Chapter IV (3)

At the time of Capel's descent on Nantwich, Brereton was with the Parliamentary army in the neighbourhood of Wem, where he remained for some time, having fortified the town, and being thus enabled to make frequent predatory incursions from it into the surrounding country, to the alarm of the Royalists who then garrisoned Shrewsbury. Taking advantage of his prolonged absence, Lord Capel resolved once more on attacking the great Puritan stronghold of Nantwich. On the 14th of October, he set out with a force of 3,400 men and artillery, moving by way of Whitchurch, Combermere, and Marbury; his men reached Acton at noon on the 16th, when, finding that some of the Nantwich troops were approaching, they took up a position in the church, which they fortified along with the neighbouring mansion of Dorfold, but hearing that Brereton was returning from Wem they deemed it unsafe to hazard an engagement, and, during the night, withdrew.

Brereton did not remain many days at Nantwich. On the 7th November, accompanied by Sir Thomas Middleton, he set out for Wales. When night closed on that short November day they had got no further than Sir Richard Wilbraham's house at Woodhay, where they bivouacked for the night. On the following day they were joined by the Lancashire forces, when an attack was made upon Holt Castle, the Royalists were driven out, and the victors then marched to Wrexham, whence they would seem to have directed their march towards Chester, for on Saturday, November 11, Sir William, in company with Alderman Edwards, who had been mayor of the city in 1636, and a small force, set out for Hawarden Castle, which surrendered on their approach without so much as a shot being fired. On the Thursday following Brereton sent a summons from Hawarden to Sir Abraham Shipman, the governor of Chester, demanding the surrender of the city, and threatening severe punishment in case of refusal. To this demand the gallant old Royalist sent a curt and characteristic reply assuring Sir William that he was not to be terrified by words, and that if he wanted the city he must first come and win it. In the meantime, in anticipation of any attack that might be made, he caused the Handbridge suburbs to be destroyed to prevent the Roundheads sheltering in them, and at the same time demolished Overlegh Hall, Bache Hall, and Flookersbrook Hall, with their outhousing, lest enemies from other quarters might effect lodgments therein.

Happily for the inhabitants the landing at Mostyn of a body of the King's troops, returning from employment against the rebels in Ireland, saved the city from immediate danger. Brereton returned to his quarters at Nantwich, and the Lancashire men hastened homewards. Burghall says "it was a wonder they made such haste to relieve Hawarden Castle, a stronghold, lately taken, only they left one Mr. Ince, an able and faithful minister, and about 120 soldiers in it, with little provision, and in great danger. It was also thought strange, that they should leave Wales, which in a manner, was quite subdued a little before, and so many good friends who had come to them, were left to the mercy of the enemy." Brereton was doubtless a better judge of the exigencies of the case than the Puritan divine whose ideas on military tactics were in this instance at fault. Retreat had become necessary, for had the Royalists with the large reinforcements from Ireland have moved on Nantwich in his absence they would in all likelihood have been successful, and not only have deprived the Parliamentarians of that important position, but also have cut off the retreat of their army, and have forced them to fight under great disadvantage in the rocky defiles of the Welsh border, which at that season of the year would have been all but impassable for troops encumbered with heavy ordinance.

Hawarden Castle, being left comparatively unprotected, was, as Burghall says, "in great danger," but the little garrison held out bravely. On the 21st of November Colonel Mann sent a trumpeter to demand the castle for his Majesty's use; the demand was refused, and a week latter Captain Standford, who commanded the Irish force then just landed, sent the following peremptory summons:--

Gentlemen,--I presume you very well know, or have heard, of my condition and disposition, and that I neither give or take quarter; I am now with my firelocks, who never yet neglected opportunity to correct rebels; ready to use you as I have done the Irish, but loth I am to spill my countrymen's blood; wherefore, by these, I advise you to your fealty and obedience towards his majesty, and shew yourselves faithful subjects by delivering the castle into my hands for his majesty's use; in so doing you shall be received into mercy, &c. Otherwise, if you put me to the least trouble, or loss of blood, to force you, expect no quarter for man, woman, or child. I hear you have some of our late Irish army in your company; they very well know me, and that my firelocks used not parly.--Be not unadvised, but think of your liberty, for I vow all hopes of relief are taken from you, and our intents are not to starve you, but to batter and storm you, and then hang you all, and follow the rest of that rebel crew. I am no bread and cheese rogue, but as ever a loyalist, and will ever be whilst I can write or name

Nov. 28th, 1643. THO. SANDFORD, Cap. of Firelocks.

I expect your speedy answer this Tuesday night at Broadlane hall, where I now am your near neighbour.

To the officer commanding in chief at Hawarden castle and his consorts there.

On this summons the stout-hearted defenders of Hawarden also refused to surrender. The besiegers then made application for assistance from Chester, and a force of 300 of the citizens and trainbands having arrived, the attack commenced on the 3rd December; on the following day a white flag was hung out and the garrison capitulated; the castle being surrendered early on the next morning on the condition that its defenders should be free to march out with half arms, and two pairs of colours, one flying and the other furled, and to be safely conveyed either to Wem or Nantwich.

