ELIZABETHAN CHESHIRE. II
Many attempts were made by the Tudor sovereigns to conquer the Irish.
From time to time expeditions were sent across the sea, and the troops
embarked at various points on the Cheshire coast. The fighting Leghs of
Adlington raised a troop of Cheshire soldiers, and Thomas and Ralph Legh
fell in battle against the Irish chieftain Shane O'Neill. A Cheshire
knight, Sir Edward Fitton, of Gawsworth, was made Governor of Connaught.
In the later years of Elizabeth's reign a constant stream of ill-clad
and ill-paid soldiers marched through Cheshire on their way to the wars.
The soldiers had to be supplied with food and quarters by the towns and
villages through which they passed, and the cost of billeting the men
in the houses on their arrival at Chester fell very hard on the city
merchants, who were soon brought to great distress. The soldiers were
generally put on board ship at Parkgate, for the channel of the Dee had
become so choked up with sand that only the smallest vessels could reach
Chester.
The leader of one of the expeditions was the Earl of Essex, who was a
frequent visitor at Lyme Park, where he hunted the stag with his host,
Sir Piers Legh.
The wars with Spain ruined the oversea trade of Chester, consisting at
this time largely in the export of tanned leather to the French ports of
Rochelle and Bordeaux. In the year 1598, Thomas Fletcher, the Mayor of
Chester, wrote to Lord Burghley that he 'had found the poor city to be
generally very weak and much decayed, especially in the chiefest parts
thereof (the merchants) who have been heretofore the most able to do her
Majesty service'. For eight months there had not been 'one ship nor
small bark laden into any foreign place'. The queen had, some years
previously, given the merchants license to export 10,000 'dickers' (that
is, bundles of ten) of tanned calf-skins within a certain time, but
owing to the wars they were unable to get them away within the given
period, and the merchants asked for the time to be extended.
An old gabled house in Watergate Street, with its pious superscription
'God's Providence is mine inheritance', reminds us of a more dreadful
scourge than war which visited Chester, and indeed the whole of
Cheshire, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This was the
terrible plague, which attacked rich and poor alike, and stopped the
trade of the city so much that, as one writer says, 'grass did grow a
foot high at the Cross'. Houses that were infected with the disease were
marked with a cross, that none might go near; no merchandise was allowed
to enter the city until it had been unpacked and aired outside the
walls. Death came suddenly, or within a few hours at most; and often 'to
those that merrily dined it gave a sorrowful supper'. God's Providence
House received its name from the fact that its inmates alone of all
the neighbourhood escaped the disease.
[Illustration: STANLEY PALACE, CHESTER (showing influence of
Renaissance)]
The Courts could not be held in the plague-stricken city; the Exchequer
Court was removed to Tarvin, and the Assizes were held at Nantwich. The
annual fairs were abandoned to prevent the spread of the disease.
Numbers of victims were carried out from the city and hastily buried in
the 'Barrow Field'. Other Cheshire towns suffered severely. On the
hills, near Macclesfield, are many gravestones of the victims of the
plague; two gravestones near the Bowstones on Disley Moor tell the same
tale.
Some of the English nobles had residences in Chester. The city gates
were confided to noble families for safe keeping. The East Gate was
guarded by the ancestors of Lord Crewe. The 'Bear and Billet' Inn in
Bridge Street belonged to the Earls of Shrewsbury, who were Sergeants of
the Bridge Gate. The Earls of Derby had charge of the Watergate. The
North Gate, however, the most important entrance to the city, was
entrusted to the mayor and the citizens.
A narrow court in Watergate Street leads to the Stanley Palace of the
Earls of Derby; the gardens extended down to the river-side. The
architecture is very similar to that of the old timber halls described
in the last chapter, but the row of round-headed panels tells us that
people were beginning to imitate in their timber decorations the
round-headed arches of the Italian style.
As early as the reign of Henry the Seventh, English architects were
beginning to study the remains of ancient buildings in Rome, and Italian
architects were brought over to England. Henry the Eighth invited a
builder named John of Padua, who designed the north side of Lyme Hall.
The Italians despised the Pointed styles of English architecture,
calling it contemptuously 'Gothic', from the name of the barbarian
Goths, who overran the Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries.
Many of the Cheshire gentry left their homes in the towns to live in new
houses in the country. The old hall of the Sandbach family is now the
principal inn of the town of Sandbach; the ancient home of the Ardernes
in Great Underbank, Stockport, is now a bank; and the house built at
Nantwich by 'Richarde and Marjery Churche' has been turned into a
ladies' school. The Mainwarings lived in a fine house in Watergate
Street, Chester, until a number of little shops were allowed to block up
the front of their home. The Wilbrahams moved from Nantwich to the
spacious Elizabethan hall at Dorfold.
