Chapter IV (2)

The vindictive feeling which Henry manifested towards Sir William Brereton was not extended to the person of his younger brother, for the King, as if to mark the appeasement of his wrath, not only retained him in his position as Groom of the Privy Chamber, but also conferred other offices of distinction upon him. On the 8th July, 1538, he had a grant for life of the office of Attorney of the King in the counties of Chester and Flint; and on the 1st of August following he had a grant for life in survivorship of the office of Sheriff of the county of Flint on the surrender of the same by his kinsman, John Brereton, on whom it had been bestowed four months previously, and on the 16th of June, 1543, he and Randle Cholmondeley had conferred upon them the appointment for life, in survivorship, of the office of Attorney of the Earl of Chester (the young Prince Edward) in the counties of Chester and Flint. In 1544 he accompanied the Earl of Hertford in the expedition to Scotland to demand the infant Queen Mary, who had been promised in marriage to the King's son, Edward Earl of Chester, and he was present at the burning of Leith, where, in acknowledgment of his valorous deeds, he received the honour of knighthood.

Shortly after the expedition to Scotland Sir Urian Brereton had the misfortune to lose his wife, Dame Margaret, who died at Handforth Hall, though the exact date of her decease has not been ascertained, the registers of Cheadle, where doubtless she was buried, not commencing until 1558. Her manors and lands descended to the son by her first husband, John Stanley, who on the 24th May, 1 Edward VI. (1547) entered into a covenant with Sir Urian Brereton under which the estates were settled between them.

On the 7th of July, 1550, Sir Urian and his relative, Richard Brereton, Esq., had conferred upon them for life, in survivorship, the office of Escheater of the county of Flint, and shortly after he commenced the rebuilding of the Hall of Handforth, completing it in 1562, as the inscription over the door, which has been already given, testifies. He also about the same time erected the handsome carved oak screen in the Brereton chantry at Cheadle church, placing upon it his initials, V. B., and his punning rebus, a briar and a tun.

After the death of Dame Margaret Sir Urian again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Alice, the third daughter of Sir Edmund Trafford, of Trafford, Esq., and the widow of Sir William Leyland, of Morleys Hall, in Astley. His death occurred at Handforth Hall on the 19th of March, 1577, and twelve days later his remains were interred at Cheadle. By his first wife he had, as the inscription over the porch at Handforth records, six sons and two daughters, and by his second wife, who survived him little more than a year, one son and four daughters. His Inquisition was taken at Knutsford on the 28th March, 1580, when Randle Brereton, his eldest son, then of the age of forty, was found to be his heir; he did not, however, long enjoy possession, his death occurring on the 30th December, 1583, when, being unmarried, the estates, in accordance with a deed of settlement of 1575, devolved upon his younger brother, William Brereton, who five years previously, had been united in marriage with Katherine, daughter of Roger Hurleston, of Chester, and who was at the time described as "of the Nunneryes, Chester," a house and lands which the "Defender of the Faith" had taken from the fair nuns of Chester and given to his favourite, Sir Urian Brereton, the founder of the Handforth line. This William served the office of Sheriff of the county in 1590, and died at Handforth on the 5th June, 1601, at the age of fifty-three. He was buried at Cheadle, and Mr. Earwaker gives a copy of his funeral certificate transcribed from the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum (879 fo. 18):--

William Brereton of Honford Esquier died the fifth day of June A.D. 1601; he maryed Katherine daughter of Roger Hurlestonne of Chester, gent. and has issue three sonnes and two daughters, viz. Urian first sonne died young, Richard third sonne died young, Jane eldest daughter died young. William Brereton sonne and heire married Margaret daughter of Richard Holland of Denton in the county of Lancaster Esq. Dorothie Brereton only daughter now living.

His widow, Katherine, became the second wife of Sir Randle Mainwaring, of Over Peover, Knight. William Brereton, the second and only surviving son, who succeeded as heir, was only sixteen years of age at the time of his father's death. By this marriage he became allied with a family which had for many generations been resident on their lands at Denton, and who claimed descent from the Hollands of Up-Holland, in Lancashire, a family whose members played an active part in the most picturesque and chivalrous period of English history; who figured among the founders of the Order of the Garter, allied themselves repeatedly with the royal family, attained the highest rank in the peerage, and it may be added, experienced the greatest vicissitudes of fortune; one of them, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, doubly descended from the Plantagenets and the brother-in-law of King Edward IV., being reduced to such extremities that Philip de Commines, as he relates, saw him "walking barefoot after the Duke of Burgundy's train, and earning his bread by begging from door to door." The Denton Hollands from the time of the Reformation had been noted for their leanings towards Puritanism. Richard Holland, the father of William Brereton's wife, when High Sheriff of Lancashire, received the thanks of Queen Elizabeth for his services in prosecuting Popish recusants and zealously promoting the Protestant religion, and his nephew, Colonel Holland, was one of the earliest to take up arms in the Puritan cause in the great struggle between Charles and his Parliament, and had the command of Manchester when it was besieged by the Royalist forces in 1642.

William Brereton died on the 18th February, 1609-10, and was buried at Cheadle on the 26th of the same month, his widow surviving him only a few days, the Cheadle registers recording her burial there on the 14th April following. He left issue--in addition to two younger sons, Richard and Urian, and a daughter, Margaret--a son, William, then only five years of age, who succeeded as heir, and who in after years was destined to play a conspicuous part in his country's affairs, his military exploits becoming inseparably interwoven with the history of his native county.

