruyton, should take any
cattle, corn, victuals, or other articles to any foreign fair or market,
until the same had been exposed for sale in the town of Oswestry, under
the penalty of 6s. 8d.” Philip, Earl of Arundel, in the year 1581,
affected an uncommon concern for the well doing of the town, and in a
charter of that date he states “that by the misconstruction of certain
words of the charters theretofore given to the town, several acts which
ought to have been passed by the common council, had been done and
proceeded in by the general voice of all the co-burgesses, whereby
contentions and suits of law were occasioned by such popular governments.
Therefore for the quiet and better ordering of the said town,” he
arbitrarily appoints the mode of election, directs an oath to be taken by
all the burgesses to be loyal and faithful to the Queen’s Majesty, and to
be loving and dutiful to the said earl and his heirs, grants them a
number of privileges, which had been enjoyed, as he states, from time
immemorial, and, with true baronial modesty, not till the close does he
discover the secret of all this paternal affection, by the significant
clause,—“In consideration of all which agreements, and to the intent that
the said bailiffs and burgesses may show their loyalty and good will to
the said noble earl, they do undertake to pay him one bundled pounds.”
In the year 1400 Oswestry was burnt during an insurrection of the Welsh.
After a peaceable submission of upwards of a century, they made an
attempt to regain their ancient independence under the renowned Owain
Glyndwr. Lord Grey had unjustly seized upon some part of Glyndwr’s
estates, which lay between Llangolen and Corwen. Owain sought
satisfaction without having recourse to parliament, but he met with no
redress. He, therefore, animated by his descent from the ancient line of
British princes, caused himself to be proclaimed Prince of Wales on
September 20th, 1400, and commenced his warlike career by attacking his
enemy, Lord Grey, from whom he immediately recovered the lands which that
nobleman had deprived him of. Relying on the valour of his soldiers and
the inaccessible mountains of his country, he set at defiance the whole
power of England. He assembled his forces at Oswestry, in order to join
Lord Percy against the king. The Welsh chieftain sent off his first
division of 4,000 men (an account of which has been noticed in a
preceding page), and at the head of 12,000 men had the mortification of
being obliged to remain inactive at Oswestry. Gough observes, that about
two miles from Shrewsbury, where the Welshpool road diverges from that
which leads to Oswestry, there stands an ancient decayed oak tree, of
which there is a tradition, that Glyndwr ascended it to reconnoitre; but
finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of
Northumberland had not joined his son, Percy, he fell back to Oswestry,
and immediately after the battle retreated precipitately into Wales. In
1409 Glyndwr made great devastations in the Marches, and the estates of
Lord Powis suffered greatly. Several of the officers of the lords of the
Marches, for the sake of preserving their country from the fury of the
Welsh, by their own authority formed a truce with Glyndwr and his
partizans. King Henry, highly indignant at these agreements, immediately
issued writs to the lords of Knockin, Ellesmere, and other bordering
manors, to cause such illegal compacts to be rescinded, and Glyndwr and
his adherents to be pursued and attacked with the utmost vigour. Owain
appears after this to have secured himself in the mountainous districts
of Wales, and to have acted entirely upon the defensive. He died on the
20th of December, 1415.
That dreadful scourge the plague raged in Oswestry in 1559, and continued
throughout the principal part of the year, during which time upwards of
five hundred persons were swept away. About half a mile from the town,
on the Welshpool road, is CROES WYLAN, where a cross formerly stood, the
base of which still remains. During the time of the plague, the market
is said to have been held at this cross, lest the country people by
coming into the town should be infected. The plague again appeared in
Oswestry in 1585, which the parish register states began in March, and
continued until July, when three score and four persons died. The market
for the sale of the flannel webs was held at Knockin until the calamity
abated. In 1542 there was a fire in the town, by which two long streets,
with extensive property, were consumed. In 1567 a fire again broke out
and burnt two hundred houses. The houses were then principally built of
timber. Leland, who passed through Oswestry in the time of Henry VIII.,
says, “There be within the town X notable streates: the iii. most notable
streates be the Cross streate, the Bayly streate, and Newgate streate.
with barns for corn and hay to the number VII. score several barns.
There is a castelle set on a mont, be likelihood made by hand, and
ditched by south west, betwixt Beatrice streate and Willow gate, to which
the wall commith. The towne standeth most by sale of cloth made in
Wales. There goeth thro’ the towne by the Crosse a broke, comming from a
place caullid Simon’s well, a bow-shot without the waulle by N.W. This
broke commith in by the waulle betwixt Willow gate and New-gate, and so
renning through the towne, goith out under the Black-gate. There be no
towers on the waulles beside the gates. The towne is dicked about, and
brokettes ren ynto it. The chirch of St. Oswalde is a very fair leddid
church, with a great tourrid steple, and it standeth without the
New-gate; so that no church is there within the towne.”
