Memorials of old Cheshire

by Unknown

When the conquest of Wales had been finally completed by the defeat and death of Prince Llewelyn, Edward the First proceeded to regulate the administration of the territory he had acquired. By his ordinance called the “Statute of Rhudland,” he formed Flintshire into a county, attached, as previously mentioned, but subordinate to, that of Chester, and directed the Sheriff of Flintshire to render his accounts to the Exchequer there. The judges were appointed, sometimes for both counties, at others for each county separately. By the same statute the greater part of the district governed by Llewelyn was divided into the three counties of Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth, and it was to these counties that the name of “North Wales” was originally confined. Chester and North Wales were the oldest of the Welsh Judicial Circuits.

Subsequently, on the petition of the Welsh themselves, in the reign of the Tudor King, Henry VIII., Wales was incorporated with England, and the Lordships Marches were divided into shires, the counties of Denbigh and Montgomery being added to North Wales. Wales then for the first time sent representatives to the English Parliament, but it was not until the reign of his son, King Edward VI., that the County Palatine of Chester was given parliamentary representation. Professor Freeman has said:⁠—

“The Earldom of Hugh of Avranches stood alone in its greatness from the rest of the realm. How distinct Chester and Durham stood from the rest of the kingdom, is best shown by their having for so many ages (not until the reign of Edward VI.) no voice in the national Parliament. While Chester had its own courts and own baronage, knights and citizens from the all but independent state would have been as much out of place as knights and citizens from the Isle of Man or the Norman islands of the English Channel.”

About this time also, viz. in 1542, it was enacted that sessions for the administration of justice should be held twice in every year in each of the twelve shires of Wales, to be called “The King’s Great Sessions of Wales,” apparently to distinguish them from those of the Justices of the Peace, who were directed to be eight in number in each county, and to hold their sessions four times a year. For the business of the Great Sessions, Wales was divided into four districts, each independent of the rest, with its own judge and its own establishment of judicial officers. Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth continued as before under the Justice of North Wales, and formed the North Wales Circuit; while Denbigh and Montgomery were joined to Chester, to which, as before mentioned, Flint from its first creation had been attached. Each Circuit at first had a single judge, but in the reign of Elizabeth a second one was added. The judges were styled Justices, and within the limits of their Circuits they exercised all the powers of the Justices of King’s Bench and Common Pleas. They also had an equitable jurisdiction, but important equity cases were seldom brought before them, as the Court of Chancery was open to Welsh suitors, and it was only in matters of immediate urgency that the powers of the Great Sessions as a Court of Equity were found of use. In equity an appeal lay to the House of Lords, and in legal cases “error” could be brought in the King’s Bench. In the administration of criminal law, when cases of difficulty arose the opinion of the twelve Judges was obtained, in a similar way to that which was pursued in England. The process of the Courts could only be executed in the counties of the Circuit, and the want of further power to give effect to their orders outside their jurisdiction was one of their greatest disadvantages. But when final judgment had been obtained, a transcript of the record could be removed and execution issued from one of the Superior Courts. Each Circuit had its judicial seal. The use of seals was looked upon as a matter of paramount importance (as it is in many foreign Courts at the present time), and Henry VIII. himself is stated to have devised these seals. The original seal of Chester was used for Flint. Here we give an illustration from the last seal which was in use when the Chester Palatinate Court was dissolved. Another original seal for the shires of Denbigh and Montgomery was entrusted to the Steward and Chamberlain of Denbigh, and these two counties formed in some respects a distinct division of the Chester Circuit. Causes commenced in the Superior Courts could be sent down to Chester to be tried. The equitable jurisdiction at Chester belonged to the Chamberlain and not to the Justices. The Chamberlain’s Court is described as having been one of a very singular character, and to have administered a mixture of law and equity. The Vice-Chamberlain presided as the Judge, and the business, which is said to have been at one time considerable, appears latterly to have been small; but it is to be regretted that it was abolished and not retained, as in the adjoining County Palatine of Lancaster, as in these days it would have been of great use.