It is not known with certainty when the future Parliamentarian General first saw the light, but, as he was baptized at the Collegiate Church of Manchester, the probabilities are that he was born at his grandfather's house, Denton Hall, which is situate within the limits of the ancient parish of Manchester. Of the events of his early life but little is known. They were apparently few, simple, and common-place, and there is nothing in the record of them to foreshadow those strong political and religious prejudices which afterwards developed in his mind, or to indicate the possession of that military genius for which he became so distinguished. He succeeded to the family inheritance at a very early age, and being deprived of the guidance of both father and mother was left to the care of his mother's relatives, and doubtless imbibed from them those strong Puritan sentiments which had then become traditional in the Holland family. He came of age in 1625, and on the 10th March, 1626-7, he had a baronetcy conferred upon him by Charles I., who had only recently ascended the throne, though the gathering clouds were even then heralding a political tempest. Whether he had undertaken to perform the conditions on which the distinction was supposed to be conferred--the furnishing of thirty men at 8d. per day for three years for the settlement and defence of Ulster--or had compounded by the payment of a lump sum, to replenish an exhausted exchequer, is not recorded, but we may be well assured that William Brereton was made of sterner stuff than to have bowed in the ante-room of either the coarse and faithless James or his successor, the proud and dignified Charles. In the following year (1628) he was elected as the representative of his native shire in the Parliament which assembled on the 27th March,--a year famous as that in which the name of Oliver Cromwell for the first time appears, and in which, to secure the voting of supplies for the war, Charles assented to the demands of the Petition of Rights, confirming those liberties which were already the birthright of Englishmen. He also represented the county in the Parliament which met on the 13th April, 1640, to be so speedily dissolved, and, again, in that which assembled on the 3rd November in the same year--the most extraordinary and eventful of any in England's history--the Long Parliament.

William Brereton loved worthily, and, when he had attained to man's estate, he married whom he loved--the daughter of Sir George Booth, of Dunham, "free, grave, godly, brave Booth, the flower of Cheshire," as he was described by writers of the day--a "person," as Clarendon says, "of one of the best fortunes and interest in Cheshire, and, for the memory of his grandfather, of absolute power with the Presbyterians," and the "chief corner stone" of their cause in the county. His lot seemed an especially happy one. Boasting an old and honourable lineage, possessed of an ample estate, which had doubtless been increased during his long minority, successful in his marriage, endowed with every domestic enjoyment, and surrounded by the children of his love, of cultivated taste, too, with a mind stored with knowledge which had expanded and ripened under the experience gained in foreign travel, and, withal, possessing a healthy and vigorous frame that enabled him to enjoy all outdoor pursuits, the cultivation of his lands, and the participation in such harmless sports as country gentlemen in his day were wont to indulge, he could only have been induced to leave the privacy of the home life he so much loved by the stern duties of times in which pleasure and self-gratification must unmurmuringly yield.

Clarendon speaks of his notorious aversion to the Church. This was undoubtedly true, so far as her form of government was concerned, and was in all likelihood heightened by the circumstances under which he received his early training, as well as by the connections formed in later life. Yet he was a professed member, and in 1641 his name occurs in the parish register of Wanstead, in Surrey, with those of about fifty of the principal inhabitants, as signing a protestation expressive of their attachment to the Church of England and their abhorrence of Popish innovations. He was of a sober, serious turn, and imbued with strong religious feelings, but his attachment to the Church could neither have been very strong nor very exclusive; he was fond of "spicy" sermons, and seems to have listened with equal satisfaction and delight to the discourses of a Brownist or Anabaptist as to the ministrations of the most eminent of the preachers of the Church of which he professed himself a member.

In 1634, when the great and awful conflict in which many of the dearest interests of England were involved seemed as yet far distant, Sir William Brereton made a lengthened tour in Holland and the United Provinces, and in the following year he travelled over a great part of England, Scotland, and Ireland. On his return he wrote an account of his journeyings from the brief notes made on the way, and this journal, the original MS. of which is in the possession of Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton, of Oulton, has been published by the Chetham Society. Singular to say, there is nothing in it to lead us to suppose that at that time the writer felt any interest in military affairs; nor is there any reference to the great political and religious questions which were then agitating the public mind in his own country, and in which it might naturally be supposed he would feel much concern. The narrative is, as Mr. Hawkins, the editor, expresses it, "a plain, unimpassioned statement of what he saw and observed. The beauties of nature never warm him into admiration; nor do the feelings, habits, or phenomena of the people, or the countries which he visited, seduce him into any philosophical investigation." He was not a deep thinker, and evidently looked at things from a purely matter of fact point of view; his observations are confined in a great measure to a description of what he saw and heard, and not unfrequently comparison is drawn between the places he visited and those of a kindred character in his own country, generally to the advantage of the latter. He describes pleasantly the "stately city of Rotterdam" and the "fair maiden town of Dort;" Schiedam he describes as a "dainty, sweet, pleasant town, larger than Namptwich," with "a delicate, spacious, market-place, a fine church, and a great channel walled on both sides with free-stone, running along the middle of the street, whereunto their ships come." He descants upon land tillage, tells the prices of dairy and farm produce, and generally expresses his opinion on the system of agriculture pursued; but that which seems most to have attracted his attention was the method adopted in different places of taking wild fowl by decoys, a hobby he appears to have indulged in at his Cheshire home, where he says he also had a decoy, probably in the low-lying grounds, watered by the Deane in the valley below Handforth Hall. At Amsterdam he "dined with Mr. Pageatt," where he had "a neat dinner and strawberries." It is pleasant to find him thus making acquaintance with a noted Cheshire worthy, John Paget, the author of "The Defence of Presbyterian Church Government," who had been minister of Nantwich in 1598, but who, in 1605, the year following that in which Brereton was born, had been compelled to retire on account of his nonconformity, when he settled at Amsterdam, where, in 1607, he had a call to the pastorate of the English church, in which he continued to minister for the long period of thirty years.[33]