The Cheshire men who sided with the Parliament party appear to have had a wholesome terror of Captain Sandford and his notorious firelocks. An assailant whose cardinal principle is neither to ask or give quarter is not a pleasant person to encounter, and hence the Cestrians were by no means desirous of cultivating acquaintance with a soldier who had not only declared his intention of putting to the sword all who presumed to offer opposition to his demands, but who, on previous occasions, had shown that he could be as good as his word.

Following up their success at Hawarden, the Cavaliers advanced to Beeston; the garrison there, having heard of Brereton's retreat, had become demoralised, and surrendered the castle to Sandford without even the semblance of a struggle. Burghall thus relates the story of the capture:--

December 13th (1643) a little before day Captain Sandford (a zealous Royalist) who came out of Ireland, with eight of his firelocks, crept up the steep hill of Beeston Castle, and got into the upper ward and took possession there. It must be done by treachery for the place was most impregnable. Captain Steel, who kept it for the Parliament, was accused and suffered for it; but it was verily thought he had not betrayed it wilfully; but some of his men proving false, he had not courage enough to withstand Sandford to try it out with him. What made much against Steel was he took Sandford down into his chamber, where they dined together, and much beer was sent up to Sandford's men, and the castle after a short parley was delivered up; Steel and his men having leave to march with their arms and colours to Nantwich, but as soon as he was come into the town the soldiers were so enraged against him that they would have pulled him in pieces had he not been immediately clapped in prison. There were much wealth and goods in the castle belonging to gentlemen and neighbours, who had brought it thither for safety, besides ammunition and provisions for half a year at least; all which the enemy got.

The surrender of Beeston was a great discouragement to the Parliamentarians, and so exasperated were the Nantwich men at what they believed to be the treachery of Steel, that shortly after he was "shot to death" in Tinker's Croft, by two soldiers, according to judgment against him. Whether Steel was actuated by treachery or cowardice is a matter of doubt, but, in any case, an example was required to be made, and the stern Puritans could hardly have pronounced a milder sentence; for the dining with Sandford, and the regaling of his men with "much beer" must have told greatly against him. With the loss of Beeston the way lay open from Chester; the garrison at Nantwich had in consequence a busy time of it, being kept in a state of perpetual alarm by the oft repeated rumours of the approach of Sandford and the much-dreaded firelocks. The town, we are told by an old chronicler, had no rest day or night, and a guard had to be kept continually upon the walls to give warning in the event of the enemies coming. Danger increased on every hand, the Royalists had been reinforced by the Anglo-Irish contingent sent over by the Marquis of Ormond, and the whole district lay at the mercy of Lord Byron, who had the chief command, and who, elated with his successes, advanced without much loss of time with the intention of attacking Brereton in his own quarters. On the Sunday following the capture of Beeston, "during sermon time," as we are told, news came that the Cavaliers were at Burford, a place about a mile distant. Sergeant-major Lothian, with a company of soldiers, went out to meet them, but the sergeant got the worst of it, and in the encounter was made prisoner, when his men took to their heels. Immediately after Stoke, Hurleston, Brindley, Wrenbury, and the country round was ravaged, and much injury was inflicted. On the 22nd December the Royalists crossed the river to Audlem, Hankelow, Buerton, and Hatherton; on the Saturday they reached Barthomley and dispersed a number of Brereton's men, who had established themselves in the church; and on Christmas day and the day after they plundered Barthomley, Crewe, Haslington, and Sandbach. On the last-named day Brereton, having left a guard at Nantwich, marched with a considerable force towards Middlewich, Holmes Chapel and Sandbach, and at Booth Lane, about a mile from the last mentioned town, he was overtaken by the Royalists, when a fierce battle was fought, and he had to retreat to Middlewich, whither he was pursued, again attacked, and finally compelled to seek safety in flight, leaving his magazines behind him and two hundred prisoners. After this disaster he made his way northwards, when, as we learn from the "Briefe Summary" of the troubles Mr. William Davenport had to undergo, he was on New Year's Day "about Stopport, when with Captain Sankey, Captain Francis Dukinfield and a few soldiers, he made a raid upon Mr. Davenport's house at Bramhall, helped himself to what he could find, took away all the horses, about twenty in number, and all the arms he could lay his hands on. Meanwhile the victorious Cavaliers were by no means inactive; Crewe Hall was captured, but surrendered again the next day; Dorfold was taken on the 2nd of January (1643-4) and on the 4th Doddington yielded without a struggle. Nantwich had been invested and subjected to intermittent attacks, and on Thursday, January 17," after being besieged for five weeks and suffering great privation, it was assaulted on all sides; in the attack Captain Sandford met a soldier's death under the guns of his own hot battery, and within a few days of that on which Captain Steel was led out to execution. The siege lasted for more than a week, when General Fairfax, fresh from his victories in Yorkshire, passed through Manchester, and, being joined by the forces of Sir William Brereton, marched to the relief of the beleaguered town. The advancing army mustered in all three thousand five hundred and fifty horse, and five thousand foot; after a slight skirmish in Delamere Forest, in which forty prisoners were taken, their progress was arrested for a while at Barr Bridge, where a small force of Royalists had posted themselves behind Hurlestone Brook, the main body of Byron's army, however, remaining in the neighbourhood of Acton Church. The frost which had continued for some time, suddenly broke up, and the flooding of the Weaver, consequent upon the rapid thaw, placed the Royalists at a considerable disadvantage; a temporary bridge which they had constructed was swept away; communication between the cavalry and the infantry was thus cut off, and the former, being confined in deep lanes with great high hedges, were unable to sustain or relieve the suffering infantry, and, in fact, could only reach them by a detour of five miles. About half-past three in the afternoon of the 25th of January the two armies were put in array against each other in the fields lying between Acton Church and Ravensmoor, and on that raw winter's afternoon, before darkness had closed upon the scene, the Royalist infantry had given way and sought refuge in Acton Church, where they were surrounded and compelled to surrender. About one thousand six hundred of their number were made prisoners, among them Colonel Monk, who was sent to the Tower, the same who, after he had brought about the Restoration, developed into the Earl of Albemarle. The slain were very few, considering the large number of men engaged, only about fifty in all; their bodies were buried in a field belonging to Sir Thomas Wilbraham of Woodhay, which to this day retains the name of the "Dead Man's Field." The relief of the town was an occasion of much rejoicing; thanksgivings were held, and for many years after, on St. Paul's Day (January 25th), the anniversary of their deliverance, the townsmen wore sprigs of holly in their hats in commemoration of the event.