THE CASTLE.—The remains of the cattle consist only of an artificial mount
on the north side of the town. It had a deep ditch extending to Beatrice
gate on the one side and Willow gate on the other. According to Caradoc,
the Welsh historian, the castle was founded in 1149, by Madoc, Prince of
Powis. Leland says a tower went by the name of Madoc’s tower, which
seems to confirm the account respecting the founder of the castle. The
English historians, however, assign to it a more ancient date, and inform
us that it was in being before the Norman conquest, and that Alan had the
town and castle bestowed upon him by William the Conqueror soon after his
accession. In the 15th of John, John, nephew of William Mareschall, Earl
of Pembroke, being guardian of the Marches of Wales, was at that time
constituted governor of the castles of Blancminster and Shrawarden, in
the county of Salop. Llewellin, son of Griffin, son of Madoc, made his
complaint to the archbishop of Canterbury against this constable of
Oswestry, for disturbing him in the possession of the third part of the
ville of Ledrot, and who had compelled him to send two young noblemen to
be put to death in an ignominious manner, in derogation of their birth
and extraction, which disgrace their parents would not have undergone for
£300 sterling; also that the constable had twice imprisoned sixty of his
men, for which they were forced to pay 10s. a man for their liberty; also
that when the Welsh came to Oswestry fair, the constable would seize
their cattle by driving them into the castle, and refusing to pay for the
same. The castle and manor continued in the possession of the Fitzalans,
with little interruption until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The square
now called Bailey-head was the _ballium_ or yard of the castle. A mount
in the castle field outside the great ditch is the site of the Barbican,
or the outer gate at which the halt and blind were usually relieved, and
is still called the cripple gate. Within the precincts of the castle
there stood a chapel, dedicated to St. Nicholas, wherein during troublous
times religious services were performed. The castle was garrisoned for
Charles I. in the beginning of the civil wars; a Colonel Lloyd was
governor, Sir A. Shipman succeeded him, and continued in that post until
the town and castle surrendered to the parliamentary forces under the
Earl of Denbigh and General Mytton, the 22nd June, 1644. Gough, in his
manuscript history of Middle, relates, in his own quaint manner, the
assault and capture of Oswestry. “I will speak of some things that have
happened here in my time. The governor of this town, when it was a
garrison for the king, pulled down many houses that were without the
walls, lest they might shelter an enemy; the church also being without
the walls was pulled down, and the top of the steeple only leaving where
the bell frame stood; the bells were brought into the town and the organs
were embezzled after. The town was well fortified, and the castle, which
is but small, yet very strong, built by a Prince of Wales, A.D., 1149.
General Mitton, with parliament forces, came and besieged it; he planted
his cannon near that part of the steeple which was left; he battered the
gate, called Church gate in such sort, that the garrison of soldiers
could not stay at it. General Mitton supposing it was so, but not being
sure of it, sent George Cranage, a bold and daring young man, to see
whether it were so, who took a hatchet in his hand and went to the
drawbridge, and found that the soldiers were gone, and the gate was open,
for the cannon had broken the doors, and this Cranage broke the chains of
the draw bridge with the hatchet, and let it down, so that the soldiers
made haste to enter the town, but those who were within made like haste
to meet them, which Cranage perceiving, and seeing a box of drakes
standing within the gate ready charged, he turned the box of drakes
towards those in the town, and one of Cranage’s partners came with a fire
lock and gave fire to them, which made such slaughter amongst the
garrison that they retreated and fled to the castle. Cranage was well
rewarded, and being well filled with sack, was persuaded by the general
to hang a battau on the castle gate; now a battau is an iron shell as big
as an iron pot; it was filled with powder and wild fire balls, and had a
handle with a hole in it, by which it might be fastened with a nail to
any place. Cranage takes this battau, with a cart nail and a hammer, and
got from house to house into the house next the castle, and then stepping
to the castle gate he fixt his battau, and stepping nimbly back again
escaped without any hurt. The battau burst open the gate.” The inmates
were granted quarter, but the royalists failed notwithstanding several
attempts to regain the town. The castle was shortly afterwards
demolished, and nothing is now to be seen of it but a lofty circular
mount.
About half a mile N.W. from the town of Oswestry is an insulated eminence
of an oblong form, surrounded by two ramparts and fosses of great height
and depth, which in former days was known by the name of _Caer Ogyrfan_
and _Hen Dinas_, but now recognized by the title of OLD OSWESTRY. This
elevation bears the strongest marks of having been at some time a place
of defence; the top is an extensive area containing 15A. 3R. 0P., and the
fortifications which encompass it cannot be less than forty or fifty
acres. A gentleman who visited this spot in 1797 says that a well and
pavement had been discovered here. Some pieces of iron supposed to be
armour had been dug up. The original entrance to this fortification
appears to have been on the opposite side of the hill from the great
Holyhead road. There is strong ground for the belief that this eminence
was the original site of the town, which afterwards took and now bears
the name of Oswestry, and that it was planted there by the ancient
Britons at a very remote period. That it was known to the Britons will
appear evident from the fact of both the names we have mentioned as
having been applied to it being British or Welsh, Caer Ogyrfan signifying
“The Field of Ogyrfan,” who was contemporary with King Arthur, and Hen
Dinas signifying “The Old City.” It is evident that this magnificent
work was not a sudden operation like that of a camp, but that it was a
work of immense labour and ample security. The character of the
elevation answers to the description given of the position of ancient
British towns. They are said almost always to have been placed on a
hill, and Speed tells us that the Britons “gave the name of townes to
certain combersome woods which they had fortified with ramparts and
ditches, whither they resort and retreat, to eschue the invasion of their
enemies, which stand them in good stead, for when they have by felling
trees mounted and fenced therewith a spacious plot of ground, there they
build for themselves houses and cottages.” In 1767 as much timber was
cut down from the ramparts as sold for £17,000.