In 1635 Sir William Brereton returned from his travels in Ireland. In May of the following year he was in London, visiting, at Westminster and the Temple, his younger brother Urian, whom Mr. Earwaker incorrectly represents as dying in 1631,[34] but who in 1636 was apparently following the law. While there he was laid up with sickness, and "feared a violent, burning fever," but happily was soon restored to health.

In the early summer of the succeeding year a great sorrow fell upon him, and the gloom of sadness overshadowed his house. On the last day of May, 1637, the solemn knell that echoed from the bell towers of Cheadle and Bowdon churches proclaimed to hall and hamlet that the mistress of Handforth, the beloved and cherished wife of William Brereton, had passed away, and on the 6th of June her remains were laid beside those of her progenitors in the quiet old church of Bowdon.

The tender and affectionate wife, the woman of his early love, the mother of his young children, for they were still in their infancy, was taken from him at the time when her counsel was needed most. The trial was a sore one, and his domestic sorrow seemed to have loosened the cords of life; his habits were entirely changed; the green lanes, the wooded uplands, and the bosky dells that surrounded his Cheshire home were no longer pleasant to look upon; his decoys had lost their attractions, and he ceased to find enjoyment in those rural pastimes and pursuits in which he had previously delighted. It was a sorrowful episode in his life, but there was another sorrow deepening in the country that helped to obliterate the remembrance of it. The funeral plumes that waved over the coffin of his wife were stirred by the trumpet blast of discontent that swept over the country. A blow had been struck at the liberty of Englishmen; the writ for the levying of "SHIP MONEY"--that word of lasting memory in the annals of the nation--had been issued; a tax as startling as it was novel, that had been raked up from among the dust of forgotten records, had been reimposed. Hampden had resisted it, and earned for himself thereby a cheap immortality. Ship money was in all men's ears a hated word; Brereton's heart was stirred within him, and he quitted his rural retirement, with its mournful associations, to join in the great struggle against kingly prerogative. It was the levying of this obnoxious tax that first brought him into collision with the constituted authorities. As previously stated, he had inherited an estate in Chester--the Nunneries, given by Henry VIII. to his ancestor, Sir Urian Brereton. He maintained that these lands were exempted from rating. The Mayor of Chester ignored his claim, and much personal animosity between himself and the city was engendered in consequence. The blood of Sir William Brereton, which had been so unrighteously shed by King Henry, had not been avenged; the memory of that cruel wrong still lingered, and when, in obedience to the command of Charles, a levy was made upon his property for the payment of the hated ship money, the slumbering feeling of discontent was fanned into the flame of open resistance; and when the Commission of Array was issued he was the first to incite the citizens of Chester into insurrection.

On the 27th June, 1642, Thomas Cowper, of Overleigh, then Mayor of Chester, the Earls of Derby and Rivers, and Viscount Cholmondeley, were appointed by Charles the Commissioners of Array for the county of the city; and on the Monday, the 8th August, Sir William Brereton, being at the time one of the members for the shire,[35] caused a drum to be beaten publicly in the streets for the purpose of enlisting recruits in the service of the Parliament, in consequence of which he narrowly escaped falling a victim to the indignation of the populace, whose sympathies were on the side of the King. Hemingway, in his _History of Chester_, thus records the circumstance:--

Information of this treason having been given to the Mayor, Mr. Thomas Cowper, this intrepid magistrate immediately directed some constables to apprehend the leaders of the tumult, but the latter forcibly resisted, and compelled the constables to retire, upon which the Mayor stepped forward in person to expostulate with them on their conduct, and upon being disrespectfully treated, he boldly advanced up to one of the Parliamentarians, and, seizing him by the collar, delivered him to the civil officers, at the same time wresting a broad sword from another of the party, with which he instantly cut the drum to pieces, securing the drummer and several others. The firm and manly demeanour on the part of the Mayor effectually put an end to the tumult, and finally repressed it. During the affray the common bell was rung, the citizens lent their cheerful aid to the chief magistrate, and when they had seen him in a state of personal security the city was restored to peace. Sir William Brereton, a gentleman of competent fortune in the county, and knight for the shire, and who was a strong partizan for the Parliament, was brought before the magistrates at the Pentice, to answer for the part he had taken in the above disturbance, though he owed his rescue from the popular fury to the personal interference of the Mayor; he was, however, discharged.... His subsequent severities are stated to have proceeded from his resentment on this occasion, and [Hemingway adds] it has been a subject of regret to many of his political opponents, that the active interposition of the Mayor had rescued from the popular fury a man who afterwards proved to be so severe a scourge to the city.[36]

