Again the divided counsels of the Cheshire men were displayed. While Lord Delamere was raising a great force to support Dutch William, marching south to meet him, Lord Molyneux and Lord Acton seized Chester for King James. Happily no fighting was needed.
When James II. landed in Ireland in the spring of 1689 a large army was collected to oppose him. It was led by the Duke Schomberg, and suffered severely in camp during the ensuing winter for want of conveniences and even necessaries. Most of the army encamped for a week at Neston, and then embarked at Highlake (Hoylake) for Ireland. There were about a hundred vessels to convey them, and the port and river must have presented an animated scene. In the following summer large reinforcements passed through the city at various times, and the farmers of West Kirkby, Grange, Neston, and Meols made good profits by entertaining the officers billeted on them. William III. came in person, the army being encamped on the Wallasey Leasowes. He was at Chester on Sunday, June 10, attended service at the Cathedral, and slept at the house of William Glegg, Esquire of Gayton, whom he afterwards knighted.
Since that time no great events in the annals of England have occurred to disturb the peace of Cheshire. In subsequent chapters we hope to record the names of many of Cheshire’s illustrious sons, and of the great and noble families who have shed lustre on the shire. We shall roam the countryside, see the traces of the great historic past, note the beauties of the ancestral houses, the half-timbered mansions, the red-sandstone farms, and if it be our good fortune to have been born within its borders, one of Cheshire’s “Chief of Men,” feel no little proud of our heritage.
THE COUNTY PALATINE OF CHESTER:
ITS PLACE IN HISTORY
By Henry Taylor (Chester), F.S.A.
THAT safe guide Stephen’s Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, the English law student’s vade mecum, in treating of “The Kingdom of England itself,” says:—
“Three of the English counties, viz. Chester, Durham, and Lancaster, are called Counties Palatine. The two former are such by prescription or immemorial custom, which dates back at least to the Norman Conquest. Lancaster was created a County Palatine by Edward the Third in favour of Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster, whose heiress being married to John of Gaunt, the King’s son, the franchise was greatly enlarged and confirmed in Parliament to honour John of Gaunt himself.
“Counties Palatine are so called a palatio because the owners thereof, the Earl of Chester, the Bishop of Durham, and the Duke of Lancaster, had formerly in those counties jura regalia as fully as the King in his palace. That is to say, they might pardon treasons, murders, and felonies; they appointed judges and justices of the peace; all writs and indictments ran in their names, as in other counties in the King’s; and all offences were said to be done against their peace, and not as in other places contra pacem domini regis. These palatine privileges, so similar to the regal independent jurisdictions usurped by the great barons on the Continent, during the weak and infant state of the first feudal kingdoms in Europe, were in all probability originally granted to the counties of Chester and Durham because these counties bordered upon inimical countries, Wales and Scotland; in order that the owners, being encouraged by so large an authority, might be the more watchful in its defence. In the twenty-seventh year of Henry the Eighth, however, the powers before mentioned of the owners of these three counties palatine were abridged, the reason for their continuance having in a manner ceased, and in modern times alterations have taken place in regard to the administration of justice in the counties palatine, which have, for the most part, assimilated them in that respect to the rest of England. Thus by the Law Terms Act, 1830, the jurisdiction of the Court of Session of the County Palatine of Chester was abolished, and that county was subjected in all things to the jurisdiction of the Superior Courts of Westminster. And by the Judicature Act, 1873, the jurisdictions of the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster and of the Court of Pleas of Durham were respectively transferred to the High Court of Justice, by that Act established. None of the counties palatine any longer remain in the hands of subjects. For the Earldom of Chester was united to the Crown by Henry the Third, and has ever since been one of the titles of the monarch’s eldest son; the palatine jurisdiction of Durham was taken from the Bishop of Durham by the Durham (County Palatine) Act, 1836 (amended by the Durham Palatine Act, 1858), and was vested as a separate franchise and royalty in the Crown; and the County Palatine of Lancaster, with the duchy which had been conferred on John of Gaunt, was at length, in the year 1485, vested in King Henry the Seventh and his heirs, as a distinct and separate inheritance from the Crown of England.”
Of these three Palatinates we must, however, here treat only of Chester, the eldest of the trio. There were Earls of Chester in Saxon times, but the establishment of the Palatine County of Chester dates from the Norman Invasion. Before we proceed to describe its foundation and history, let us see what Camden, in his quaint way, has to say about Cheshire and its inhabitants. Quoting Lucian the Monk of Chester, he remarks:—