Clarendon, in his History of the Rebellion, observes that Nantwich was the only garrison which the Parliament had then left in Cheshire, and that from the beginning of the troubles it had been the only refuge for the disaffected in that county and the counties adjacent. He adds that the pride of the late success, and the terror which the Royal soldiers believed their names carried with them, led them before this place at the most unseasonable time of the year, but that "it cannot be denied that the reducing of this place at that time would have been of unspeakable importance to the King's affairs, there being between that and Carlisle no one town of moment (Manchester only excepted) which declared against the King; and those two populous counties of Chester and Lancashire, if they had been united against the Parliament, would have been a strong bulwark against the Scots." With the disaster at Nantwich the power of the Anglo-Irish army which the Marquis of Ormond had sent over to the help of the Royalist cause in England was wholly destroyed, and Fairfax was free to return to Yorkshire, where some months after he took part in the decisive battle of Marston Moor.

Shortly after the raising of the siege of Nantwich Brereton's men made an assault on Crewe Hall, which surrendered on the 4th of February. Three days later Doddington Hall was given up, and on the 14th Adlington Hall, after bravely holding out for a whole fortnight, was delivered up to Colonel Dukinfield, who, a month later, in accordance with an order of Parliament, handed over the possession to Colonel Brereton, who pillaged the house, and seized the family possessions into his own hands.

While these events were transpiring a kinsman of Sir William Brereton's, Lord Brereton of Brereton, who had been collecting arms and ammunition for the King's service, became alarmed, forsook his own residence, Brereton Hall, and, with his wife and son, took up his abode at Biddulph Hall, a fortified manor-house on the confines of Staffordshire, which was at once put into a state of defence. Angry at this proceeding, Sir William Brereton determined on its reduction, and at once set out with an armed force to accomplish that object. On the way one of the unlovely elements in the Puritan character manifested itself--the fanatical soldiery broke into the church at Astbury, one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical edifices in the county, defaced the costly architecture, broke the painted windows, demolished the carved screen-work, turned the fabric into a stable, and carried the organ away to a field close by, where they set it on fire--the spot retaining the name of the "Organ Field" to this day. Having performed these exploits, Brereton and his men resumed their march towards Biddulph, passing over Congleton Edge on the way. On the 20th of February the siege began, but the besiegers held out for a lengthened period--three months, it is said. Mr. J. Eglinton Bailey, in a paper recently read before the members of the Manchester Literary Club, gives the following interesting particulars:--

The ordnance was first planted on Congleton Edge, but little or no mischief was done from that standpoint. A fragment of an old song is remembered in which Lord Brereton, seeing Sir William on the Edge, is made to say--

"Yonder my uncle stands, and he will not come near,
Because he is a Roundhead, and I a Cavalier."

... During this time the investment was pretty close. Communication with the neighbourhood is said to have been held by means of a servant appropriately named "Trusty," who had nightly egress by an underground passage, through which victuals were taken in. The Parliamentary army frequently changed the position of their camp. Meanwhile the garrison became expert marksmen. A person riding through Whitemore Wood towards the army at Congleton Edge had his horse struck by a shot, and the rider took to his heels, not staying to remove the horse's bridle. It is also said that when Mr. Bowyer, of Knypersley Hall, was galloping over Bradley Green a ball from Biddulph took off the heel of his boot. At length the besieging party fetched from Stafford a large cannon, bearing the feminine name of "Roaring Meg," which was planted on the west side. The gun was next tried on a battery on the rising ground on the east side, the country people having informed the general that that was the weakest side of the hall. The old record is that from this site the artillerymen battered furiously for some time; that at last a ball accidentally struck the end of a beam supporting the hall, thus giving the building such a shake that its defenders thought it would have fallen down; and that thereupon Lady Brereton was so much affrighted that at her earnest entreaty the place was surrendered.