If the men of Chester were loyal to their Sovereign, the prevailing feeling in the county was decidedly in favour of the Parliament; the popular party were able to prevent the Commissioners of Array from carrying the Royal proclamation into effect, while at the same time their own levies proceeded with little interruption. The attempt to maintain the neutrality of the county by the Treaty of Pacification, as it was called, which enjoined an absolute cessation of arms and the demolition of the fortifications made by either party in Chester, Nantwich, Stockport, Knutsford, and any other town, having failed, each of the hostile parties set to work to procure military stores in anticipation of the approaching conflict. The Commission of Array established itself at Chester, Nantwich being at the same time made the head-quarters of those in arms against the King. Sir William Brereton was entrusted by the Parliament with the arming of the county, to him was also confided the seizure of the goods and weapons of the "delinquents," as the Royalists were called, and he was subsequently appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentarian forces in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, his kinsman, Colonel Robert Dukenfield, of Dukenfield, and Colonel Henry Bradshaw, of Marple, the elder brother of the future judge of the High Commission Court, being two of his most active officers.

Eager for the conflict, Sir William Brereton was unable to restrain his impetuosity. Before any commissions were issued the sword of the restless and robust Puritan had left the scabbard, and the blast of his trumpet had been heard as he gathered together his dependents and the friends of the "cause," and trained them to the use of arms; staunch and stern enthusiasts they were, who quickly caught the spirit of their leader, whom we can picture in imagination marshalling them in the leafy valley of the Deane, or upon the broad plateau of Handforth Green.

On the 25th of August, 1642, Charles appeared at Nottingham, with a few troops of horse, and about six hundred foot, the mere shadow of an army; the blood-red ensign, blazoned with the royal arms, and bearing the suggestive motto, "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's," was set up on the hill adjoining the castle. It was a hasty and imprudent act--a terrible symbol, reviving the traditions of feudality, and virtually proclaiming that the kingdom was in a state of war and the ordinary course of law at an end. Such a ceremony had not been witnessed in England since the time when Richard III. raised his standard on the field of Bosworth, a century and a half previously. The auspices were not favourable; the weather was sullen and tempestuous; the dark clouds heralded a storm, and the gloom of the lowering sky was in harmony with the shadow that lay on men's minds. Scarcely had the streamer been unfurled than a fierce gust of wind swept with wild moan over the hill top and laid the emblem of sovereignty prostrate upon the ground. It was an unhappy omen, and whispered words of sorrowful misgiving passed from man to man. The next day the ceremony was repeated, the trumpet sounded, the herald read the proclamation, and the few friends assembled shouted, "God save the King." Thus the olive branch was cast aside, King and Parliament were divided, and the royal sanction given to the wasting calamity of war--war that was to determine whether the monarchical or the democratic estate of the kingdom should possess the ruling power, and in which the best and bravest blood of England was to be shed.

In that memorable struggle which convulsed the kingdom and drenched it in civil slaughter--a struggle that may be said to have begun with a tumult in Manchester, when a poor linen weaver looking on was accidentally shot,[37] and Parliament, to inflame the people, magnified the event into "The Beginning of the Civil Wars in England, or Terrible News from the North," and which ended with the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles II., when the same old Puritan town, to do honour to the occasion, put on its peacock's feathers, and made the conduit to flow with wine, and the gutters to swell with strong beer--the Lord of Handforth played a very conspicuous part, and there can be little doubt that much of the ultimate success of the Republican party was due to his unwearying energy and military skill. His delight lay in the din of arms, the rattle of musketry, and the clatter of troops; and a record of his doings would be little else than a chronicle of the events that were then occurring in the northern parts of the kingdom. A circumstantial account of his military exploits is given by contemporary writers. Burghall, the Puritan Vicar of Acton, in his "Providence Improved,"[38] makes frequent mention of him, and in Josiah Rycroft's "Survey of England's Champions and Truth's Faithfull Patriots," 1647, and John Vicars's "England's Worthies," published in the same year, are "lively pourtraitures" of Cheshire's famous general.

The rejection of the Bill for regulating the militia, passed by the Commons in February, 1642, and which, if confirmed, would have transferred the power of levying armies to the Republican party, widened the breach between King and Parliament. From that hour the link which bound them together was riven. It was evident that the difficulty could be only adjusted by an appeal to arms, and, as the spring advanced, both sides began in earnest to prepare for the conflict, though each was anxious to avoid the responsibility of commencing it. The fast decaying traditions of the miseries attendant upon the old domestic feuds--the struggles of the Barons, and the Wars of the Roses--were wholly drowned by the loud beating of the warlike pulse; men were suddenly withdrawn from the plough, the anvil, and the loom; the services of foreign mercenaries were eagerly sought, and on every hand the signs of preparation were apparent.

Sir William Brereton, one of the deputy-lieutenants, as well as one of the members for Cheshire, was authorised by the Parliament to put in force the ordinance concerning the militia, and as the harvest-time approached he proceeded to Nantwich for that purpose. The King's Commission of Array, who were at Chester, hearing of his intention, marched with a body of men towards Ravensmoor to prevent him. On the 12th August both parties met on Beam Heath, when an altercation arose, which would most likely have ended in bloodshed but for the mediation of Mr. Werden, of Chester, on the one side, and Mr. Wilbraham of Dorfold on the other. Nantwich commanding, as it did, one of the approaches into North Wales, was an important strategical position, and the inhabitants being for the most part favourable to the Puritan cause, the place was barricaded, and made the head-quarters of the Parliament party, of which, as we have said, Sir William Brereton had the chief command.