When the monasteries were destroyed, a large number of people were
thrown out of work, especially in the country districts. The distress
was so great in Queen Elizabeth's reign that Parliament passed a 'poor
law', by which the inhabitants of every parish were compelled to pay
taxes for the support of their own poor.
This did not, however, prevent rich and charitable men from devoting a
portion of their wealth to the building of hospitals and almshouses,
where the aged poor could live in comfort. In Commonhall Street,
Chester, are the old almshouses founded by Sir Thomas Smith in 1532, and
there are almshouses at Acton, Little Budworth, Macclesfield, Nantwich,
Tarporley, Sandbach, and Stockport, though some of these were built in
later reigns. Nantwich was particularly favoured by benefactors, and
possesses four separate sets of almshouses.
Sometimes sums of money were left to be spent on providing bread for
those who were unable to work. In the churches at Little Peover,
Mottram, and Woodchurch, you will see some wooden shelves fixed on the
wall near the porch. On these were placed the loaves which were
distributed after the Sunday services. At Bebington and Woodchurch sums
of money were given by a family of the name of Goodacre for the purchase
of bullocks to draw the ploughs of the poor peasants of Wirral.
Certain days of the year were set apart as public holidays. Every parish
had its 'wakes' or festival of the dedication of the parish church.
These were held on the feast-day of the saint after whom the church was
named. Another festival was that of the 'rush-bearing'. In a former
chapter you have read of the rushes that were spread on the floors of
churches. They were gathered from the fringe of a stream or mere, and
tied into bundles and placed on the rush-cart, which was gaily decked
with ribbons and flowers. A procession was then formed of the villagers,
who accompanied the cart to the church, where a special service was
held. There are still rush-bearing services at Farndon, Aldford, and
Forest Chapel, but in many villages the merry-making too often ended in
disorder and drunkenness, and the custom has been allowed to die out.
An Elizabethan writer tells us that the people of Nantwich visited the
brine pits on Ascension Day and decked them with flowers and garlands.
Then they offered hymns and prayers of thanksgiving for the blessing of
the brine, on which the prosperity of their town depended.
May-day was the favourite holiday of the people. The maypole was set up
on the village green, where the Queen of the May was crowned, and
morris-dancers danced to the fiddle and horn-pipe, as they do to this
day at Lymm, Knutsford, Holmes Chapel, and many other Cheshire villages.
Sometimes there were wrestling matches, and combat with sword and
quarterstaff. At Gawsworth are the remains of a tilting-ground where
such encounters took place. The long terraced banks of earth on which
the spectators sat may still be seen.
The good people of Chester were particularly fond of shows and pageants,
and processions. On Midsummer Day the mayor and aldermen of the city
marched with banners through the streets to S. Oswald's Church. With
them went 'four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, an ass and a dragon,
and six hobby horses'. The giants were made of pasteboard and repainted
every year, and 'dosed with arsenic to keep the rats from eating them'.
Some of their amusements were, however, of a more degrading kind. The
High Cross of Chester, from which the friars and Wyclif's 'poor priests'
had preached in former days, now became the scene of brutal pastimes.
For at this spot bulls were baited in the bull-ring when a mayor
finished his year of office, the mayor himself paying the expenses.
The Bear's Head and White Bear Inn at Congleton remind us that the
natives of Congleton were so fond of bear-baiting, that a local proverb
says that they 'sold their Church Bible to buy a new bear'. Few towns or
villages were without a cock-pit, for cock-fighting was a favourite
amusement of all classes. Happily, these degrading sports are now
forbidden by law, and we do not regret their disappearance.
[Illustration: Cross and Stocks, Warburton]
Little mercy was shown to those who were guilty of brawling or breaches
of the peace. Often by the lichgate of a Cheshire churchyard, or near
the village cross, you will see the remains of the wooden stocks in
which drunkards were placed and exposed to the jeers and gibes of the
passers-by. In the museums at Chester, Stockport, and Macclesfield, you
will see a still more barbarous form of punishment. The scolding or
brawling woman was compelled to have her head encased in a 'brank' or
skeleton helmet of iron, with a spiked iron piece pressing on the
tongue. A chain was attached to the woman's waist, and she was led
through the town.
Another instrument of punishment is to be seen in the Museum at West
Park, Macclesfield. It is a girdle or cage, consisting of a number of
iron hoops fastened together by chains which were placed round the body
of a woman, who was then tied to a plank called a 'ducking-stool', and
dipped in a pond. There was also an iron strait-jacket at Macclesfield
for drunkards and lunatics.