A number of prisoners were taken, including Lord and Lady Brereton and their son and heir; three hundred stand of arms, with ammunition, also fell into the hands of the victors, who sacked the mansion and bore off the plunder to Stafford Castle.

In the accounts of the old corporate town of Congleton there are several entries of moneys expended on the occasion of the visit of Sir William Brereton and his followers while on their way to Biddulph. They appear to have had a fondness for the good cheer for which the place was even then noted; thus we read of "Meat and drink to Sir William Brereton's men on the way, £1 13s. 3d.;" "Paid in meat and drink to Sir William Brereton's men, £0 18s.;" "More, £0 18s. 3d.;" "Spent on Captain Manwaring and Captain ---- from London in burned ale and victuals, £0 10s. 0d.;" "Burned ale to Colonel Duckenfield, £0 1s. 8d." "Burned ale" was a beverage the Puritan soldiers seemed to have been rather partial to, and they had almost an equal fondness for Congleton sack[40], if we may judge from the frequency with which they were regaled with it.

The attack made by Sir William Brereton upon his relative, Lord Brereton, at Biddulph, furnishes a characteristic picture of the social disorder and confusion that prevailed in every rank and station of life during that unnatural struggle; the ties of consanguinity were forgotten in the bitterness of party strife, and relationship was no longer recognised as influencing families or individuals, except in so far that men oftentimes found their most inveterate foes were those of their own household.

In the depth of the inclement winter, after the relief of Nantwich, Sir Thomas Fairfax, in obedience to the orders of the Parliament, marched back into Yorkshire to join his father, Lord Fairfax, who was hastening to unite his forces with the Scottish army, which, led by Lesley, Earl of Leven, had crossed the border and marched knee-deep in snow upon the soil of England, preparatory to an attack upon York. Brereton, after the fall of Biddulph, would appear to have followed him, for in a contemporary document which Mr. Earwaker discovered among the Harleian MSS.--"Accompts made and Sworne unto by Sev'all Inhabitants of the Towneshippe of Hollingworth in the p'ish of Mottram in Longdendale and County of Chester"--the following entry occurs:--

In the "Accompts" of Mr. John Hollingworth, of Hollingworth:

li s d
Itm. When Sr William Brereton Kt. marched wth his fforces
towardes Yorke there was quartered wth mee Seaven score
horse whereby I was dampnified 8 0 0

Itm. When Sr William Brereton marched towards Yorke wth
Cheshire fforces ffor ye assistance of that County, there
was 250 horse and rydrs quartered at my house; the
damage I had by them in eatinge my meadowe, killinge
my sheepe and plunderinge some of my goods privily, and
consuminge my victuals they found in my house, to ye
value att ye least of 20tie markes 13 6 8

These particulars give some idea of the losses and annoyance the people were then subjected to, and furnish some interesting details of the way in which the war was conducted.

Ere the month of June was ended, the fiery Prince Rupert, in obedience to the King's command, had marched from Lathom House, in Lancashire, and effected the relief of York. On the 2nd of July 50,000 subjects of the King met upon the heath and among the corn fields on Marston Moor, almost within sight of the walls of York city, where the boom of the distant cannon would strike upon the inhabitants as the death knell of friend or brother. For two long hours they remained gazing with silent, yet settled determination, each waiting from the other the signal of battle. The sun was sinking in the west on that warm summer's evening when the strife began. By the time it had set, and the twilight had deepened into night, the carnage was ended, and five thousand dead bodies of Englishmen lay heaped upon the fatal ground. The distinctions that in life had separated those sons of a common country seemed as nothing now. The plumed helmet and the rude morion, the glistening corslet and the buff jerkin, embraced as they rolled on the heath together, and the loose love-lock of the careless Cavalier lay drenched in the dark blood of the stern and uncompromising Roundhead.

On Marston Heath
Met front to front, the ranks of death;
Flourished the trumpets fierce, and now
Fired was each eye, and flushed each brow;
On either side loud clamours ring,
"God and the cause!"--"God and the King!"
Right English all, they rushed to blows
With nought to win and all to lose.

It was the first great battle in which Cromwell and his invincible Ironsides had borne a part, and it was their irresistible bravery that decided the day. Rupert was fairly swept off the field, and the hopes of Charles were completely wrecked. It was the greatest achievement of the war, and left the whole of the northern counties open to the Parliament's sway.

The discomfited Rupert, with the wreck of his army, retreated towards Chester, and thence into Lancashire, where he had the mortification to see all the strongholds he had recently gained speedily retaken, and among them the castle of Liverpool. Brereton was quickly marching in the same direction. Halton Castle still held out for the King, though, as we learn from a letter addressed by Goring to Prince Rupert, it was then threatened by the garrison of Warrington. It shortly afterwards surrendered, and on the 22nd July was taken possession of by the Parliamentary troops under Brereton. A few weeks later Colonel Marrow, the governor of Chester, with a small force marched from that city towards Northwich, "plundering some poor men's cattle by the way;" when near Hartford he was met by a party of Brereton's men. Marrow retreated towards Sandiway, and there faced about, when a skirmish took place. Fifteen of Brereton's soldiers were captured, but the victory was dearly bought, for Marrow himself, "a most pestilent Atheisticall Royalist," as Vicars calls him, received a shot, from the effects of which he died the following day. This was on Sunday, the 18th of August. A few days later the Nantwich men, with the assistance of Brereton's cavalry and some troops from Halton, attacked the Royalists in their quarters near Tarvin, and defeated them, and on the 26th they were again engaged near Malpas, when the Cavaliers sustained some serious losses.

