SAXONS AND ANGLES COME TO CHESHIRE
As the Romans retreated southwards, tribes of Picts, a fierce race
inhabiting the northern parts of Britain followed in their wake
plundering and destroying the cities built by the Romans, and everywhere
falling upon the defenceless Britons. We know little of the doings of
this terrible time, for with the departure of the Romans there descended
upon Britain a veil of darkness that was not to be lifted for 150 years.
In the latter part of the fifth century the tide of Pictish invasion was
rolled back by other races who landed on our southern and eastern
coasts. These were the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, the rude forefathers
of the English people, who left their homes in Northern Germany to make
new settlements and found kingdoms in our country. You will read
elsewhere of the long and gradual conquest of England by these barbarian
invaders. 'Field by field, town by town, forest by forest, the land was
won' from the British inhabitants.
According to the story usually told, though I am obliged to admit that
we have very strong evidence for it, it was not until the year 584 A.D.
that any of them reached the part of the country that is now Cheshire.
By that time the West Saxons, one of the most powerful of these tribes,
had fought their way from the English Channel to the River Severn and
Shropshire, where they destroyed the great Roman city of Uriconium.
Under their leader Ceawlin they appear to have made an attempt to reach
Chester, but were met near Nantwich at a spot called Fethanleagh, now
probably the modern village of Faddiley, by Brocmael, Prince of Powys or
mid-Wales. The Saxons were routed and retired quickly to the South.
Chester was saved for a time and became the capital of the Welsh kingdom
of Gwynedd.
Thirty years later, however, a greater than Ceawlin appeared before the
walls of the Roman city. The Angles, who had founded on our
north-eastern shores the powerful kingdom of Northumbria, crossed the
Pennine Hills under their leader and king Aethelfrith, and descended
upon Cheshire. Once more Brocmael put himself at the head of the Britons
and Welsh. We are told by Bede, the earliest of our English historians,
who wrote in the succeeding century, that 1,200 monks from a great
monastery at Bangor-Iscoed on the Dee accompanied Brocmael after a fast
of three days to the battlefield to offer up prayers for victory.
Aethelfrith watched the wild gestures of the monks and bade his
followers slay them first of all. 'Bear they arms or no,' he said, 'they
fight against us when they cry against us to their God.' Brocmael left
them to their fate and fled from the battle, which ended in the utter
defeat of the Britons.
The victory of Aethelfrith was followed by the capture of Chester, and
Cheshire became a portion of a kingdom that stretched from the Tweed to
the Dee. But the most important result of the 'Battle of Chester' was
that the northern Welsh Britons or 'Cumbrian' Welsh were now completely
cut off from their kinsmen in Wales. Everywhere the conquered Britons
were driven northwards and westwards to the mountains of Cumberland or
Wales, and the Britons as a united nation ceased to exist.
For forty years Cheshire was ruled by Northumbrian kings, but during the
latter part of this period another kingdom was gathering strength in the
Midlands of England. This was the kingdom of Mercia or the Marchland.
The Mercian Penda defeated the Northumbrian king and added Cheshire to
the lands over which he ruled. Mercia and Cheshire were frequently
raided by the Welsh, and it was to keep them out that Offa, greatest of
the Mercian kings, built his famous 'Dyke' from Chester to South Wales,
many portions of which you may trace to this day.
Mercia in turn was conquered by the kings of Wessex, one of whom,
Ecberght, is usually styled the first king of all England. Ecberght and
his West Saxons overran Cheshire and captured the city of Chester in
the year 828. Thus did three kingdoms strive for the possession of
Cheshire, which from its central position must have been the scene of
many an unrecorded fight.
Numbers of Cheshire villages show by their names their Anglo-Saxon
origin. Davenham, Frodsham, and Warmingham speak to us of the 'hams' or
homesteads that the Saxons made for themselves in their newly won lands.
Bebington, Bollington, and Congleton take their names from the 'tun',
the enclosure or hedge of a farm or village; Prestbury, Marbury, and
Astbury from the 'burh' or fortified house of the headman of a tribe.
[Illustration: RUNIC STONE, UPTON]
Goostree is perhaps the 'God's tree' where the land was parcelled out
among the villagers and punishment meted to wrong-doers; Thurstaston, or
the tun of Thor's stone, the place of sacrifice to their heathen god
Thor.
The ash tree gives its name to several Cheshire villages, Ashton,
Ashley, Astbury, for instance. This fact tells us that the tree was held
in great veneration by the Angles and Saxons. Even to this day the tree
is thought to possess the power of bringing good or evil. A
superstitious Cheshire labourer will not, if he can help it, cut down an
ash tree for fear it should bring him misfortune, and churn staves made
of ash are used by farmers' wives to prevent the butter from being
bewitched.
It is in fact from the Angles and Saxons that we have inherited the
priceless possession of our English tongue. The oldest traces of our
language in a written form in Cheshire may be seen in the Grosvenor
Museum at Chester. Here on a plaster cast is an inscription written in
strange letters, 'Runes' or 'mysteries' as they are called. This cast is
a copy of an inscribed stone discovered at Upton-in-Wirral when the old
church was pulled down. The stones of this building had previously been
taken from the ancient ruined church at Overchurch. Learned scholars
examined the stone carefully and made out these words: FOLCAE AREARDON
BEC[UN]. [GI]BIDDATH FOR ATHELMUND. The meaning is 'Folk reared tomb,
bid (i.e. pray) for Athelmund'. You can see that the words are English,
though their form has changed considerably during the 1,200 years or
more that have gone by since the runes were carved.
Fierce and bloodthirsty were these early ancestors of ours, 'hateful
alike to God and men,' as Gildas, a Welsh monk, described them. Yet even
they were taught in time to abandon their strange gods and turn to the
worship of Christ, and through the land in town and village uprose a
cross of wood or stone, the outward symbol of a new and better faith.