For more than a century Cheshire remained under British rule, but stronger grew the Saxon power, when the rival kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex had settled their quarrels; and in A.D. 828 King Egbert came to Cheshire, captured the city, and made the country parts of the Mercian kingdom. This Mercian kingdom embraced a large extent of country, and was not divided into shires until the beginning of the tenth century. The older counties—Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Wilts, Berkshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk—some of them representing old kingdoms, are known to have existed as defined districts in the ninth century. In these the shire is not named after the chief town except in Hants; but when, in A.D. 912, Mercia was divided, each shire took its name from the county town. Thus we have Stafford-shire, Worcester-shire, and others, and Chester-shire or Cheshire. The county then assumed the concrete shape and size which it has since preserved.
At the end of the ninth century came the first visit of those dread marauders, the Danes, who carried fire and sword through so many fair regions of England. From Northumberland they swooped down on the fields of Cheshire, led by the sea-king Hastings, and “arrived at a western city in Wirall which is called Lega-ceaster. Then were the forces [of King Alfred] unable to come up with them before they were in the fortress; nevertheless they beset the fortress about for some two days, and took all the cattle that were there without, and slew the men whom they were able to take without the fortress, and burned all the corn, and with their horses ate it every morning.”[2] The Danes liked not this, and were reduced to eating horse-flesh, and were glad to leave the country and escape to North Wales. The Saxon Chronicle tells us nothing more of the visits of the Danes. Higden mentions that at the close of the tenth century the county was laid waste by pirates, doubtless the sea-rovers, the Danes, but the evidence of names proves that the Danes were firmly established in the shire as settlers. By the Peace of Wedmore in A.D. 878, they won from Alfred all the country east and north of Watling Street, including the greater part of Cheshire. Indications of their presence are not so strong as in Lancashire, but these are sufficiently plain to show they partially colonised the country. There is a church at Chester dedicated to St. Olave, a Scandinavian king and saint, to whom the Danish colony in London dedicated a church (Tooley Street in London is, of course, a corruption of St. Olaf’s Street). All names ending in by are Danish, of which we have Kirby, Pensby, Irby, Frankby, Greasby. That the Danes were Christians is proved by such names as Kirby, Kirkdale, Crosby. But the most remarkable memorial of all is the name Thingwall, the place where the Folkmote or Thing met. It is surrounded by several other villages with Scandinavian names on the small tongue of land between the Dee and the Mersey. Sometimes a Celtic name is met with, which has survived amid the Saxon and Danish population, such as Meols, Dove, Llandican, and Inch. Further inland Saxon names predominate, such as Bebington, Oldfield, Woodchurch, Upton.
[2] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 892; according to other authorities, 894.
Over the poor remains of Mercia that remained to Alfred’s rule he set the Ealdorman Æthelred, the husband of his daughter Æthelflæd, or Ethelfleda, a ruler well fitted for his courage to guard against the inroads of the Danes. He rebuilt Chester, which had been ruinated by the wars. On his death the government devolved on his spirited widow of whom Henry of Huntingdon says:
“O potent Ethelfleda, terrible to men,
Whom courage made a king, nature a queen.”
She built a town or fortress at Eddisbury in the forest of Delamere, and another at Runcorn. The English power grew stronger in the land. In 920 King Edward the Elder built the city Thelwall on the Mersey, and placed a garrison there. King Edgar was at Chester in 973, and received the homage of eight petty kings, or chieftains, Kenneth III. of Scotland, Malcome of Cumberland, Macon of the Isle of Man, James of Galloway, Howell of North Wales, Owen of South Wales, and two joint rulers, Sfreth of South Wales and Inkil of Cumberland. Ralph Higden, the monk of Chester, relates a story of his having been rowed by them from his palace to the Church of St. John, and Dean Howson, when speaking of this church, said:
“As regards the historical associations, it should be observed in the first place that the water in front of the church is that reach of the river Dee over which the Saxon King Edgar was rowed in 973 by eight British chieftains. His landing place is on the rocky ground immediately under the church, and from the church, on looking down the river towards the old bridge, can be seen the starting point of that short but very expressive voyage. The picturesque little chapel among the foliage is also connected by tradition with Saxon history. It is said that Harold, having ‘lost hys lefte eye’ in the battle of Hastings, ‘yescaped to the countrey of Chester and lived there holylie in St. James’s cell, fast by Saynt John’s Church.’”
This last is, of course, pure legend, but the story of the wonderful rowing seems to be fully accepted by the Dean, and is not scoffed at by most Cheshire historians.
When Cnut the Dane ruled over English land, he committed the government of this part of Mercia to certain chief men with the dignity of Earl, who were styled Earls of Chester. Only three of these ruled during the closing years of the Anglo-Saxon period—Leofric, the son of Leofwin; Algar, the son of Leofric; and Edwin, son of Edgar. Then the Normans came, and many changes took place in the Cheshire land. The Conqueror confiscated the estates of the Saxon gentlemen and nobility, and bestowed them upon his Norman adventurers and followers. He gave the Earldom of Chester to Gherbod, a noble of Flanders; but he was compelled to go to his native land, was seized by his enemies, and retained a prisoner. So the King gave the title to Hugh Lupus, son of the Viscount of Avranches, his sister’s son, a valiant soldier, whose efforts were much needed to restrain the tumultuous Welsh. He gave to the Earl a Palatinate jurisdiction and sovereign power, to be held under the King in the province over which he ruled. These are the terms of the grant: