From this time no event of any great importance appears to have transpired, until the city was involved in the calamities of a siege, in consequence of its loyalty to Charles the First. The city stood the siege for some months; but the inhabitants at last, reduced to the extremity of famine, so that they were compelled to eat horses, dogs, cats, and other animals, abandoned their resistance, made honourable terms of capitulation, and yielded the city on February the 3rd, 1645–6.
Chester was, probably, in the time of the Romans, or earlier, a thriving port. The Saxon navy was stationed here, and it was also the seat of the Mercian kings. About the time of the Conquest the imports and exports appear to have been considerable. But as an illustration of the times we may mention, that one article of the latter was slaves, obtained, it is conjectured, from the captives which were made in the frequent wars with the Welsh. It is quite clear that Chester was, in ancient days, a busy and nourishing port, because of the perfectly navigable condition of the Dee. All the early writers of its history unite in bearing testimony to this point. It may here be mentioned as a curious and interesting fact, that some centuries ago, Flookersbrook was covered with water, and that a deep and broad channel flowed through Mollington, Stanney, and that direction, which emptied itself into the estuary now called the Mersey. Holinshed, after tracing minutely the course of the Dee through Flookersbrook up to Stanney, distinctly states that it “sendeth foorth one arme by Stannie Poole, and the Parke side into Merseie arme,” &c. Speed distinctly marks out this course in his map; and it is still more broadly defined in an old Dutch map, of a much earlier date, printed at Rotterdam.
In consequence of the uncertain and imperfect state of the river, the once thriving commerce of this ancient port has dwindled into comparative insignificance, and Liverpool has reaped the advantage. Spirited efforts have latterly been made to improve the navigation and port of Chester.
With regard to the ecclesiastical history of Chester, it may suffice to observe that, according to King’s ‘Vale Royal,’ Theodore, the first Anglo-Saxon Primate, ordained at Rome in 669, appointed St. Chad the first Bishop of Chester, who fixed his seat at Lichfield. “After him one Winifred was bishop, who, for his disobedience in some points, was deprived by Theodore, who appointed in his place one Sexulph. The said Theodore, by authority of a synod held at Hatfield, did divide the province of Mercia into five bishoprics, that is to say, Chester, Worcester, Lichfield, Cederna in Lindsey, and Dorchester, which after was translated to Lincoln. After Sexulf, one Aldwin was Bishop of Lichfield, and next to him Eudulfus, who was adorned with the Archbishop’s pall, having all the bishops under King Offa’s dominions suffragans to him.”
The diocese of Chester seems to have continued one with that of Lichfield to the time of the Conquest, when Pennant says a Bishop of Lichfield, in the year 1075, removed his episcopal seat to Chester, and during his life made use of the monastery of St. John’s for his cathedral.
His successor was Robert of Lindsey, chaplain of Wm. Rufus, who removed the see to Coventry; St. John’s church, however, continued collegiate up to the time of the Reformation, at which period it had a dean, eight canons or prebends, and ten vicars choral. The prelate and his successors, although having seats at Lichfield and Coventry, as well as Chester, continued to have the designation of Bishop of Chester, until the appointment of John Ketterich, in 1415, who was not so styled, nor any of his successors until the time of the Reformation. “The bishops that were before that time (although they were commonly called Bishops of Chester) were Bishops of Lichfield, and had but their seat or most abiding in Chester.” Henry the Eighth erected Chester into a distinct diocese in the 33rd year of his reign, “turning the monastery of St. Werburgh into the Bishop’s palace; unto which jurisdiction was allotted Cheshire, Lancashire, Richmondshire, and part of Cumberland; and was appointed to be within the province of York.”
John Bird, D.D., “formerly a fryer of the order of the Carmelites, was the first bishop of this new foundation.” He was deprived of his bishopric by Queen Mary, A.D. 1544, because of his adhesion to the Protestant faith. He was succeeded by George Cotes, who survived his consecration only about two years. He died at Chester, and was buried in the Cathedral near the Bishop’s throne. His memory is stained with the blood of George Marsh, who, during his episcopate, suffered martyrdom at Boughton. The next Bishop was Cuthbert Scott, who was vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1554 and 1555, one of the delegates commissioned by Cardinal Pole to visit that University, and one of the four Bishops who, with as many divines, undertook to defend the Church of Rome against an equal number of reformed divines. He was deposed by Queen Elizabeth, for some abusive expressions uttered against Her Majesty. William Downham, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth before she came to the crown, was consecrated Bishop of Chester, A.D. 1561. He died Nov., 1577, and was buried in the choir of the Cathedral, having sat Bishop sixteen years and a half: from that time to the present there has been a regular succession of Bishops of the Reformed Church.
John Graham, D.D., formerly Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, was consecrated to the see of Chester in 1848, in succession to the present Archbishop of Canterbury, and is at present fulfilling the duties of his high office with pious earnestness, diligence, and general approbation.
Municipal institutions were first introduced into Britain by the Romans. York was one of the first towns in England on which they were conferred. We can discover very little to aid us in tracing the progressive history of the municipal government of the ancient city of Chester until the time of Ranulph, the third Earl Palatine, and nephew of the Earl Hugh; but being a Roman colony, the inhabitants no doubt were regarded as Roman citizens, and as such entitled to the same privileges which Rome itself possessed. Pennant supposes that the Roman prætorium occupied the site on which St. Peter’s church is now built. In this tribunal, if the case be so, the civil law and power would be exercised in those days.
“Before the city had any charter,” says King’s ‘Vale Royal,’ “they used by prescription divers liberties, and enjoyed a guild mercatory, that is, a brotherhood of merchants, and that whosoever was not admitted of that society, he could not use any trade or traffick within the city, nor be a tradesman therein. And the tenor of this guild mercatory did even run in these words:—‘Sicut hactenus usi fuerint;’ and was after confirmed under the Earl’s seal. And there were appointed two overseers, and those were appointed out of the chiefest of the citizens, and were greatly respected of the citizens as officers that had the special care of maintaining those privileges, before a mayor was ordained.” These officers were elected annually, and were denominated leave-lookers; they were accustomed to go round the city to see that its privileges were preserved, and sometimes used to take small sums, called leave-lookerage, for leave for non-freemen to sell wares by retail.