Lord de Tabley's example is one which all Cheshire boys and girls should learn to copy. Those who are proud of their county will not do anything to make it less beautiful. Like him, they will cherish and protect the plants and birds and all the wild creatures that have been put into their keeping; for such things are the common heritage of the people of Cheshire, and, once destroyed, can never be replaced.
CHAPTER XXXVI
CONCLUSION
We have traced the story of Cheshire from prehistoric times. For long ages the story was one of war and bloodshed, of conquest and defeat, of the coming and the passing of many nations, each in turn yielding to a more powerful foe. Cheshire has seen more of the strife of nations than most counties of England. Her position on the map of the British Isles has willed that this should be.
When the latest struggle for the possession of our country was ended, and the Normans lorded it over the conquered Saxons, we saw Cheshire made into a bulwark to keep in check the nations that surrounded her on north and west. For 200 years this was her mission. She was a kingdom within a kingdom, with an earl or viceroy to rule over her, and a Parliament and laws of her own. More centuries passed by before a Tudor king permitted her to take her place in that greater English Parliament and to help to frame laws under which she, along with the rest of England, should be governed.
Dee Bridge and Mills: Chester
But Cheshire was not denied the greatest of all good gifts. We saw the lamp of Christianity burn brightly from Hildeburgh's Isle to Chadkirk, and some of the earliest Gospel teachers were sent by the very Welsh and Irish nations over which Cheshire was afterwards set as sentinel and watch-dog. Feebly the light sometimes glimmered in days of stress and storm, but it never went out; and after the Tudor monarch had shaken off the shackles of Rome, and the minds of men had been stirred by a great awakening, its early brightness was restored in a purified religion that gave freedom of conscience to all men.
Then came the horrors of civil war, when Cheshire men fought for the liberty to believe what they thought to be right, and rose in their wrath at the unlawful misdeeds of the Stuart kings, when patriots rose in defence of the ancient liberties that are the inheritance of all Englishmen. This was the last blood shed in Cheshire.
In the last hundred years the people of Cheshire have seen the face of Cheshire greatly changed. They have helped to create great industries, and they have witnessed the wonderful discoveries of the power of steam and electricity, and all the conveniences and comforts of modern life that have followed in their train. In ways too numerous to speak of, their lives have been made brighter and happier.