It is beautifully laid out, and arranged with admirable taste, and was rendered necessary by the overcrowded state of the parochial burial grounds. Opposite the Cemetery gates is a suspension bridge, for foot passengers, to Curzon Park, whence we have a fine panoramic view of Chester.
We now retrace our steps to survey that interesting structure,
The Castle.
We have no precise authority whereby to ascertain the date of the foundation of Chester Castle. Some think there is good reason to believe it to be of Roman origin, and of equal antiquity with the City Walls. Others have fixed the date of its erection A.D. 1069, by William the Conqueror; but there are some considerations which seem to point to an earlier period than this. It is stated by Camden to have been repaired by Hugh Lupus, and additional fortifications erected by the Norman Earls his successors. It was certainly the palace of the local monarchs, as well as their chief stronghold, and retained much of this mixed character until modern alterations were made. Pennant describes the Castle, as it formerly stood, as being composed of two parts, an upper and a lower, each with a strong gate, defended by a round bastion on each side, with a ditch and draw-bridges.
In 1237, upon the death of John Scott, the last earl of the Norman line, the Commissioners of Henry III. seized Chester Castle for the King.
In 1265 James De Aldithley and Urian De St. Pierre, at the head of the citizens of Chester, besieged Luke De Taney, King’s Justice, in the Castle, which held out for ten weeks, when, upon receiving intelligence of the battle of Evesham, he surrendered.
Henry of Lancaster (afterwards Henry IV.), having taken up arms against Richard II. in 1399, mustered his army upon the bank of the Dee, under the walls of Chester, and Sir Piers Legh of Lyme, an adherent of Richard, was beheaded, and his head set upon the top of the highest tower in the Castle. Shortly afterwards, the unfortunate Richard and the Earl of Salisbury were brought prisoners to Chester, mounted (says Hall) “upon two little nagges, not worth forty franks,” when the King was delivered “to the Duke of Gloucester’s sonne and the Earl of Arundell’s sonne, that loved him but a little, for he had put their fathers to death, who led him strait to the castell.”
In 1403 Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, visited Chester on his way to the fatal field of Shrewsbury, and caused proclamation to be made, that King Richard was yet alive, and a prisoner in Chester Castle, where he might be seen.
Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, wife of the Good Duke Humphrey, was confined for several months in Chester Castle, in 1447, previous to her removal to the Isle of Man, under a sentence of perpetual imprisonment, on a charge of “practising the King’s death.”
Here, in 1651, the Puritans, in their peculiar phraseology, “sought the Lord,” by trying and condemning to death the gallant and patriotic Earl of Derby, Sir Timothy Featherstonehaugh, and Captain Benbow. According to Whitlocke, the Earl “attempted to escape, and was let down by a rope from the leads of his chamber; but some hearing a noise, made after him, and he was retaken upon Dee bank.”