“ Any one unable to visit the actual building and desirous of getting an idea of their peculiar charm, aye and the splendour, of these fine old halls of Cheshire, would be well-advised to turn to that artist’s views of Bramall, of Adlington, and of Moreton, which constitute a trio of half-timbered treasures not perhaps surpassed by any buildings of their kind in any other county, or indeed country. ”

“ Suffice it to say that the sense of humour and the representation of everyday life occur in all the arts of the Middle Ages. Those who would eliminate all this human part of the plays, or would forbid their use, must, to be consistent, rip the Misereres out of the choir of Chester Cathedral and burn them for firewood. ”

“ Cheshire men have always been good fighters. They have played their part bravely on many a battlefield at home and abroad, and honour shall first be done to the soldiers of the shire. In civil war there was little unity amongst the gentlemen of Cheshire. They fought with, or against, each other as party faction or inclination dictated; but against the enemies of England they were formidable foes. The great Civil War that raged between King and Parliament brought most of these Cheshire soldiers into prominence, and most of the names on our list of warriors are connected with that period. ”

“ The frequency with which one comes across the royal cipher E. R. and the many corroborative arms and date panels, both in Cheshire and elsewhere, bring to mind the marvellous outburst of energy and activity that marked her times in all departments of life, one of whose outlets was in the building operations of the period, and especially in the domestic direction, some of the evidences of which we are now concerned with. England, as has been truly said, is awake after the slumber of the Middle Ages, and for a brief period the national life blazes with unprecedented brilliance and splendour. ”

“ John Speed must have become acquainted with the literary men of his time, as Bacon, Shakespeare, Raleigh, Spenser, and others, and from his association with them must have learnt a great deal and have acquired that taste which stood him in good stead in the gathering of information. When his origin and early years are taken into account, he stands out as a wonderful example of the acquisition of knowledge under difficulties, and so of patience and perseverance in endeavouring to overcome them. ”

“ Nine churches in England (six of them in the old kingdom of Mercia) are dedicated in her name. One of these is in Cheshire at Warburton, Werburgh town. That place gave its name to an honoured Cheshire family, which has given its scions to the service of their country in many directions, and which still holds a position of high renown and esteem in the county. We may thus legitimately term St. Werburgh a Cheshire Saint. We cannot do better than follow her [p. 271] favourite precept and common saying: “Please God and love Him, and doubt not anything.” ”

“ We may picture to ourselves the warrior princess Ethelfleda, Alfred’s daughter, resolved that Waste Chester should be a waste Chester no longer, raising up from the old ruinous heaps new fortifications, and enclosing within them a wider area, and erecting here within the re-arranged walls the earliest fort or castle. We can recall the stirring times of the Norman Earls, when the castle, much strengthened from the simple fort of Ethelfleda’s time, was a valuable bulwark and rallying-point, especially in the frequent inroads of the Welsh. ”

“ In 1265 Simon de Whitchurch became Abbot, and has left his mark behind him in the eastern bays of the nave and in the beautiful and elegant Lady Chapel, which is such an excellent specimen of Early English architecture. Here is to be seen some early vaulting on the roof, a feature not common in the building generally, as though provision was made by graceful shafts in the choir and elsewhere, it was only completed in the Lady Chapel and in the aisles of the choir, either from lack of funds or for some other reason. ”

“ ALTHOUGH in any survey of timber-work in the old churches of England, Essex in one sense stands out clearly first in the number and importance of the fabrics wherein wood is more or less freely used, in another sense Cheshire, so justly celebrated for the beauty and frequency of its half-timbered houses, both small and great, has a claim to the first position. ”

“ Such is some of the folk-lore of Cheshire, and there may still be a great deal which has never yet been recorded. It behoves every one to use his utmost endeavours to put into print every song, legend, saying, or custom that he may meet with. Such relics of the past can only now be obtained from aged people, and in a few years this source will fail, and the rising “school-board” generation will neither know nor care for such things. ”

“ Not all the men of Cheshire were loyal to Richard, or were perhaps wearied of him. When the storm burst some of them, including Sir Richard and Sir John Legh, went over to Henry’s side. He came to Chester and raised an army there, and executed Sir Piers Legh, who had remained faithful to Richard. Soon the men of Chester saw the stern Duke of Lancaster marching into the city, and behind him rode their unfortunate King, a prisoner in the hands of one who knew no pity, and soon to be done to death at Pontefract Castle. ”

“ Where love-sick girls with leg immured would stand,
The right leg ’twas—the other on dry land,
With face so simple—stocking in the hand—
Wishing for husbands half a winter’s day,
With ninety times the zeal they used to pray.
Other wells round Chester were “St. Giles’ Well” at Spital Boughton, “Jacob’s Well” near St. John’s Church, “Aganippe’s Well” at Newton, and the “Abbot’s Well” at Christleton, which supplied the monastery at Chester with water. It still exists, but the others are extinct. ”