Charles remained at Nottingham after the Royal standard had been erected until his army had been increased by reinforcements from various quarters, when he set forward, marching across Derbyshire in the direction of the Welsh borders, intending to establish his head-quarters at Shrewsbury, where considerable promises of support had been given. About the same time Lord Grandison, on behalf of the King, presented himself at Nantwich, and on the 12th September, accompanied by Lord Cholmondeley and a considerable body of horse entered the town, the inhabitants, fearing the approach of the royal army, which was then at Shrewsbury, having quickly made terms for the surrender of the same, as well as of their arms, ammunition, and accoutrements; and at the same time Woodhay, Doddington, Haslington, Baddiley, and other houses in the neighbourhood, the owners of which were known to be disaffected, were subjected to the same treatment. Two days later the king, having advanced from Shrewsbury, entered the ancient city of Chester, where he received a welcome as enthusiastic as that accorded to his father, five-and-twenty years before. The mayor and corporation entertained him sumptuously at the Pentice and presented him with £200, bestowing at the same time £100 upon the Prince of Wales, their titular Earl, who accompanied him. His Majesty took up his abode at the Episcopal Palace, whence a summons was issued through the sheriff requiring Sir Richard Wilbraham of Woodhay, Sir Thomas Delves of Doddington, Mr. Mainwaring of Peover, and Mr. Wilbraham of Dorfold, to await the King's pleasure. They repaired to Shrewsbury in charge of the sheriff, and remained there for three weeks in the hope of being discharged, but the two Wilbrahams were detained prisoners, Sir Richard dying in April of the following year, while still in confinement there.

The King returned to Shrewsbury, and thence proceeded towards London. On the 23rd October, when the morning dawned, he saw from the brow of the wild ridge of hills that overlook the vale of the Red Horse, near Kineton, in Warwickshire, the army of the Earl of Essex drawn up in order of battle upon the plain below. On that day Edgehill, the first great battle of the great civil war, was fought; thirty thousand of the best and bravest of Englishmen were put in array against each other, and on that cold autumn night, as the keen searching wind sighed through the heath and furze and along the unsheltered slopes of Edgehill, darkness closed upon the field of carnage, where five thousand men lay in their death agony--so many sacrifices to the Moloch of intestine strife--without any substantial advantage having been gained by either side.

After the battle, the King continued his march southwards; but Colonel Hastings, who had also taken part in it, repaired into Cheshire with a small force, and occupied himself during the winter months in harassing those opposed to the Royalist cause. On the 23rd of December a kind of peace--the Treaty of Pacification, as it was called--was entered into at Bunbury, but was immediately afterwards broken. In January, 1642-3, a skirmish took place outside Nantwich between a small force of Royalists, led by Sir Thomas Aston, and a company of Parliamentarians, commanded by Captain Bramhall, the former being compelled to retire, when Sir William Brereton followed in hot pursuit, took one hundred prisoners, and pillage to the value of £1,000; at the same time, as Vicars affirms, "making Sir Vincent Corbet fly in a pannick feare for his life." In the same month a list of instructions was drawn up by Parliament and transmitted to Sir William for his guidance in relation to the conduct of military affairs in the county, and in accordance therewith he sent out his warrants requiring the train bands and other forces of the shire to muster at Tarporley and Frodsham on the 21st of February, hearing of which the Royalists issued from Chester with two pieces of ordnance, and entrenched themselves at Ruddyheath, when, on the morning of the 22nd, the opposing forces met. A few shots were fired on both sides, but little or no harm was done. What, however, was of more importance occurred on the preceding night, when a small force of Parliamentarians from Nantwich, taking advantage of the darkness, scaled the lofty eminence of Beeston and took possession of the castle, which was at once repaired and put in a state of defence. Some of them coming down to Brereton's assistance were met by a troop of Royalist horse on Tiverton Town field, when a slight skirmish took place, and lives were lost on both sides.

The army at Nantwich had by this time been largely reinforced, Colonel Mainwaring, Captain Dukenfield, Captain Hyde, Captain Marbury, with other gentlemen, and their companies of horse and foot, having joined. On the 10th of March, Sir Thomas Aston having made a descent upon Middlewich and plundered the town, Sir William Brereton advanced from Nantwich to give him battle; an engagement ensued, the Royalists were driven out of the town, and many prisoners taken. A characteristic account of the attack, from the pen of a Puritan writer, who appears to have been present and to have taken part, is thus given in a pamphlet published at the time:--