Hearing that Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, was besieged in Montgomery Castle, Brereton, with Sir Wm. Meldran, Sir Wm. Fairfax, and thirty-two troops of horse out of Lancashire, and other companies out of Staffordshire, in all about three thousand men, set out to relieve him. On Tuesday, the 17th September, they compelled the Royalists to raise the siege, which led to a desperate encounter on the following day, when the King's troops were defeated with a loss of five hundred slain and fourteen hundred prisoners, among the latter being that "_Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_," Major-general Sir Thomas Tyldesley. Among the slain on the Parliament side was Sir William Fairfax. A week after this exploit Brereton and his forces returned to Nantwich. In the scattered but authentic records of the period we get frequent glimpses of him hurrying hither and thither during the dark winter months. In February, 1644-5, the town and castle of Shrewsbury, with the ordnance, arms, and ammunition, and a considerable body of prisoners, surrendered to him, and, as the spring advanced, his forces began to gather by degrees round the castle of Beeston and the city of Chester, which still held out for the King; but news coming that the Princes Rupert and Maurice were approaching to the relief, his men fell back upon Nantwich, and the relieving force of Royalists, having accomplished their object, retired, first plundering Bunbury and burning Beeston Hall. Scarcely had they departed, however, when the siege of Chester was renewed. On the 7th of May the King left Oxford, and marched with his forces in the direction of the city, but when within twenty miles of it Brereton, hearing of his advance, raised the siege and retired into Lancashire. This movement left his Majesty free to commence operations in another direction, and he suddenly appeared before Leicester and carried the town by storm.

On the 14th of June the battle of Naseby was fought--the most decisive and disastrous to the King of all his military engagements--the Royalists losing all their artillery, baggage, the King's private cabinet, and eight thousand stand of arms, while the Parliamentarians were put in possession of nearly all the chief cities of the kingdom. The siege of Bristol followed; on the 9th of September the city was stormed and taken, and victory seemed everywhere to attend the movements of the King's opponents. Charles, who was now at Hereford, resolved on proceeding to Chester, hoping to reach it by a circuitous route over the Welsh mountains, and intending thence to make his way northward by Lancashire and Cumberland, to join Montrose. The march through that wild and inhospitable region occupied five days, the King and his party being exposed the while to many hardships and privations. He had arranged his plans in the full belief that Chester was safe from any meditated attack, but, to his dismay, on approaching the city he found the people in a state of excitement and alarm, Sir William Brereton having collected a powerful body of troops, including the force with which Colonel Jones and the redoubtable Adjutant-general Lowthian had been investing Beeston Castle, and was then preparing to attack it, having, indeed, on the very day his Majesty left Hereford, surprised and possessed himself of the mayor's house, and with it the sword and mace of the corporation, as well as of St. John's Church, Boughton, and some of the eastern suburbs.

On learning the position of affairs, the King ordered Sir Marmaduke Langdale--he who had fought so gallantly at Naseby--to cross the Dee eastwards above Chester, whilst himself, with his guards, Lord Gerard, and the remainder of the horse, would enter the city by the west, intending thus to dislodge the republican soldiers by a simultaneous attack upon their front and rear. But these plans were disconcerted by the unexpected appearance of Major-general Poyntz, who had been following in the King's track, and had advanced from Whitchurch to the help of Brereton's forces.

The King reached the city, on the night of Wednesday, the 24th of September, 1645, Sir Marmaduke Langdale having in the meantime crossed the river at Holt Bridge, and drawn up his men on Rowton Heath, some two miles distant. On the following morning Poyntz came upon the scene, when he was attacked by Langdale and repulsed with considerable loss, but a party of Brereton's men, headed by Colonel Jones and Lowthian, hastened to their assistance, when Langdale was in turn overpowered and compelled to seek shelter beneath the city walls, where the Royal Guards, commanded by the young Earl of Lichfield and the Lords Gerard and Lindsey, were ready to support them. The contest now became fierce and general. From the leads on the Phoenix Tower on Chester walls the ill-fated Charles watched the fluctuating progress of this last effort for the maintenance of the Royal power; amid the broken surges of the battle he saw his own battalions alternately retreating and rallying until at length, overpowered by numbers, they were compelled to retreat, and he saw, too, his gallant kinsman, Bernard Stuart, Earl of Lichfield--the third brother of that illustrious family who had sacrificed their lives in the cause--with many a gentleman besides fall dead at his feet, and all that had hitherto survived of his broken remnant of a host either taken prisoners or driven in headlong rout and ruin from the fatal field. "Thenceforward the King's sword was a useless bauble, less significant than the 'George' upon his breast."

Charles bore his misfortune with a dignity and composure that reminds us of his valorous predecessor, the fifth Harry, when in similar peril.

Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread a peril hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night;
But freshly looks, and overbears attaint,
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty.

