Charles E. Kelsey

“ Lord Derby, the head of the House of Stanley, arranged the new king's marriage with the Lady Elizabeth, and Sir William Stanley was for a time high in favour with the king. But one day he asked for too great a reward—nothing less than the Earldom of Chester, and the suspicious king chopped off his head. Thus were men often requited for their services.
Notwithstanding the squabbles and jealousies of rival kings and princes, the people as a whole were progressing along more peaceful ways. Trade was flourishing, and the class of well-to-do merchants becoming yearly more numerous and important. ”

“ But Charles was a foolish king, and spent most of his days in idle and frivolous pleasures. The people were disappointed with him, for he had plenty of brains. One of his favourite hobbies was the study of science. John Wilkins, another Bishop of Chester, was one of a little band of clever men who helped the king to found the Royal Society for the spread of knowledge and the study of science. To be a Fellow of the Royal Society is to this day one of the highest honours that men of science can obtain. ”

“ In the refectory at Chester you may see a lector's pulpit from which portions of the Scriptures were read aloud to the monks as they sat at their meals. They gave all their private possessions to the monastery, and had to obey their superior in all matters. Every hour of the day and night had its allotted duties of work, study, or religious services. High up in the wall in one of the oldest parts of Chester Cathedral is a row of tiny arches, and behind them a narrow passage, along which the monks went from their sleeping-chamber to the early morning services in the abbey church. ”

“ In the kitchen are marks of the growing comfort and luxuries of Elizabethan days—the rows of pewter plates bearing the Moreton arms, and a great spice-chest where the fragrant spices of the East, brought home by travellers, were stored, as well as the sweet herbs, the sage and rosemary, lavender and thyme, from the herb-garden of the Hall. ”

“ Then great factories began to be built, huge buildings of brick and of many stories, chiefly on the banks of Cheshire streams, or on the canals, by which the raw cotton could be brought in barges to the very doors. You may look down from the churchyard of Mottram into the valley beneath and count a score of them. Steam was applied, and the whole of the machinery of the factories was driven by this new force. Great towns sprang up like mushrooms. Hyde and Stalybridge and Dukinfield, from being tiny villages, soon became great busy hives of the cotton industry. ”

“ Then came the horrors of civil war, when Cheshire men fought for the liberty to believe what they thought to be right, and rose in their wrath at the unlawful misdeeds of the Stuart kings, when patriots rose in defence of the ancient liberties that are the inheritance of all Englishmen. ”

“ The risk of fire was always very great, owing to the fact that nearly all the houses of the Middle Ages were built of timber and thatched with straw.
The black and white timbered halls are the glory of Cheshire. Let us pay a visit to-day to Little Moreton Hall, near Congleton, perhaps the most beautiful of them all. The people who live here are proud of their home, and on certain days of the week allow you to examine at your leisure many of the rooms in the old house, which remains in almost the same condition as when the Moretons removed to a new and more spacious house of brick hard by. ”

“ In one of the earliest chapters of this book you have read of the 'making of Cheshire'. We have brought the story of Cheshire down to the present day, but Cheshire is not yet 'made'. Many and wonderful changes there have been since our ancestors shot wild beasts with their flinty arrow-heads, and devoured raw flesh in the pits and caverns of Alderley Edge. The people of Cheshire, who have struggled through long centuries to win for themselves light and liberty, have never turned their faces backwards. With steadfast purpose and unfaltering steps they march forward on the way of progress. ”

“ If the rich and the idle were given to folly and extravagance, and poorer men also too often lost the little they possessed through gambling and cock-fighting, the heart of the people was sound, and only waiting to be stirred to newer life and better ideals.
In the latter half of the century a great preacher came to Cheshire, and stirred deeply the hearts of men by denouncing the follies of the age, and the lack of religious feeling which had spread over all classes of society. His name was John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan and Methodist bodies. ”

“ The aims of the Chartists, as these reformers were named, were set forth in a document 203 which they called the People's Charter. Among other things, they demanded votes for all men, yearly Parliaments, vote by ballot, and payment of members of Parliament. But the bulk of the people took alarm, for it was thought that if every man had a vote, too much power would be put into the hands of the working classes. The Chartists were tried for causing riots, and many were put in prison. One of the Chartist leaders was James Stephens, who is buried in Dukinfield churchyard. ”

“ For this reason Cheshire was called a County Palatine, that is, a county whose ruler exercises all the powers of an independent prince, save only that he owns allegiance to his overlord the king. And the sword, the 'sword of dignity', as it was called, was no light one. You may see it if ever you visit the British Museum, a mighty two-edged weapon four feet long, with its inscription in Latin engraved beneath the hilt, 'Hugo comes Cestriae,' Hugh Count of Chester. ”

“ Its geographical position has thus made it a meeting-place of nations, and you will see in later chapters that all the peoples that have helped to make our national history have in turn realized the importance of its position, and have fought desperately for its possession. Briton and Roman, Angle and Saxon and Dane, Welsh and Norman have all left some mark of their presence in the county, and from these many elements is derived the blood that flows in the veins of nearly all Cheshire boys and girls of to-day. ”

