Many are the writers on Cheshire history whose names should be
recorded--men who have loved their county and desired to tell of its
beauties and historical associations. We can only mention a tithe of
those worthy sons who have done honour to their shire, and accomplished
work which has been often little understood or appreciated by their
fellows.
The first of these is a name honoured by all historians, Henry
Bradshaw, a native of Chester and a monk of St. Werburgh’s Abbey, who
lived in the latter part of the fourteenth century. He was one of the
earliest chroniclers of Cheshire, and wrote his works in the cloistered
shade of his monastic house. His works consist of a treatise, _De
Antiquitate et Magnificentiâ Urbis Cestriæ_, and a translation of
“The Holy Lyfe and History of Saint Werburge, very frutefull for all
Christen people to rede.” The first work is believed to have been
lost, unless it is incorporated in the latter treatise, as Dr. Gower
suggested. Perhaps we should have included Henry Bradshaw amongst our
poets, in whose company he well deserves a high and important niche.
His body lies near the shrine of the saint of whose virtues he loved to
sing.
John Booth of Twamlowe, a contemporary of Sir William Brereton, was
a distinguished Cheshire genealogist who occupies a foremost place
amongst the antiquaries of the county. His works have been most useful
to subsequent writers.
John Speed, born at Farndon in 1552, is a writer of whom any county may
be proud. An account of this learned historian has already appeared in
this volume.
The disputes of the learned often cause amusement, and the controversy
between the rival baronets, Sir Peter Leicester and Sir Thomas
Maynwaring of Over Peover, aroused much merriment in 1673-75. Sir
Peter published a learned work in two volumes on the historical
antiquities of Great Britain and more particularly of Cheshire, in
which he asserted that Amicia, daughter of Hugh Keveliock, fifth Earl
of Chester, a descendant of Hugh Lupus, was illegitimate. This aroused
Sir Thomas Maynwaring, whose ancestor had married the said Amicia. He
published a defence of the injured lady. Then Peter wrote an answer to
Sir Thomas’s book, who retaliated with another book. So the controversy
went on, each disputant waxing more wroth, until at last a law-suit
ensued, the result being in favour of the champion of Amicia.
One of the earliest historians of Cheshire was Daniel King, the
author of _The Vale Royal of England, or History of Cheshire_. He was
more skilled in engraving than in writing, and his work was adorned
with plates by Hollar. He was greatly aided by William Smith, _Rouge
Dragon_, William Webb, clerk of the Mayor’s court at Chester, and
William Aldersey, Mayor of Chester. Webb had some pretensions to be
accounted a poet, and wrote “a Discourse on English poetry” in 1586.
King’s _Vale Royal_ was not a great book, but it has served its purpose
in preserving a record of many things which might have been forgotten,
and its engravings and illustrations will always be valuable. An
abridged and revised edition was subsequently published by Thomas
Hughes.
An account of the Randle Holmes--father, son, and grandson--a noted
family of antiquaries, appears in another chapter. Mr. T. Worthington
Barlow, F.L.S., barrister of Gray’s Inn, wrote much on the county; and
we are greatly indebted to his _Historical and Literary Associations of
Cheshire_ for much valuable information which has been useful in the
compiling of this record of Cheshire worthies. Nor must we forget the
interesting diary of the Rev. Edward Burghall, the Puritanical vicar of
Aston, who records with much perspicuity the events of the Civil War
in Cheshire with many “moral reflections.” His animadversions on the
Quakers, who troubled him sorely, are rather amusing reading.
Amongst Cheshire worthies must not be forgotten Sir Richard Sutton,
co-founder with Bishop William Smyth of Lincoln, of Brazenose College,
Oxford, “for the study of Philosophy and Sacred Theology, to the Praise
and Honour of Almighty God,” in 1509. He was born at Prestbury, near
Macclesfield, and was a lawyer, Governor of the Inner Temple, and
Steward of the Monastery of Syon, afterward Sion College. He was the
author of a work entitled _Orcharde of Syon_, but his chief fame rests
on his completion of the foundation of the Oxford College which had
been commenced by the bishop.
Such, then, are some of the worthies of Cheshire. Many others might be
included, but the roll of honour of the county is already lengthy. We
might mention the names of several of the illustrious families of the
shire whose scions still continue to follow in the footsteps of their
forefathers, and have conferred credit on their houses and on their
native county. Some of the great and good men of Cheshire have but
recently passed away, whose names are household words in the Cestrian
land. They need no mention, no memorial, save that which their lives
and good deeds have afforded. The love of the men of Cheshire for their
shire has inspired many an act of daring, much toil, much devotion; may
it continue so to do in the Vale Royal of England.
There is one name more that must be mentioned. He has been denounced
as a “viper of hell,” a “monster of men,” whose bones were dragged
from his tomb in Westminster Abbey and buried beneath the Tyburn
gallows tree. Shall a regicide be mentioned among the worthies? Such
was John Bradshaw, the judge of the Martyr King. He came of a good
Cheshire family, and spent his life in studying law, rising high in
his profession. This is not the place to judge his motives. He was
no time-server, nor was he a universal favourite with his political
colleagues. It is enough for us to note that he was born in Cheshire. A
facsimile of the register of his baptism is shown with the additional
word “traitor” added by a later hand, marking the writer’s detestation
of the man who was called upon to play so prominent a part in the
tragedy of the murder of a king, the chief instrument in the travesty
of justice that ended on the scaffold at Whitehall.
[Illustration:
1602 December 1602 fol 98
John the Sonne of Henrye Bradshawe
of Marple was baptized the: 10^{th}
traitor
]