Chester still held out, and its preservation was of the utmost importance to the Royal cause, for it was the only place at which the King could hope to land the reinforcements expected from Ireland. It was inexpedient, however, for him to incur the risk of being shut up within the beleaguered city, and so at the close of that fatal Thursday when the fight on Rowton Heath was ended, and the grey twilight of the autumn evening was deepening into the sombre gloom of night, the ill-starred monarch--a monarch only in name--accompanied by a small guard and a few faithful followers, passed over the Dee Bridge a fugitive on his way to Denbigh.

Everything which Charles or his friends attempted seemed to bear upon it the impress of a failing or utterly fallen cause. The defeated, powerless, almost friendless monarch was as unsuccessful in the business of diplomacy as he was in that of war; and whatever was indiscreetly planned was sure to be as rashly undertaken. Power had passed from his grasp; but suffering had hardly as yet wreathed its halo round his discrowned brow or

Lent his life the dignity of woe.

While at Denbigh, whither he had sought refuge on the discomfiture of his troops before Chester, he received the mortifying intelligence that Montrose had been surprised near Berwick by Lesley's steel-clad troopers, and that his men, after a brief but gallant resistance, had laid down their arms on the promise of quarter. All hope from that direction was now at an end, and the idea of moving northwards was abandoned. Turning his steps southwards, the fallen monarch, accompanied by a few broken squadrons, retreated by way of Chirk, Bridgenorth, and Lichfield to Newark: whence the march was continued until the evening of the 5th of November, when the tired fugitives entered the city of Oxford, Charles having, as his affectionate historian writes, "finished the most tedious and grievous march that ever King was exercised in."

On the 16th of November, three weeks after the defeat of the Royalist army on Rowton Heath, the garrison of Beeston, after bravely holding out for well-nigh twelve months, and undergoing the severest privations, surrendered to Sir William Brereton. The loss of the great Cheshire stronghold was a severe blow, but the hopes of Charles had not entirely vanished. Chester still held out, and through the long months of that dreary winter its gallant defenders persistently refused to yield. On the 10th of December Brereton's army was reinforced, in accordance with an order of the Parliament, by the Lancashire forces commanded by Colonel Booth, who were then flushed with their recent successes at Lathom House; but rather than surrender the loyal citizens elected to keep a "Lenten Christmas," and, as the old chronicler has it, "to feed on horses, dogs, and cats." On the 1st of January, 1645-6, Brereton sent a preliminary summons to the governor, Lord Byron,[41] demanding that the city should be immediately given up; but the summons was disregarded; and subsequent demands were treated with the same contumely, until at last, on the 3rd of February, when the brave defenders had become reduced to the last extremity by famine, the city and castle were given up to Brereton, after having withstood a close siege for fully twenty weeks.

The following extract from a letter preserved among the MS. collection of Walker, the historian, of "The Sufferings of the Clergy," in the Bodleian Library, in which the writer, Mr. Edward Seddon, a native of Chester, describing the sufferings his father had to endure during and after the siege, gives a vivid picture of the hardships our forefathers had to face in that great struggle:--

In pursuance of a promise I formerly made in a letter to Mr. Webber, I have here sent you the following account of my most honoured father's sufferings in the late times of rebellion and confusion, wherein, though, perhaps, I may be under some mistakes, in not adjusting every passage to its proper time, or mis-nomen of some persons mentioned in it, yet I have not willingly and knowingly trespas'd upon ye truth in any material part of my relation, which I hope you'l therefore peruse with candour as follows;--The Reverend Mr. William Seddon M.A. of Magdalen Coll. in Camb., being about the year of our Lord 1636, setl'd a preacher in one of ye parish Churches, I think St. Maries in ye City of Chester, was then also possess'd of a Vicarage at Eastham (about six miles distant from ye City, value 68li. per annum), where he liv'd with his wife and family in a very happy condition, till ye Civil Wars breaking out, and ye Parliament forces drawing on to besiege Chester, he was compel'd to withdraw his family and effects into ye City for succour, where his great and good Friend and Pastor, ye Lord Bishop Bridgman, then Lord Bishop of Chester, accommodated him with several rooms and lodgings in his own Palace; and yet the aged Bishop dreading the hardships of a siege, voided the place, leaving my father in his Palace, who continued diligent in his ministry, and frequent Preaching to ye Garrison there. And the City being closely besieg'd and frequently storm'd, my Mother was on ye 12th day of Octob., 1645, delivered of me, her 9th child (all the 9 then living) and said to be ye last yt was publickly baptiz'd in ye Font of yt Cathedral there before ye restoracion in 1660. The City being surrendred upon Articles my Father was shortly apprehended and made Prisoner, and after some short durance was demanded by ye prevailing Powers, why he had not, according to ye Articles of surrender, march'd off with ye Garrison to ye King's Quarters, to which he reply'd, yt he thought his Cassock had vnconcern'd him in those Articles, being a Minister in ye City, but above all he had a wife, and many small children there, which if he could see tolerably dispos'd of he would, not vnwillingly, accept the Articles. But many complaints being made against him, yt he had in his preaching reflected upon the proceedings of the prevailing party, had animated ye Garrison to resist even unto blood, &c., he was remanded to Prison again, and his house permitted to be plunder'd by ye souldiers, who despoil'd him not of his goods only, but of his books and papers, which they exposed to sale at a very low rate; and so by private directions to some of his friends, he repurchas'd some of the most necessary for his own use. But then an order was drawn up to export his wife and children out of ye City to Eastham (which accordingly was done, several of ye younger sort being put into a wagon with other goods which had escap'd the pillage) where though they had only ye bare walls of a Vicarage house to resort to, yet they found a hearty welcome from ye loial part of the parishioners there, amongst whom they dispers'd themselves, and in a short time after, my Father's confinement was somewhat enlarg'd and his escape conniv'd at, which gave him ye liberty of going in quest of his wife and children, whom he found in pretty good circumstances among his loial friends. But another minister (whose name and character I have utterly forgot)[42] being despatch'd with orders from ye ruling powers at Chester to supply the vicarage at Eastham, and a rumour dispsd, yt my father must be apprehended again, and reduc'd as prisoner to Chester, he scamper'd about privately to the houses of ye loyal Gentry, to whom his character and condition were well known, and then despatched a letter to his elder Brother Mr. Peter Seddon of Outwood in Lancashire (ye place of my Father's nativity) who was then, at that rate of ye times, turn'd zealous Presbiterian too, and had a son a Captain in ye Parliament's army, acquainting him with ye storm he was under, and requesting him to cover either all or part of his ffamily, till he could weather ye storm; _to which letter ye main of ye answers he had was yt would he conform himself to ye Godly party, his own merits would protect and prefer him_, which so incens'd my Father yet he never more held any correspondence with him.[43]

