THE EARLS OF THE COUNTY PALATINE
In the western porch beneath the tower of Prestbury Church are a number
of fragments of broken grave-slabs of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. On nearly all is carved a cross, the head of which is usually
enclosed within a circle, the ends of the limbs of the cross consisting
of a triple lily, the favourite emblem of the Norman sculptors. One only
of these fragments tells us over whose remains the slab was placed. An
inscription, in which the letters VIVYN D are clearly seen, tells us
that this fragment formed part of the tombstone of Vivian Davenport,
Chief Forester of the Forest of Macclesfield. Hunting was the favourite
sport of the Normans, and in Cheshire, as elsewhere, large tracts of
forest land were enclosed for the protection of deer and game, and the
amusement of the Norman knights. The Conqueror himself set the example
by making the New Forest in the south of England, and shortly afterwards
the Earl of Cheshire enclosed the Forests of Mara or Delamere in the
west and Macclesfield in the eastern part of the county.
The forest laws were very strict. William the Conqueror did not indeed
punish offenders with death, but he ordained that 'whoso slew hart or
hind man should blind him, that none should touch the harts or the
wild-boars, and he made the hare go free. So mightily did he love the
high deer as though he were their father. His rich men bewailed it and
the poor murmured at it, but he was so stark he recked not of them all.'
The forest laws of Rufus were far more severe, and caused fierce hatred
among his poorer subjects. The forests became the haunt of robbers and
outlaws, who clothed themselves in suits of 'Lincoln green', the better
to escape being seen in the greenwood. Foresters were appointed, whose
duty it was to hunt out these lawless and rebellious men, as well as to
preserve the game of the forest.
[Illustration: Latin Cross, prob. c. 1180
Norman Floriated Cross, c. 1200
Double Floriated Cross on Grave-slab of Vivian Davenport, c. 1240
GRAVE-SLABS AT PRESTBURY]
Hugh Lupus made John Done of Utkinton and his heirs Chief Bowbearer and
Forester of his Forest of Delamere. The Dones had the right to kill deer
and game, take swarms of wild bees, the fallen trees, and such small
game as 'foxes, hares, weasels, and other like vermin'; their badge of
office was a black bugle horn tipped with gold. Their hunting-seat or
'Chamber in the Forest' was served by ten keepers and two woodsmen. Some
of their descendants were buried at Tarporley, and on one of the tombs
you may see the badge of the bugle carved.
Earl Richard, the successor of 'the Wolf', married Matilda, niece of
King Henry I and a daughter of Stephen of Blois. He was drowned with his
wife on his return from France when the ill-fated White Ship went down
in 1119.
The next earl was Randle of Meschines. He was one of King Henry the
First's chief fighting-men, and led the van at the Battle of Tinchebrai
against the king's elder brother Robert.
His son, Randle the Second, played a great part in the civil war of King
Stephen's reign. Stephen was quite unable to curb his barons as his
predecessors had done, and the Earl of Chester was unruly and ambitious.
In addition to his Earldom of Cheshire, he had succeeded to vast estates
in Lincoln and the Midlands. His power and influence was so great that
he ruled over an extent of country hardly smaller than the ancient
Earldom of Mercia. Stephen refused to add the city of Carlisle to the
already numerous possessions of the earl, who in anger declared himself
on the side of Stephen's rival Matilda when she took up arms, and became
one of Stephen's most bitter and active enemies.
The king took Randle prisoner by a stratagem, and the monks of Pulton
Abbey were commanded to pray for the earl's safety. When at length he
was set free, the earl in a moment of gratitude gave the monks
permission to fish the waters of the Dee, and freed them from the toll
which they were accustomed to pay for grinding their corn in the Dee
Mills at Chester. Under the Norman rule the use of handmills, such as
the Saxons had used, was strictly forbidden, and everybody had to send
his corn to be ground in the mill belonging to his lord.
When the Welsh heard of the earl's captivity they took advantage of his
absence and ravaged the county of Cheshire, but were defeated in a
battle at Nantwich in 1146 by Robert of Montalt.
Randle died in the same year as King Stephen, and was succeeded by Hugh
Kyvelioc. This second Earl Hugh enclosed large stretches of forest-land
in East Cheshire, and gave the chief forestership to Richard Davenport.
It is Richard's grandson Vivian whose grave-slab we have seen in the
church at Prestbury.
To Vivian Davenport's office was also joined the office of Hereditary
Grand Serjeant of the Hundred of Macclesfield. The Grand Serjeant
received twelve pounds six shillings and eightpence a year, and a fee of
two shillings and a salmon for the capture of a master-robber, and one
shilling for a common thief. Human life was held cheap in those days.
The robbers when caught were beheaded, and their heads sent to Chester,
where they were publicly shown as a warning to others. Descendants of
the Davenports live now at Capesthorne, and their peculiar crest, a
robber's head with a rope round the neck, recalls the gruesome duties of
their ancestors.
