A DEPOSED KING
When Edward the First completed his conquest of North Wales, and the
Welsh chiefs swore fealty at Chester to the first English Prince of
Wales, the fighting squires of Cheshire found themselves without any
occupation. Edward the Third, ambitious of recovering the French
dominions of the Norman and Angevin Kings of England, provided the
Cheshire men with a fresh field of adventures, with far greater
opportunities of performing deeds of valour and satisfying their thirst
for warfare.
A number of Cheshire knights followed the king and the Black Prince to
France. The French Chronicler, Froissart, tells us that Sir James Audley
and his four Cheshire squires 'fought always in the chief of the battle'
at Poitiers. One of the four squires was Sir John Delves, who built the
old tower of Doddington Castle, near Audlem. In Barthomley Church is a
monument to Sir Robert Fulleshurst, who also was one of the dauntless
four.
In the chancel of Bunbury Church is the tomb of Sir Hugh Calveley, who,
by his bold deeds, won for himself the title of the 'Cheshire Hero'.
Over the doorway of the inn at Handley you may see the sign of the three
calves, the ancient coat of arms of the Calveleys. Sir Hugh was the
leader of a famous band of soldiers called the 'Companions', who gave
their services for pay to any leader who required them, and were the
terror of the country people of France for many years. Edward made him
the Governor of Calais, from whence he sacked the seaport of Boulogne,
and treated the inhabitants with great cruelty. Indeed, many of his
exploits are anything but deeds of glory.
When Sir Hugh Calveley returned in his old age to his home in Cheshire,
wishing to atone, perhaps, for his ruthless acts, he founded a college
at Bunbury for a master, two chaplains, and two choristers. Their chief
duty, no doubt, was to pray for the repose of the soul of their
benefactor.
Cheshire knights and Welshmen fought side by side at Poitiers. When the
Black Prince returned to England he gave the Dee Mills for life to Sir
Howell y Fwyall.
An inscription on the wall of the Parish Church of Macclesfield tells us
that Perkin a Legh 'serv'd King Edward the Third and the Black Prince
his sonne in all their warres in France, and was at the Battell of
Cressie, and hadd Lyme given him for that service'. The descendants of
the Leghs still live at Lyme Hall, near Disley, where a life-size
portrait of the Black Prince hangs in the entrance hall. Sir Perkin
married the daughter of Sir Thomas d'Anyers, who received a handsome
reward for rescuing the Royal Standard at Crecy from the French. His
body lies beneath the d'Anyers monument in Grappenhall Church.
The same inscription at Macclesfield tells us that Perkin a Legh 'serv'd
King Richard the Second, and left him not in his troubles, but was taken
with him and beheaded at Chester'.
Cheshire was very loyal to the unfortunate Richard, who styled himself
Prince of Cheshire, and showed great favour to the ancient earldom. The
victory of Crecy was due to the English archers, and among them none
were more famous than those of Cheshire. On their return from the wars,
Richard's faithful bowmen became his body-guard, and could always be
relied upon whenever he wished to strike a blow at his enemies. 'Sleep
in peace, Dickon,' they would say to him, 'we will take care of thee,
and if thou hadst married the daughter of Sir Perkin of Legh, thou
mightest have defied all the lords in England.'
Cheshire men got a very bad name, for they were cruel and bloodthirsty,
given to lawless deeds and inspiring terror wherever they appeared. They
were safe in Cheshire, for the county was governed directly by the king,
and did not yet send representatives to Parliament. The House of Commons
itself was overawed by a force of 2,000 Cheshire archers, commanded by
seven Cheshire esquires. When the Commons rose against the misgovernment
of the king, the unpunished robberies and evil deeds of the Cheshire men
were one of the causes of complaint. The bowmen all wore the badge of
the White Hart, Richard's own device. There are at the present day many
inns in the villages of Cheshire that bear the sign of the White Hart, a
reminiscence of the days of Richard and his Cheshire guards.
The enemies of Richard were determined to depose him, and put in his
place Henry of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt. Richard banished Henry,
and deprived him of his estates and possessions. When Henry landed with
a small force at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, in the year 1399, he was joined
by many of the northern lords, chief among whom was the powerful Earl of
Northumberland and his son, Harry 'Hotspur'. Richard surrendered to his
cousin at Flint, and was brought to Chester 'on a sorry hack not worth a
couple of pounds'. He was confined in the tower over the gateway of the
Castle at Chester before being removed to Pontefract, where he probably
met a violent death, though it was given out that he died of starvation.
Perkin a Legh was executed for his loyalty to Richard, and his head
fixed on a pole on the highest tower of Chester Castle.
The Cheshire archers struck one more blow in Richard's defence. Hotspur
had been made Justice of Cheshire and North Wales by Henry the Fourth,
to keep down the turbulent Cheshire men and the Welsh insurgents. He
suddenly changed sides, and joined Earl Mortimer and Owen Glendower of
Wales in their revolt against the new king.