Sir Thomas Aston and his partie, recovering strength after their late overthrow, exercised the same in mischiefe, and all wicked outrages; for besides their plundering and wasting of all the countrie neere Chester, they laid such intolerable taxes both on the citie and countrie thereabout, that their own partie was embittered against them; yea, before we secured Northwich, whiles some of our forces were in that countrie, they plundered Weverham and the county about; they carried old men out of their houses, bound them together, tyed them to a cart, drave them through mire and water above the knees, and so brought them to that dungeon, where they lie without fire or light, and now through extremities are so diseased, that they are ready to yield up the ghost. On the Sabbath, March 12, having a little before advanced to Middlewich, they plundered all that day, as a most proper season for it, commanded the carts in all that countrie about to carrie away the goods, kept a faire that day neere Torperley to sell these goods. In Over when they had plundered they left ratbane in the house wrapt in papers, for the children, which by God's providence was taken from them before they could eate it, after their parents durst returne to them; and being a considerable body they sent for more strength, and by their warrant to the churches about, commanded all the countrie to come in with such insolent and imperious expressions, that they were hatefull to some malignants, and concluded to give no quarter to any roundheads, and were confident quickly to carry all downe before them. Sir William (Brereton) was at that time at Northwitch with a considerable partie; many gentlemen of his partie were at Namptwich, with about seven or eight hundred armed men; their generous spirits were enrag'd to see such outrages committed; it wrought alike in all Sir William's forces to provoke us for to fall upon the enemy, though wee could not easily communicate our purposes one to another. At Namptwich we agreed to assault them the next morning, signified the same to Sir Will(iam). He was as forward as we. Our gent. desired a minister to come to their Chambers, upon the alarum to be given at twelve o'clock, that commending them to God in prayer, they might speed the better. Some ministers and others fell to the worke that day by prayer and fasting, though not as Moses, Aaron, and Hur, in prospect of the armies, yet wrestling as Jacob did, and putting their mouthes in the dust, if so bee there might be hope, of which they had a gracious returne by three o'clock. The business of that day was carried thus:--Sir William being foure miles from the enemy, assaulted that side of the towne by eight o'clock, March the 13th, and continued the fight for about three or foure houres before we came to his help; in which time this accident fell out, that his powder was all spilt, excepting about seven pound they tooke councell upon it, and it was concluded they must retreite because their partie from Namptwich was not come in to their assistance, but Sir William was resolute not to retreit but to send to Northwitch for more powder, and to keep them in play as well as they could till the powder came, which accordingly they did; betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock we came to their assistance, which they knew not of till they heard us in hot service on the other side of the town; when we began their powder came.

The enemy had chief advantages, their ordinance planted; we had none; they layd about 150 musquetiers in an hole convenient for them. They layd their ambuskadoes in the hedges, musquetiers in the church and steeple, and had every way so strengthened themselves that they seemed impregnable; but God led on our men with incredible courage--Captaine George Booth fac'd the towne with his troope whilst they plaid on with their ordinance, which once graz'd before them, and then mounted cleare over them in another; in another that it dash't the water and mire in his and two other captaines faces, but there it dies. This was no discouragement to our men; they marched upon all their ambuskadoes, drave them all out of them into the towne, entered the towne upon the mouths of the cannon and storme of the muskets, our major (a right Scottish blade)[39] brought them up in two files, with which he lined the walls and kept the street open, went up to their ordinance, which he tooke; then the enemy fled to the church; Sir Thomas Aston would have gone after them but they durst not let him in, lest we should enter with him: then he mounted his horse and fled with all speed by Kinderton, and divers others with him, for that way only was open, all the rest we had surrounded; we slew divers upon the top of the steeple, and some, they say, within the church.

In this encounter 400 Royalists were taken prisoners, among them several officers of rank, including Captain Massie, of Coddington, Captain John Hurleston, Colonel Ellis, Major Gilmore, Captain Corbet, Captain Starky, of Stretton, and Captain Morris; a Lancashire man was also numbered among those captured--Sir Edward Mosley, of Hough End and Aldport Lodge, in Manchester, at that time sheriff of Staffordshire, who for his "delinquency" had to compound for his estates by the payment to the Committee of Sequestrations of £4,874, which greatly impoverished him.

By the defeat at Nantwich the Royalist army was greatly weakened, and Brereton found himself free to turn his attention in other directions. Hearing that the Earl of Northampton was marching northwards, he immediately set out to the assistance of Sir John Gell, who was then in the neighbourhood of Stafford.

It was a short fortnight after the siege of Lichfield Close, whither Sir John, with a body of fighting men, had gone to reinforce the army of Lord Brooke, who had himself fallen a victim to the unerring aim of the keen-eyed Dyott, a bullet from whose arquebus had passed through the visor of his helm and pierced his brain--the time

When fanatic Brooke
The fair cathedral stormed and took,
But, thanks to heaven, and good St. Chad,
A guerdon meet the spoiler had.

Hearing of the attack on

Moated Lichfield's lofty pile,

the Earl of Northampton hastened with a strong party of horse to relieve the beleaguered city, when Gell, knowing himself to be in no condition to cope with him, retired towards Stafford. Brereton, whose new strung vigour and eager impetuosity seldom permitted him to leave the saddle or let his sword rest in the scabbard, marched at once with 1,500 horsemen from Nantwich, by way of Newcastle and Stone, until he reached Salt Heath, a place about three miles north-east of Stafford, where, on the 19th of March, a week after the fight at Middlewich, he joined the forces of Sir John Gell. At Hopton Heath, adjoining Salt Heath, the Earl of Northampton fell upon their rear, and an engagement ensued. The Parliamentarians numbered in all 3,000 horse and foot, and the Royalists about half that number. Brereton posted his horse in two bodies in front of the infantry, and awaited the attack from the Earl, who charged the main body and dispersed them, the second attack being followed by the same result; but the Royalist victory was quickly turned to mourning. The Earl's cavalry, pursuing their advantage with rash precipitation, threw themselves among the ranks of Sir John Gell's foot; in this encounter the Earl of Northampton had his horse shot under him, and while on foot was quickly surrounded by his foes. Quarter was offered but refused, when a trooper with his heavy matchlock smote off his helm, and another from behind dashed his halberd into his brain. Sir Thomas Byron, who commanded the Prince of Wales's troop, followed up the attack, but night coming on both armies drew off, each claiming the victory. The advantage, however, would appear to have remained with the Parliamentarians, who were enabled to drive their opponents out of the county. Sir William Brereton, in the fanatical phraseology so characteristic of the time, thus concludes his account of the transaction:--

