From this period to the close of the Heptarchy, we have but very scanty materials respecting the history of Chester. The Britons appear to have retained possession of it until about the year 828, when it was finally taken by Egbert, during the reign of the British prince Mervyn and his wife Esylht.
In a few years afterwards (894 or 895) the city underwent a heavy calamity, from its invasion by Harold, King of the Danes, Mancolin, King of the Scots, and another confederate prince, who are said to have encamped on Hoole heath, near Chester, and, after a long siege, reduced the city. These predatory pirates were soon after attacked and conquered by Alfred, who utterly routed them from the military defences in which they had embosomed themselves, and destroyed all the cattle and corn of the district.
After the evacuation of the city by the Danes, it remained in ruins until about the year 908, when it was restored by Ethelred, the first Earl of Mercia, and Ethelfleda, his wife, who, it is said, enlarged it to double the extent of the Roman town. Sir Peter Leycester says that “Ethelred and his countess restored Caerleon, that is Legecestria, now called Chester, after it was destroyed by the Danes, and enclosed it with new walls, and made it nigh such two as it was before; so that the castle that was sometime by the water without the walls, is now in the town within the walls.” All the narratives which have been handed down to us of this celebrated woman represent her as possessed of incomparable talent, great enterprise, and pure mind. She employed the great power and opportunity she possessed with admirable wisdom, and made them subservient to acts of munificence and piety. She died at Tamworth in 922, whence her body was translated to Gloucester. Leycester gives a lengthy record of her good deeds, which prepares us for the fact that her loss was deeply and universally regretted throughout the whole kingdom.
The security of Chester against the Danish invaders was ultimately effected by the victories of Edmund, in or about 942, after which it was occasionally honoured by the residence of the Saxon sovereigns. Pennant says, King Edgar made this one of the stations in his annual circumnavigation of his dominions. About the year 973, he visited Chester, attended by his court, and received the homage of his vassal kings. It is said that one day entering his barge, he assumed the helm, and made his eight tributary princes row him from the palace which stood in the field at Handbridge, opposite the castle (and which still bears his name), up the river Dee, as far as the monastery of St. John’s. In the following century Chester was possessed by the Earls of Mercia, until the Norman Conquest in 1066. The tyranny, violence, and bloodshed which marked the course of William the Conqueror, met with determined resistance in various parts of the country; but in the course of six or seven years he utterly crushed all opposition, and became absolute master of the island. He introduced into England the feudal system, “with its military aristocracy, its pride, its splendour, and its iron dominion. The importance of Chester, as a military station, was shown by its being assigned as a fief to one of the chief leaders in the Norman army, and on his death by its being given to the nephew of the Duke himself, under whom it was invested with privileges which raised it almost to the rank of a separate principality. Under Hugh, the first Earl of Chester, and his immediate successors, we may suppose that most of those castles were built, which form objects of antiquarian research in the neighbourhood, but which are melancholy records of the state of society at the time, since they were evidently built to protect the frontiers from the continued invasions of the Welsh. Some of these still remain, and, from their extent and magnificence, appear to have been the residences of the Earls themselves. Many more have perished, and can only be traced by the banks which mark the outline of their plan. These were probably of an inferior description, and are rather to be considered as guard-houses for the protection of some particular pass than as regular fortresses. There are traces of this kind at Doddleston, at Pulford, at Aldford, at Holt, at Shotwick, beside the larger and more distinguished holds at Beeston, Halton, Chester, and Hawarden; and probably few years passed but that some inroad of the Welsh carried fire and slaughter to the very gates of Chester, and swept the cattle and produce from the fields.” [7]
For many years previous to the Norman Conquest, Chester was governed by Dukes or Earls; but William, perceiving the danger of entrusting so large a territory in the hands of any one of his barons, curtailed the provinces within narrower limits, and thereby crippled the power which had often proved dangerous to the throne, and at the same time augmented his own, by having a larger number of gifts and emoluments to bestow on his followers. In the first instance, William gave Chester to Gherbodus, a noble Fleming, who, having obtained permission of the king to visit Flanders for the transaction of some private business, there fell into the hands of his enemies, and was obliged to resign the earldom to Hugh Lupus, the nephew of the Conqueror, who was appointed in his stead. The Earldom was now erected into a Palatinate. Camden says, “William the 1st created Hugh, surnamed Lupus, the first Earl of Chester and Count Palatine, and gave unto him and his heirs all the county, to be holden as freely by the sword as the king himself held England by his crown.”
By reason of this grant, the Earls of Chester were invested with sovereign jurisdiction, and held their own parliaments. It is supposed that Lupus was invested with his new dignity at Chester by William himself, when he was present there in person in 1069.
He created several barons to assist him in his council and government, some of whom we find upon record, as Nigel, Baron of Halton; Sir William Maldebeng, of Malbanc, Baron of Witch Malbanc, or Nantwich; Richard de Vernon, Baron of Shipbroke; Gilbert Venables, Baron of Kinderton; Hamon de Massey, Baron of Dunham Massey; Warren de Poynton, Baron of Stockport; Eustace de Monthalt, Baron of Monthalt. He converted the church of St. Werburgh into an abbey, by the advice of St. Anselm.
He continued Earl thirty-one years, died the 27th of July, 1101, and was buried in the churchyard, but afterwards removed to the present Chapter-house of the Cathedral, where his body was found in 1724, wrapped in leather, enclosed in a stone coffin.
His Sword of Dignity forms one of the many valuable curiosities preserved in the British Museum. His parliament was formed of eight barons, who were obliged to attend him. Every baron had four esquires, every esquire one gentleman, and every gentleman one valet. The barons had the power of life and death. Hugh Lupus was succeeded by his son Richard, who was drowned in his passage from Normandy. He governed nineteen years, and was succeeded by Ranulph, surnamed Mechines, son of Margaret, sister to Lupus. Ranulph died at Chester, A.D. 1129, [8] and was succeeded by the heroic Ranulph II., surnamed Geronjis, who, having held the earldom twenty-five years, was poisoned in 1153, and was buried at Chester.