Hotspur gave out that Richard was yet alive at Sandiway, and the chief
barons of Cheshire, the Venables and the Vernons, and the archers of
Macclesfield and Delamere flocked to his standard. The Mayor of Chester
went too, and the parsons of Pulford, Davenham, Rostherne and other
villages, each with his own following. Though they were afterwards told
that Richard was really dead, they were quite content to avenge him, and
the army decked with the badge of the White Hart marched from Cheshire
to join the Welsh leader.
King Henry met them near Shrewsbury, where a fierce battle took place.
The Cheshire archers fought with great bravery, and even routed a
portion of the king's army. But they were gradually overcome by the more
numerous royal forces, and Henry's victory was complete. Hotspur himself
was killed, and among the slain were 'the most part of the knights and
squires of the county of Chester'. After the battle, the baron of
Kinderton, Sir Richard Venables, was executed, and his estates given to
his brother, a supporter of the king.
The ancient yew-trees in many of the churchyards of Cheshire will remind
you of the sturdy bowmen who overthrew the mail-clad mounted men of
France at the battles of Crecy and Poitiers. The big yew in the
churchyard of Farndon must have been of great age, even in the days
when Richard's archers cut their bows from its tough and pliant boughs.
The bow was made in England, in England,
Of true wood, of yew wood, the wood of English bows:
So men who are free
Love the old yew tree
And the land where the yew tree grows.
In order to encourage archery among workmen and labourers, Richard
forbade the playing of football, tennis, and the like, under penalty of
fine or imprisonment. Among the town-laws of Chester was one which
compelled all children of six years old and upwards to be taught the use
of the bow and arrow, both 'for the avoiding of idleness' and for
service 'in the ancient defence of the kingdom'. Every Easter Monday the
two sheriffs chose teams of archers, and shot a match on the Roodee, the
prize being a breakfast or dinner of calves' heads and bacon, in which
the Mayor and Aldermen also took part. When a man of any well-to-do
family married in Chester, he was expected to give a silver arrow in the
following year as a prize for archery.
Some of the knights who returned from the French wars found their old
homes burnt or destroyed by marauding Welshmen during their absence. The
castles which they built for their protection were built of stone, and
portions strongly fortified. The massive tower or keep of Doddington is
crowned with a battlement and four square corner turrets; the windows
are mere slits in the walls. Brimstage Tower in Wirral was built in 1398
by Sir Hugh de Hulse. The parapet or gallery is 'machicolated', that is
to say it projects beyond the walls of the tower, so that molten metal
might be poured through holes in the parapet upon an attacking force
below.
The more famous Storeton Hall was built about the same time, though
little remains now to show its former splendour. From Storeton came the
powerful Cheshire House of Stanley. In the reign of Edward the Third,
Sir Philip de Bamville was master-forester of Wirral, which at the time
was covered with an extensive forest, so that an old rime said
From Blacon Point to Hilbre
Squirrels in search of food
Might jump straight from tree to tree,
So thick the forest stood.
Sir Philip was being entertained by John Stanley. In the evening, when
the festivities were at their height, young William Stanley ran away
with Joan de Bamville, Sir Philip's only child. Through forest and over
moorland they spurred their horses, and stayed not till the wide
Cheshire plain lay between them and their homes. At Astbury Church they
were wedded, and after the old knight's death, the Stanleys succeeded to
the forestership and the estates that went with it.
Scarcely any churches were built in Cheshire in the latter part of the
fourteenth century, though the chancel of West Kirby was put up in the
reign of Richard the Second. The carved heads on one of the window-hoods
are those of Richard and his queen. Labourers were very scarce, owing to
the ravages of the terrible calamity known as the Black Death, and the
men who returned from the wars had no fancy for doing the work of the
mason and the builder. Men refused to work; wages and the price of bread
rose so high that a limit had to be set to them by law. Even so great a
person as the Abbot of S. Werburgh was fined because his steward charged
too big a price for the abbey corn.
When the next century dawned and the land had rest for a while under the
Lancastrian king, churches were no longer built in the Decorated style
of the fourteenth century. Another style of church-building prevailed.
The curious Chester 'Rows' were originally built during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, though they have been altered and rebuilt many
times since then. There is nothing quite like them in any other English
city. The 'Rows', or galleries, run continuously for most of the length
of the four principal streets over the shops on the street level, as if
the front rooms on the first floor of all the houses had been taken
out and a thoroughfare made through them. At the ends of the Rows, and
at street corners, you may descend by a staircase to the pavement below.
[Illustration: CHESTER ROWS, WATERGATE STREET]
No one can be quite sure how the Rows came to be built on this plan.
Some people have thought that they were copied from the porticoes or
colonnades of shops in Roman towns. Others, again, say that they were
intended to serve as barricades in the street fighting which often took
place when the Welsh attacked the city. Probably, however, neither of
these explanations is correct.
Many old houses in Chester show that they were at first built with
outside flights of stone steps leading from the street to the first
floor. Under the steps was an entrance to a cellar or storeroom. At some
time or other the steps were removed, except at the ends of the streets,
and a footway laid along the tops of the cellars. The upper stories were
then brought forward, and, resting on columns of wood, made level with
the street fronts of the basement.