In the success of this battle the Lord was pleased much to shewe himselfe to bee the Lord of Hosts and God of Victory; for, when the day was theirs and the field wonne, he was pleased mightily to interpose for the rescue and deliverance of these that trusted in him. And, as my lord generall (Essex) said concerning Keinton (Edge-hill) battle, soe may it bee said of this, that there was much of God and nothing of man, that did contribute to this victorie. To him I desire the sole glory may be ascribed, and that this may be a further encouragement to trust in him, and an engagement to adhere unto this cause, as well in the midst of daungers and streights as when they are more remote. To this end I beseech you assist with your prayers those who often stand in neede thereof; and believe that there is none that doth more earnestly pray for and desire the encrease of all comfort and happiness then Your most faithfull frend,

Apart from the horrors inseparable from fratricidal strife, or the results which civil war may ultimately secure, there are attendant circumstances that make such an upheaval of the national life not altogether an unmixed evil. If in the great social convulsions of the past there has been much that we must deprecate and condemn, much that must lead us to rejoice that our lot has been cast in more peaceful times, there has been also much that is morally good and dear to our every feeling of existence. If there were barbarism and selfishness and ruthlessness, there were also high achievements and flashes of heroism that will not be forgotten while great qualities find a sanctuary in the human heart, even though we may not be able to approve the ends to which they were devoted. While the coarser passions may have found vent in heartless violence, honour has been as often roused from the embrace of luxury, and a spirit of patriotism evoked that might never else have struggled into light. Through the fissures caused by such dislocations of the social strata, genius and virtue and devotion have forced their way; men have struggled for principles as men struggle for life, and have renewed their nobility in something nobler than in name.

Accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, upholding the Puritan doctrines in which he believed, and watching, it may be from afar, the widening breach between King and people, William Brereton had taken but little active interest in public affairs; but when the trumpet-blast of war sounded in his ears his courage, promptitude, and zeal were instantly aroused. Forced by the troublous times from the lethargy of security and passionless ease, he quickly evidenced the possession of qualities of which he had never given even a crude or ostentatious promise. In what he conceived to be the path of duty he was prodigal of his personal safety, and in that great struggle against prerogative no man was less mindful of the hardships and the dangers inseparable from a soldier's life. It was no boyish enthusiasm that led him to take down the spear and the arquebus from the ancestral wall and to don the armour of his forefathers; for, when he entered the arena of civil strife, he was verging upon forty years of age, and the blaze of youth had sunk into the burning fire of middle life. Noble was the idea he had set before him. To contend with the oppressor and to battle for right and justice was a high work. It is not our province to enter upon the merits of the great civil war of the seventeenth century; we reverence the principles of civil and religious truth for which the Puritans professed invincible attachment, but we cannot close our eyes to the fact that some of those who pleaded so loudly for conscience, and offered such uncompromising resistance to despotism, when they got the power into their own hands, instead of righting the wrongs of which they had complained, merely changed the venue and transferred a grinding social tyranny from the hand of one faction to that of another. As old Fuller, in his quaint way, observes, "they girt their own garment closest about the consciences of others." We can sympathise with the Puritanism of Brereton in the effort for the advance of civil and religious liberty and the purity of moral life, but we cannot sympathise with the Puritanism that manifested itself in fanatical excesses and the profane handling of things that ought to have been sacred, even to fanatics, if they believed in the cause for which they contended.

Sir William Brereton could no longer find happiness in repose; his new-born zeal knew no restraint. Scarcely had he returned from the fight at Hopton Heath than he was again in the saddle, and marching with his troops to Northwich. On Easter Monday, April 3rd, he advanced from that place towards Warrington, with the object of assisting the Manchester men in wresting that town from the Earl of Derby, who then held it for the King. An engagement took place at Stockton Heath, when the Earl, being worsted, fell back upon Warrington, which was shortly afterwards invested; but as he destroyed some of the buildings, and threatened to lay the remainder in ashes rather than surrender, the siege was raised, and Brereton with his army returned to Nantwich.

The period which followed was one of considerable activity. Before the month had closed he was again in Staffordshire, and at Drayton encountered Sir Vincent Corbet, whom he a second time defeated, Sir Vincent, as Burghall tells us, escaping "in his shirt and waistcoat, leaving his clothes behind him, which Captain Whitney took, with all his money and his letters found in his pockets." On the 15th May, Brereton's dragoons, having been joined by some companies from Leek and Newcastle-under-Lyme, entered the town of Stafford in the middle of the night, while the people were in their beds, took possession, and made several prisoners; among them Captain Biddulph, probably of the family of Biddulph Hall, and Captain Legh, of Adlington. From Stafford the victorious Parliamentarians proceeded to Wolverhampton, which was speedily taken; they then returned into Cheshire, and advanced to Warrington to join the Manchestrians in renewing the attack upon the town, which had been left by the Earl of Derby to the care of Colonel Edward Norris, of Speke; and on Saturday, May 27th, "after a week's siege, the Royalists were obliged to surrender this key of the county," when, as we learn from Burghall, "Sir George Booth (Brereton's brother-in-law), being lord of the town, entered it, and was joyfully entertained by the inhabitants." Sir William knew no rest. Two days later we find him marching at midnight from Nantwich with a force of eight hundred men to Whitchurch, where Lord Capel had fixed his head-quarters, arriving there at three o'clock in the morning; when, after two hours' sharp fighting, the place surrendered, and the victors returned to Nantwich laden with "cheese, malt, wheat, bacon, and ammunition," and other spoils of war.