“ The work goes forward, and they, like so many Amazons, do outface death, and dare danger though it lurks in every basket; seven are shot and three slain, yet they scorn to leave their matchless undertaking, and thus they continued for ten days’ space, possessing the beholders that they are immaculate!” It will be seen from this contemporary description that the annals of the period, if fully chronicled, would afford a wonderful story of bravery and endurance and patience, and would add lustre to the fame of the ancient city of Chester. ”

“ As already stated, Chester was fortunate in possessing, like York, London, and other great centres, a powerful array of Trade Gilds. [20] These City Companies provided workable units, and their power of organisation, the discipline exerted over their members, the brotherly feeling engendered by the Companies were all potent factors in the representation of these plays. “It made the performance a local work of art, in which all the city had a personal share. They believed with just pride that search England throughout none had the like, nor like does sett out.” ”

“ The introduction of humour into these sacred plays is no novelty. There is a broad touch of it as early as the time of Hilarius in his play of St. Nicholas, and we cannot deny that the writers of our Miracle Plays showed some skill in thus early lighting upon one of the greatest of dramatic rules, viz. the law of contrast.
Then, again, one other point, which is generally overlooked, must be taken into consideration. The Persons of God and our Saviour are treated with the utmost reverence. It is only when the common people come on the stage that we find a certain coarseness and humour. ”

“ The city of Chester gives its title to the heir to the Crown, as the Prince of Wales is always Earl of Chester; and that fact in itself gives a dignity and importance to both city and county. Then, as will be pointed out in some of the papers which follow, as a County Palatine, Cheshire had privileges and rights of a peculiar character, and all this has made the task of selection of subjects to be treated of more difficult, and the reader will doubtless sympathise with the Editors, even though he may not altogether approve of the result of their labours, and may lament certain omissions. ”

“ Halton Castle is of very ancient date. It was built by Hugh Lupus, first Earl of Chester, soon after the Norman Conquest, and the manor and fee of Halton descended to Henry the Fourth, since when it has been annexed to the Crown, except during the time of the Protectorate of Cromwell, when it was put up for sale by auction and purchased by Henry Brooke of Halton, a predecessor of the present Sir Richard Brooke. On the restoration of the monarchy it reverted back to the Crown, and at this day it belongs to the King, who, as the Duke of Lancaster, is Lord of the Manor. ”

“ Those who esteem the half-timbered work as among the county’s chief antiquarian attractions and architectural assets—indeed all who feel the fascination of the style—cannot but welcome the reversion to the type and the revival of the manner in recent years.
Among the patrons of the building arts none was more susceptible to the peculiar charm of this “nogging-work” than the late Duke of Westminster, who caused to be erected on his Eaton estate numerous buildings faithfully reproducing the forms and features of their Cheshire prototypes. ”

“ From what has been already said, it will readily be admitted that we owe a deep debt to those monks of old for the loving care and artistic skill which they lavished on the Houses of God, and for the patient labour whereby they preserved for future ages our literature, both ecclesiastical and secular. The services, too, in many a parish were maintained by them, and it is hardly too much to say that the lamp of religion would have been utterly darkened in many a place, if it had not been kept alight by the teaching and preaching of those who had their home in the monasteries. ”

“ Sir William Brereton magnanimously made a treaty with the brave Royalist Governor of the castle, “that he and his men should be allowed to march from the castle with their arms, colours flying and drums beating, with two cartloads of goods, and be conducted with a convoy to guard them to Flint Castle. Twenty of the soldiers laid down their arms and craved liberty to go to their own homes, which was granted.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each series of plays possesses distinct characteristics, and, happily, Chester can claim that her plays have in them “less to offend and a more reverential tone” than many others, for it is useless to disguise the fact that many readers object to these plays as seeming to treat religious subjects with levity. But with a little reflection we shall see that these plays do not deserve such condemnation [p. 143] if judged from the right standpoint, and that standpoint is assuredly not the twentieth century. We must throw ourselves back five centuries at least if we are to obtain a right focus. ”

“ A terrible storm did burst upon the unhappy people. The heathen King Ethelfrid of Northumbria came down upon the fair land of Cheshire, defeated the Britons, captured and destroyed Chester. The monks of Bangor came in crowds to the battle to offer prayers for the success of their countrymen, and nearly 1200 of them were slaughtered. Bede, with his Roman leanings, sees in this slaughter the execution of the Divine judgment and a fulfilment of Augustine’s prophecy—a suggestion unworthy of the pious historian. ”

“ In no other town in the kingdom is it possible to make a complete circuit of the Walls, which involves a walk of nearly a couple of miles. That walk is a favourite promenade, and offers a pleasing and varying prospect not only of the different features of interest in the city, but also of the surrounding country, and of the distant Welsh hills. ”

“ I have heard a countryman express this peculiarity in these words: “The common people live in the lanes, but the quality (that is, the well-to-do farmers) live up in the fields.”
With regard to Cheshire families in the dim past, Camden the antiquary of the sixteenth century wrote: [49] “Cheshire is the great nursing-mother of the gentry; for there is no other English county that formerly supplied the King’s army with more nobility, or that could number more knightly families.” ”