After the reduction of Chester, Brereton was free to turn his attention in other directions. Lichfield surrendered to his arms on the 5th of March; on the 21st of April Tutbury was delivered into his possession; seven days later Bridgewater yielded, and on the 12th of May Dudley Castle was taken. "These, with many other victories," says Rycroft, "hath this valiant knight performed which will to after ages stand a monument to his due praise."

Thus restless souls send to eternall rest!
And active spirits in a righteous way
Find peace within, though much with war opprest;
This bravest Brereton of his name could say.
And now triumps, maugre those Nimrods dead,
_Aston_, _Capell_, _Byron_, and _Northampton_ dead.
The slaughter'd Irish, and his native soile
Now quiet show his courage, love, and toile.

The Parliament was not slow in rewarding him for the important services rendered to the cause. In addition to being made Commander-in-Chief of the Parliament's forces in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, he had conferred upon him the chief Forestership of Macclesfield Forest, as well as the Seneschalship of the Hundred; he received other rewards, too, in the shape of grants of money and lands out of the sequestered estates of "delinquent" Royalists and Papists, and on the termination of the war had bestowed upon him the archiepiscopal palace of Croydon, in which he fixed his residence during the Protectorate.

Brereton, though professedly a Churchman, was notorious for his aversion to the episcopal form of Church government; anxious that his country should enjoy the blessings of the kirk discipline, he busied himself in the brief intervals he could snatch from his military engagements in the direction of the ecclesiastical affairs of his native county, and the accounts and other memoranda preserved in the parish chest of many a village church in Cheshire bear testimony to the suffering and misery inflicted on many a worthy clergyman by his rough and ready method of effecting reforms. Poor William Seddon was not the only one who felt the weight of his displeasure, for the Cheshire parsons had in many instances the mortification of seeing their churches and rectory houses sacked, their livings sequestered, and themselves driven from their flocks and their homes, and, being non-combatants, left powerless to help themselves or their families. Liberty had been clamoured for, but those who clamoured when they got the power, as Fuller says, "girt their own garment closest about the consciences of others." Presbyterianism was as bigoted as Episcopacy, and Independency, which followed, was as intolerant as either.

Brereton lived to see the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles II., but he did not long survive that event, his death occurring at the palace of Croydon, April 7th, 1661. His remains were brought down into Cheshire for interment in the Honford Chapel attached to Cheadle Church, where many of his progenitors lie, but there is no record of his burial there, though curiously enough in the parish register there is an entry of his death at Croydon. As previously stated, there is no memorial of him in the church, and tradition accounts for the absence by the story that while the body was being conveyed to what was intended to be its last resting place a river that had to be forded had become swollen by a storm during the night, and that, when endeavouring to cross, the coffin, with its ghastly occupant, was carried away by the surging waters and never recovered. Whether the deft and inquiring local antiquary will ever discover any genuine metal by the smelting of the rude ore of this old wife's fable remains to be seen.