During the preceding months the Vale of the Weaver had been harassed and made the scene of many a predatory descent from Capel's forces, aided occasionally by the Royalists from Cholmondeley; the country round, but Nantwich more especially, had been plundered, the rich meadows and pasture lands which had been brought under cultivation in pre-Reformation times by the monks of Combermere being more productive than other parts of the county offered a strong inducement; whilst the inhabitants, having for the most part sided with the Republican party, were accounted as fitting subjects for Royalist vengeance. Moss House, near Burley Dam, Dorfold Hall, Acton, Ravensmoor, and Sound are named as being plundered of horses, cows, young beasts, and household stuffs during the occasional absences of General Brereton from head-quarters. In retaliation, Cholmondeley Hall was itself attacked, the Nantwich troops issuing from their entrenchments by the north road; then, passing Mr. Wilbraham's house at Dorfold, they quitted the Chester Road and proceeded by Monk's Lane, passing Acton Church and Vicarage--the latter at the time the residence of Edward Burghall, the Puritan diarist--and thence over Ravensmoor to the stone cross near where stood the entrance to Woodhay, the owner of which, Sir Richard Wilbraham, had died only a few days before, a prisoner in the castle at Shrewsbury. Soon Cholmondeley was reached. The Royalists, being apprised of their intention, turned out to meet them, and an engagement took place, when the Cavaliers, having sustained some loss, withdrew to the shelter of the hall, and their opponents returned to Nantwich with a booty of six hundred horse.

Shortly after this some of the Nantwich men sustained a severe reverse. The troops left in possession of Whitchurch, having imprudently advanced beyond Hanmer into Wales, were met by Lord Capel and the Welsh forces of the King, who had been lying in ambush. They were attacked and dispersed, several of their number being killed or wounded, and many taken prisoners. It was a sorrowful day for them, and Burghall laments that it was "the worst day's work the Nantwich soldiers did from the beginning of the war." It was a sorrowful day elsewhere, for on the preceding day John Hampden--

The noblest Roman of them all,

received his death wound on Chalgrove Field, the avenging ball of a Royalist having shivered his vigorous right arm on the very spot where he had first executed the ordinance of the militia and engaged his tenantry and serving men in rebellion, and he then lay at Thame, where, with the grace and dignity of the old Roman, but with the fortitude and trusting faith of the true Christian, he died after six days' agony.

It does not appear that Sir William Brereton was present at the disaster which befell his troops in the Welsh Marches; had he been, it is possible the result might have been different. A few days before, he was at Liverpool, directing the unlading of a ship which had arrived freighted with ordinance and ammunition from London. This misfortune was, however, speedily made up for by an attack on Eccleshall Castle, which surrendered with all its ordinance, arms, and ammunition on the 26th June, and on returning to Nantwich he was, we are told, "received with much joy." On Thursday, July 17th, having received reinforcements from Staffordshire and Manchester, he set out for Chester; but there his usual good luck failed him; an assault was made, but the city was found to be strongly fortified, and learning that Lord Capel, with the Shropshire forces, was advancing, he deemed it prudent to withdraw his men and return to Nantwich. He did not long remain there, for, hearing that Colonel Hastings had marched with four hundred horse from Lichfield to relieve the Royalists, who were then holding out at Stafford Castle, he set out with 1,000 men to the help of the besiegers, bivouacking for the night at Stone. On his approach the garrison fled in dismay, when the castle was taken and demolished, except the keep. Taking advantage of his absence, the Royalists, who, though driven out of Whitchurch, still hung about the Welsh border, determined upon attacking Nantwich. Lord Capel advanced with a considerable force by way of Baddington-lane, when the Parliamentarians, fearing they might be outnumbered, prudently retired within the town, having sustained but slight loss. On that warm summer's night, August 3rd, the Royalists lay on Ravensmoor, and the next morning, taking advantage of a thick mist that hid them from view, set upon the town, directing their fire from the meadows lying between Marsh Lane and the left bank of the Weaver. The attack lasted from six o'clock in the morning until nine or ten, when the sun dispelled the mist, and Capel, finding himself too near, withdrew his men. The report that Capel had threatened the town caused reinforcements to be sent from Lancashire and Staffordshire to the aid of the Cheshire men, but finding he had fallen back they returned to their respective counties, the "Moorland Dragoons" from Staffordshire marching by way of Aslington, where they quartered on the night of the 5th of August, and then, continuing their march, "they gave," as the Puritan Vicar of Acton relates, "a strong alarm to Mr. Biddulph's house (Biddulph Old Hall) in Staffordshire, where was a garrison. This Biddulph," he adds, "was a great Papist," a name of reproach applied by the Presbyterians to many a good Protestant.