The Chief-Justiceship of Chester, being the most lucrative as well as the most important of the Welsh Judgeships, was looked upon as one of the great prizes of the profession, and was held by many distinguished men. When the Great Session came to an end the salary of the Chief Justice was £1630, and that of the second Justice £1250. An annual pension of £1015, 12s. was granted to Thomas Jervis (father of Sir John Jervis, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas), who was second Justice of Chester, by way of compensation for loss of his office. The Chief-Justiceship of Cheshire was vacant at the time. In Ormerod’s History of Chester, in the History of the Great Sessions of Wales, by Mr. W. R. Williams, and in the contribution to the History of the Courts of Great Session of Wales and of the Chester Circuit, by the late Chancellor Trevor Parkins, from which I have obtained a considerable amount of information, is given a list of judges and officers of these Courts from early days to their abolition in 1830. A very important person on every Circuit was the Attorney-General, who was appointed by the Crown, and possessed all the powers of the King’s Attorney-General. The principal officer on each Circuit was the Prothonotary, who attended on the Justices when they held their Courts, and discharged similar duties to those now performed by the Associate. He was appointed by the Crown, and was usually Clerk of the Crown also. The subordinate officers were a marshal, a registrar, and a crier, and these were appointed by the Chief Justice.

The Chamberlain of Chester or his Deputy was the Keeper of the original Seal of Chester and Flint. At Chester, where a considerable amount of business was transacted, there was a much larger bar than there was on the Welsh Circuits. The Northern Circuit was strongly represented there. John Williams, James Parke (afterwards Lord Wensleydale), Joseph Littledale, William Wightman, and Charles Crompton, all of whom became High Court Judges, were among the members of the Northern Circuit who practised at the Chester Assizes in the early years of the last century. David Francis Jones, for some time Recorder of Chester, better known as Sergeant Atcherley, and those eminent lawyers, John Horatio Lloyd and William Newland Welsby, Recorder of Chester, and long the leader of the present Chester and North Wales Circuit, were also members of the Chester Palatine Bar. Lord Kenyon and Chief Baron Richards, both of whom were afterwards Chief Justices of Chester, were among those who belonged to the Welsh Circuit.

We give an illustration of the old County Hall and of the Old Court of Exchequer at Chester Castle (where causes were heard), before they were taken down and the present classical buildings, the creation of a Chester architect, were erected at the close of the eighteenth century, taken from the Gentleman’s Magazine of June 1789. The Exchequer Court is said to have been the building in which the Norman Earls sat in Council.

Some years after the abolition of the Palatine Courts the records relating to them and to the County Palatine were examined, arranged, and ably reported upon by the late Mr. Black of the Public Record Office. Efforts were made to retain these records at Chester, where it was proposed that a branch of the Public Record Office should be established; but ultimately in the autumn of 1854 they were removed to London, first of all to the Tower, and afterwards to the Public Record Office in Chancery and Fetter Lanes.

I find in Appendix 11 of the Sixteenth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records the following:—“The records brought from Chester packed as closely as possible, filled four or five large boxes and 369 bags, about 100 of the latter being large five bushel bags. The weight was nearly 13 tons. They filled five of the largest London and North-Western Railway luggage vans.” These records are being gradually cleaned and classified. The reports and calendars relating to them, which have already been published, are extremely valuable and interesting, although they only touch the very fringe of the information contained in such an immense mass of documents. There are no more able or courteous public servants than those in the Record Office, but they cannot do impossibilities, and unless the staff is increased it will be ages before the public can be informed of the entire contents of these valuable Cheshire and Welsh records. We here give one of the entries on the Chester Recognisance Roll of the time of the Owen Glyndwr rebellion, as a sample of the entries contained in the Deputy-Keeper’s reports:—1403 September 4.—The Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen of the City of Chester are empowered and directed by Writ to “expel all Welsh from the City, both men and women, the same not to enter the City before sunrise or tarry in it after sunset, on pain of decapitation, nor presume to walk about armed, except with a knife to cut their dinner, nor to use any tavern or to hold meetings in the same, nor any three of the said Welsh to meet together within the Walls on pain of being sent to prison as rebels; and should any strangers, Welshmen, viz. from the County of Flint, or other parts of Wales, come to the said City, the same to leave their arms, &c., outside the gate by which they entered.”