Cheshire

by Charles E. Kelsey

The walls were also fiercely bombarded from Brewers Hall on the opposite side of the Dee, though a battery of guns placed on the summit of Morgan's Mount kept the besiegers at bay on the north. The Water Tower at the north-west corner of the city bears the marks of some well-aimed shots from the guns of Cromwell's men.

Within the city the hardships were very severe. Fires were frequent, especially in the night-time. Cold and bleak December days increased the suffering, and, worst of all, food was getting scarce, and the pinch of hunger began to be felt. At length the inhabitants were reduced to eating the flesh of horses and dogs, and still Sir Nicholas Byron held out, waiting daily for the help that never came. Famine did its work at last, and after a siege of eighteen weeks the city surrendered to Brereton on February 3, 1646.

One of the conditions of surrender was that the victorious troops should not do any damage to the city. The fragment of the High Cross, now in the Grosvenor Museum, shows that in this respect the soldiers of Cromwell did not keep their word. Sir Francis Gamull, the mayor, bargained with the Roundheads that the tombs of his family should not be harmed, and this explains the fact that the Gamull monuments in S. Mary's-on-the-Hill are almost the only relics of the kind in Chester that escaped destruction.

The events of the war were published every week in the Mercurius Aulicus or 'Court Mercury,' a forerunner of the modern newspaper. In the Free Library at Birkenhead are preserved some sheets of this paper, on one of which is related the story of the capture and recapture of Beeston Castle. After its occupation by the Parliamentary troops a daring assault was made upon the castle by Captain Sandford and a party of eight Royalists, who scaled the steep rock on which the castle is built and called upon the defenders to surrender. Captain Steel, the Puritan commander, was tried for cowardice in yielding to so small a force, and condemned to be shot. After the battle of Rowton Moor the castle endured a seven weeks' siege, and surrendered in November, 1645. Shortly afterwards Parliament ordered the castle to be dismantled, and it has been in ruins ever since. Several of the officers who were killed at Beeston are buried at Tarporley.

Many of the Cheshire halls, which were held mainly by Royalists, suffered severely for their loyalty to the king. Crewe Hall was taken by the Roundheads, retaken by Byron, and finally garrisoned by the soldiers of Brereton. Huxley Hall was occupied by Colonel Croxton during the siege of Chester. Puddington Hall, in Wirral, the ancient home of the Masseys, whose owner, Sir William Massey, remained in Chester till its fall, was destroyed by fire.

Adlington Hall, the home of the loyal Leghs, endured a fortnight's siege, at the end of which time its gallant garrison of one hundred and fifty men was compelled to surrender and permitted to depart. The marks of cannon shot used in the bombardment may still be seen upon the massive oak doors of the courtyard. Wythenshaw Hall was held by Royalists, but Colonel Dukinfield, a friend and neighbour of Sir William Brereton, compelled a surrender after a short siege. Cannon balls have been found in the grounds of the hall.

Vale Royal, the private residence of the Cholmondeleys since Henry the Eighth turned out its abbot and monks, was plundered and partly burnt by the soldiers of General Lambert's army. Sir Peter Leycester, of Tabley Hall, fell into the hands of the Parliamentarians and was sent to prison. During his captivity he first planned his famous book of the History and Antiquities of Cheshire.

The lot of the unhappy Cheshire squire was indeed pitiable. Royalists and Roundheads were equally unwelcome guests, treating their host with scant ceremony, ransacking his house and helping themselves freely to everything that might be of any service to them. Let Peter Davenport, the squire of Bramhall, tell in his own words the story of his woes: 'On New Year's Day, 1643, came Captain Sankey (a Parliamentary officer) with two or three troopers to Bramhall, and went into my stable and took out my horses, above twenty in all, and afterwards searched my house for arms again and took my fowling-piece, stocking-piece, and drum, with divers other things. Next day, after they were gone, came Prince Rupert's army, by whom I lost better than a hundred pounds in linen and other goods, besides the rifling and pulling to pieces of my house. By whom I lost eight horses, and they ate me threescore bushels of oats.' Poor Peter was not yet at the end of his troubles, for when the war was over he had to pay five hundred pounds in order to buy back his own property, for the estates of the Royalists were confiscated by Parliament and sold back to their owners for large sums of money.

The empty niches over the porches of many Cheshire churches tell their own tale of the damage done by the Cromwellian troops. Sculptured images were everywhere broken in fragments, lead was stripped from the fonts and roofs to be turned into bullets. The pipes were taken from the organ of Budworth Church, and the stained glass windows of Tarvin destroyed by the Puritan fanatic, John Bruen. The sacred buildings themselves were used throughout the war as barracks, fortresses, stables, or prisons.

The destruction of property and of works of art that can never be replaced was indeed largely the work of the Roundheads; but it was the Royalists who perpetrated the blackest deed in this long tale of civil strife. In the winter of 1643 Lord Byron's troopers were plundering the villages of South Cheshire, burning farms and homesteads, and driving the country people before them. One of his officers, Major Connought, entered the village of Barthomley, and many of the panic-stricken inhabitants took refuge in the tower of the church. Connought and his brutal followers broke up the pews, gathered together the mats and rushes strewn upon the floor, and made a bonfire at the entrance to the tower. Forced from their place of refuge by fire and smoke, the unfortunate villagers were stabbed and hacked to death as they came out one by one. This was their Christmastide, the season of peace and good fellowship and brotherly love, and men, blind with the lust of blood, were cutting the throats of their brothers as if they were sheep in the shambles. Happily, such scenes as this were rare, even in those dark years.