That Sir William Brereton possessed great natural talents and abilities no one can doubt, for without any proper military training he rapidly rose to distinction, and was incontestably one of the greatest military characters that his county has produced. The exigencies of those times demanded military rather than political celebrities, and Brereton was one of the few men possessing the genius needed. It was the great upheaval in the national life that brought him into prominence and gave him the opportunity, and but for that it is more than probable he would never have attained to any special pre-eminence. His character exhibits a happy blending of adroitness and force, and illustrates in a strong degree the prodigious but coarse energy which marked that unhappy age. His thirst for freedom hurried him into open resistance to prerogative, while his religious feelings deepened into something approaching very nearly to fanaticism. The gospel as exhibited in Presbyterianism, and liberty as exemplified in the Parliament, constituted, in his belief, the cause of God and truth, and this was the secret of his influence. His discernment enabled him to gather around him those in whom the same sentiments were blended--stern, dogged, self-reliant Puritans, who believed in God and in the destinies of their leader--and by the master-power of his energy and zeal he succeeded in moulding them to his will. Clarendon speaks of the devotion of the lower orders to "Sir William Brereton and his companions, and their readiness to supply them with intelligence;" and, though he allows their education had but ill-fitted them for the conduct of a war, praises their execution of "their commands with notable sobriety and indefatigable industry (virtues not so well practised in the King's quarters), insomuch as the best soldiers who encountered with them had no cause to despise them." Brereton shared the opinion which Cromwell expressed to his cousin Hampden that an army of "decayed serving men and tapsters" would never be able to encounter "gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them," and therefore he chose only "such men as had the fear of God before them and made some conscience of what they did." Such enthusiasts knew no fear, and had small respect for rank and power so far as outward demeanour was concerned; they had an ever-present belief that they were doing "the Lord's work," and, whether starving in a fortress or ridden down by men in steel, they would not be moved

With dread of death to flight or foul retreat.

Brereton was their chief, but he was their comrade also; if he trained and disciplined them he shared also their hardships, their dangers, and their privations. He was prodigal of his own safety, and his prodigality increased their faith and inspired their confidence, and thus enabled them not only to withstand the reckless daring--the chivalrous bravery of the Cavaliers--but eventually to overcome and scatter those who counted their lives as nothing in defence of their sovereign's cause.

Both Rycroft and Vicars[44] give what purport to be portraits of Brereton, but they are rude and unsatisfactory, and there is a doubt as to their authenticity. An unfriendly hand ("Mysteries of the Good Old Cause," 12mo., 1663, p. 3) has described him as "a notable man at a thanksgiving dinner, having terrible long teeth and a prodigious stomach to turn the archbishop's chapel at Croydon into a kitchen, also to swallow up that palace and lands at a morsel."

The subsequent history of Handforth Hall is soon told, As previously stated, Sir William Brereton lost his first wife--a daughter of Sir George Booth, of Dunham--before the breaking out of the Civil Wars; he again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Cicely, daughter of Sir William Skeffington, of Fisherwick, in Leicestershire, the widow of his former comrade in arms, Edward Mytton, of Weston, in Staffordshire, but as no mention is made of this lady in his will the presumption is that she also predeceased him. At the time of his death there were living four daughters, two by the first and two by the second marriage, and one son, Thomas Brereton, the sole heir, who succeeded to the baronetcy, and who was then married to the Lady Theodosia, youngest daughter of Humble, first Baron Ward, of Birmingham, ancestor of the present Lord Dudley. This Sir Thomas, who was born in 1632, died childless on the 7th of January, 1673, and was buried on the 17th of the same month in the Handforth Chapel, at Cheadle, where there is now a handsome altar tomb to his memory with his recumbent effigy resting thereon. He is represented in the plate armour of the period, with the hands uplifted and conjoined as if in supplication; the figure is bareheaded, with the long-flowing hair characteristic of the later Carolinian period, and the head rests upon a helmet surmounted with a plume of feathers. At one end is a shield, representing the arms of Brereton impaling those of Ward, and on the side are two shields--Brereton with a crescent as a mark of cadency and the badge of baronetcy, and Ward, and between these on a tablet is the following inscription:--

Here Lyeth the Body of Sr Thomas Brereton of Handforth, Barronett, who Married Theodosia Daughter to the Right Honourable Humble Lord Ward and the Lady Frances Barronesse Dudly. hee Departed this Life the 7th of January Anno Dom: 1673

Ætatis Suæ 43.

With the death of Sir Thomas Brereton the line once so firmly established in Cheshire terminated, and nothing now remains but the old ancestral home, the recollections of the name, and the memories that surround it. After the decease of his widow, who remarried Charles Brereton, and died in childbed, February 23, 1677, frequent disputes respecting the disposition of the estates arose between Nathaniel Booth, of Mottram-Andrew, who claimed as heir under a deed of trust executed in the lifetime of Sir Thomas, and William Ward, the eldest son of Frances Lady Ward, who claimed on the ground of kinship. Eventually they descended to Nathaniel Booth, of Hampstead, heir to Nathaniel Booth, of Mottram-Andrew, who succeeded to the baronetcy, and also to the barony of Delamere. On the 14th of June, 1764, the manor, &c., passed from this Nathaniel by purchase to Edward Wrench, of Chester, and his nephew and heir, Edward Omaney Wrench, sold the same in 1805, to Joseph Cooper, of Handforth, yeoman, whose trustees in turn resold it in 1808 to William Pass, of Altrincham, from whom it was purchased by the late Stephen Symonds, then of Handforth, but subsequently of Broadwater Hall, Worthing, the father of the present rector of Stockport, and James Cunliffe, who held the manor jointly until the dissolution of their partnership in 1875, when it continued in the sole possession of Mr. Symonds until the year 1878, when he resold it to Edward T. Cunliffe, who is the present lord of the manor.