“ The little schoolroom in the churchyard of Nantwich was the old Guild Hall. The guilds became very rich in time, and bought property and built homes for poor people who had belonged to the guild, and schools where their children might be taught.
The workmen also who worked for the merchants wanted their own guilds, and craft guilds were formed by the different trades of a city, each of the guilds receiving a charter of its own. Several charters of this kind may be seen in the muniment room of the Chester Town Hall. ”

“ The canal companies also saw themselves threatened, and did all they could to hinder the spread of the new way of travelling.
Some years were to pass before the inhabitants of Cheshire saw railways laid through their own towns and villages. The farmers of Wirral rubbed their eyes when the first train seen in Cheshire carried its human freight along the southern shore of the Mersey. Many of them had doubtless never seen one before, and not a few of the more ignorant fled in terror from the puffing, panting thing, which they looked upon as the invention of the evil one. ”

“ The municipalities have built their own municipal schools in the chief towns of Cheshire, and technical schools where you may learn a trade. At the Agricultural School at Holmes Chapel you may be instructed in the newest and most scientific ways of farming.
The people have learnt to study the laws of health, and to understand the value of light and fresh air. Towns are cleaner and your homes healthier. Open spaces, parks and playing-fields, brighten the lives of the children in the towns, and by making them stronger, fit them the better for the hard work that lies before them. ”

“ In many of the old churches of Cheshire you will see a stout oak chest, often black with age, and strongly bound with bands and clasps of iron. These chests were made to hold the deeds of gift of land and money made by rich patrons. Beneath the tower of Wilmslow Church is an ancient chest that was carved out of a solid block of wood. Some of you have perhaps tried to raise the heavy lid of the chest at Little Peover, but it is as much as a strong man may do. ”

“ At Prestbury you may see a Norman doorway in the little chapel in the churchyard; in the chancel of the church is a window of pure Early English, and in the nave a pillar of the same period. There are Decorated windows in the aisles, and a Perpendicular window at the east end.
The Cheshire churches are beautiful still; they must have been even more beautiful in the sixteenth century, before the Puritans of the Reformation and the Civil War in their mistaken zeal destroyed almost everything of beauty within and without that could be destroyed. ”

“ Even to this day the tree is thought to possess the power of bringing good or evil. A superstitious Cheshire labourer will not, if he can help it, cut down an ash tree for fear it should bring him misfortune, and churn staves made of ash are used by farmers' wives to prevent the butter from being bewitched.
It is in fact from the Angles and Saxons that we have inherited the priceless possession of our English tongue. The oldest traces of our language in a written form in Cheshire may be seen in the Grosvenor Museum at Chester. ”

“ The Coal Measures, Millstone Grit, Yoredale sandstones, and Mountain Limestone make up what geologists call the Carboniferous or Coal-bearing series, so called because in England our chief supplies of coal are obtained from this group of rocks.
But we should have to dig deeper even than the Mountain Limestone before we could reach the original surface of the earth in Cheshire. Long ages ago, ages so distant that not even the most learned men of science can reckon them, our earth was a globe of fiery molten rock. ”

“ Sir William Brereton, a Cheshire knight, objected strongly to the hateful tax, and was very angry with the people of Chester for rating some land of his near Chester, called the Nunnery Fields, for the payment of the money.
It is not surprising that trouble should arise between Parliament and a king who refused to obey the wishes of the people over whom he ruled. The Stuarts believed in the theory known as the Divine right of kings, that is, that kings are made by God alone, and that from Him alone they receive their power. ”

“ Teachers volunteered for the work, which was carried on in cottages or disused factories. In 1805, Stockport built the big Sunday School which still remains, and a hundred thousand children have been grateful for the simple teaching given to them.
The Education Bills of Queen Victoria's reign brought knowledge within the reach of all. Education is cheap for the middle classes, free for the poor. Schools have been built where none existed before. Money has been found to help any Cheshire boy or girl to receive the very highest education, and to open up the way from village school to university. ”

“ Wealthy aldermen imitated the good example of King Henry the Sixth, founder of many schools and colleges. Edmund Shaw, of Stockport, founded in 1487 a Free School at Stockport for the children of the burgesses. The master of the school was to be a priest, 'a discrete man, and conning in grammer and able of connyng to teche gramer.' The art of printing had just been discovered, and now that books were likely to be within the reach of all, it was necessary first of all to teach Cheshire boys how to read and understand their own language. ”

“ Mary was a Catholic, but her son James, who succeeded to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth, had been brought up among the Scottish reformers. The extreme English reformers, or Puritans as they were now called, hoped therefore that the king would be friendly to their wishes. The Puritans were disappointed, but James agreed to one of their demands, and said that he would have a new translation of the Bible made. The Authorized Version of the Bible which is read in all Cheshire churches and chapels to-day is the one noble work due to the first Stuart king. ”

“ Electric launches flit along the shores of the Mersey. Tram-cars are worked by electricity, which also sets in motion the dynamos that work 205 the machinery of mills and workshops. The pressing of an electric button sets free the big ships when they take the water for the first time in the dockyards of Birkenhead.
The wonderful progress made by the engineers of the nineteenth century is seen in the making of the Manchester Ship Canal, the greater part of which lies within the county of Cheshire. For many years Manchester's great ambition was to become a port. ”