A portion of the Forest was held by the Venables in return for providing
thirty-three huntsmen on hunting days. The Downes of Taxal held their
land more cheaply on the northern limits of the Forest, which is now
Lyme Park, 'by the blast of a horn on Midsummer Day and one pepper-corn
yearly.' Near Overton is a spot still called Gallows Yard, where the
Downes had power to execute robbers and criminals. In Lyme Park you may
see to this day the red deer that are descended from their wild
ancestors of Macclesfield Forest.
When Hugh Kyvelioc was Earl of Chester, Henry the Second ruled England
and the greater part of France. He also received at Chester the homage
of the King of Scotland. But in the later years of his reign he found
it hard to keep together the widely scattered parts of his empire.
Rebellions were frequent, and his wife, his sons, and his barons all
took up arms against him. Among his discontented barons none was more
unruly than Hugh Kyvelioc, who stirred up Brittany against Henry, but he
was captured in battle and brought to England. In the great rising of
1173 Geoffrey of Costantin, one of Henry's sons, held the castle of
Stockport against the king. Not a stone of this castle is to be seen
now, but it stood in the highest part of the town near the Parish
Church.
After Hugh Lupus, the greatest of the Earls of Chester was Randle the
Third, or Randle Blundeville. Like his predecessors, he was constantly
engaged in fighting against the Welsh, on one occasion being besieged in
Rhuddlan Castle until he was relieved by a rabble of vagabonds hastily
gathered from Chester Fair. This Randle was earl for over fifty years,
and was high in favour with three successive kings of England whom he
steadfastly supported. Henry the Second gave him in marriage his own
daughter-in-law, Constance, the widow of his son Geoffrey. The English
historian, Matthew Paris, says that the earl carried the crown at the
coronation of Richard the First, and he was present at the signing of
the Great Charter by King John, whose side he took in the quarrel with
the barons.
The earl ruled Cheshire wisely, favouring especially the towns in his
earldom. To Chester, Macclesfield, and Stockport he gave charters by
which these towns were freed from certain payments and duties, and were
permitted to govern themselves under a mayor of their own choosing. In
the new Town Hall of Stockport is a stained glass window commemorating
the earl's grant to his baron Sir Robert de Stokeport of the town's
first charter of freedom.
His gifts to the Church and the founding of abbeys won for him the title
of the 'Good' earl. He did not neglect the poor, for he built and
endowed the hospital of S. John, near the North Gate of Chester, for the
support of thirteen poor people, with three chaplains to minister to
their religious needs. At Boughton, outside the city walls, he founded a
hospital for lepers, whose terrible disease was brought to this country
by travellers returning from Eastern lands.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries men's minds were deeply stirred
by the hardships and cruelties put upon pilgrims to the Holy Land. Men
of every Christian land and race joined in the Crusades or Holy Wars to
win back Jerusalem, which had fallen into the hands of the Saracens,
enemies of the Christian faith. Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, came
to Chester and preached from the High Cross the duty of all Christian
men to rescue the Holy City and the Holy Sepulchre from the power of the
unbelievers. Crowds flocked to hear him, and he did not preach in vain.
Men of all classes dedicated their lives or their wealth to the service
of the Cross. King and baron, soldier and priest, rich and poor alike
put on the sign of the Cross, and sailed to the Holy Land, where they
vied with one another in deeds of chivalry and valour.
Randle Blundeville joined the Crusades in 1219, and set out with a
number of other English knights for Jerusalem. He distinguished himself
greatly in Egypt, and when he returned the fame of his brave deeds made
him a popular hero, and his adventures were recited or sung in many a
stirring ballad.
The stone effigy of Sir William Boydell in Grappenhall Church will give
you some idea of a crusading warrior. He is clad in chain armour with a
plain surcoat. His legs are crossed, a sign perhaps that he had taken
the vows of the Cross, and his head rests on his helmet. A shield is on
his left shoulder, by his left side a sword.
Many Crusaders bound themselves by sacred vows and joined different
'Orders' or companies to which the names Knights Templars, Knights
Hospitallers, or Knights of Saint John, and so on, were given. The
last-named founded a house where the brethren of the Order might live in
their old age at Fulshaw, near Wilmslow.
When Randle returned to Cheshire he built in the heart of his earldom
the strong castle of Beeston, on the summit of Beeston Rock, from whose
walls he could survey nearly every portion of the county over which he
ruled. He entertained Henry the Second at Chester Castle when Henry made
an expedition against the Welsh, the troops encamping on Saltney
marshes. Henry the Second had high views of the duties of kingship, and
was always busily occupied at home or in his continental dominions. But
Cheshire saw little or nothing of his son Richard, greatest of all
Crusaders, for he spent the greater part of his reign seeking adventures
abroad, and left his people to take care of themselves.
[Illustration: EFFIGY OF CRUSADER: GRAPPENHALL]
Earl Randle lived long enough to see the boy king Henry the Third
dismiss his guardians and rule on his own account. Almost his last act
was to refuse to allow the clergy of Cheshire to pay the tenth part of
their incomes to the pope to aid him in his private wars. In 1232 he
died, and was buried with his forefathers in the Abbey Church of
Chester.