Part 11
Another Parliamentary leader was Colonel Robert Dukinfield, of Dukinfield, who came of an ancient Cheshire family. He defended Stockport Bridge against Prince Rupert, laid siege to and captured Whiltenshaw, became Governor of Chester, took part in the disgraceful court-martial of the Earl of Derby, who was judicially murdered at Bolton, and obtained the surrender by the Countess of the Derby estates in the Isle of Man. He wrote a delightful letter to Cromwell, in which he tells the Protector that he firmly believes that the root of the tree of piety is alive in him, though the leaves thereof, through the abundance of temptations and flatterers, seemed to the writer to be withered much of late, yet he hoped time and experience would have a good influence upon his lordship, _Deo juvante_. This letter, and other outspoken words, did not endear Dukinfield to the Protector’s followers, who showed their distrust of him. However, he crushed the abortive rising of Sir George Booth, and received the thanks of the Parliament and a reward for his services. He did not escape persecution at the Restoration, but the Royalists admired the staunch old Colonel, and the King made his son a baronet.
This Sir George Booth, who before the return of Charles II. was appointed commander-in-chief of the King’s forces in Cheshire, Lancashire, and North Wales, and headed an abortive attempt to restore his Majesty to the throne, was well rewarded for his services. After his defeat he escaped in a woman’s habit, riding on a pillion behind one of his grooms. But his sex was detected by the landlord of an inn where he sojourned, and he was captured and sent to the Tower. In 1660 the House of Commons voted him £10,000 for his services in effecting the Restoration. He was created Baron Delamere of Dunham Massey, and was appointed Custos Rotulorum for the county. He died at Dunham Massey, and was buried at Bowdon in 1673. In his attempt to regain the throne for Charles II. he was greatly assisted by Roger Grosvenor, ancestor of the Dukes of Westminster, who have always “stood by their pious principles of faith and loyalty,” as Randle Holme truly testifies. His son, Sir Thomas, commanded a troop in the Earl of Shrewsbury’s regiment of horse in 1685, which encamped at Hounslow Heath, and he was offered a peerage by James II. for his answer to the repeal of the Test Acts, a bribe which he had the courage to resist. He was M.P. for Chester, Mayor of the city, and Sheriff of the county.
The Astons were unfortunate Royalists. Sir Thomas was defeated by Sir William Brereton at Middlewich, and Sir Arthur, after being Governor of Reading, and earning the praise of his sovereign, who deemed that “there was not a man in his army of greater reputation, or one of whom the enemy had greater dread,” lost his leg and then his life in the slaughter of the garrison of Tredagh, in Ireland. Two other gallant Royalists must be mentioned, Sir Francis Gamul, of Buerton, who watched from the Phœnix Tower with the King the fatal fight of Rowton Heath, and helped him to escape from his enemies; and Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, who performed many deeds of daring during the war; and at Rowton Heath, in order to convey a message to the King, crossed the Dee in a tub, holding the bridle of his horse, which was swimming at the side. He was a good friend and servant of the King, Governor of the Castle of Chester, and lies beneath his fine monument at Nether Peover Church.
Henry Booth, Earl of Warrington and Baron Delamere, second son of Baron Delamere before mentioned, played as distinguished a part in the Revolution and in establishing William III. on the English throne as his father had done for Charles II. A brave assertor of his country’s rights, and a defender of the Protestant religion, he fell foul of James II., and was tried on a groundless charge of high treason, the notorious Jefferies being his accuser. He escaped that peril, and soon raised an army in Cheshire and Lancashire to aid Dutch William. To him fell the duty of telling the last Stuart king that he must leave Whitehall, treating the fallen monarch with a respect and deference that touched his Majesty. Many honours were heaped upon him, including the Earldom of Warrington and a pension of £2000 a year; but he did not long enjoy his dignity, as death summoned him at the early age of forty-two years in 1693-4.
Colonel, and afterwards General, Werden risked his life and fortune for King Charles, had to fly from the country, and continued with the royal family until the Restoration, after which he was appointed to several offices of trust, and was comptroller of the royal household. His son John was created a baronet, and held many important posts.
Sir Roger Mostyn, of Mostyn, Baronet, was a gallant soldier who raised 1500 men for the King’s service, captured Hawarden Castle, was Governor of Flint Castle, which he maintained until the death of the King’s cause. His house of Mostyn was plundered, and he was imprisoned in Conway Castle; at the Restoration a baronetcy was the reward of his services.
Doubtless Cheshire had many other brave soldiers, but this list must now suffice.
BISHOPS
The county has seen many of her sons raised to the Episcopal Bench. Foremost amongst these was the saintly Bishop Wilson of Mona’s Isle, who was born of humble parents in the parish of Burton in the Wirral district. Three years after the Restoration Thomas Wilson first saw the light; his holy, wise, charitable, God-fearing life was a burning and a shining light in his age, and his influence spread far and wide. He planted the Church anew in his remote little diocese. In vain did Queen Anne and Queen Caroline try to tempt him to leave the island by the offer of another diocese. He set his face against pluralism, the curse of his time, refusing to hold any preferments in addition to his See, which was poor and impoverished. Crowds flocked to see him, to crave from him a blessing. The writer has been with the fishermen of this island, and heard them sing their sweet hymns as they kneel beside their bulwarks when they are going to ply their calling on the sea, and he was told that Bishop Wilson first taught their fathers to sing those hymns and seek a blessing on their toil.
We know little of Dr. Hugh Bellot, Bishop of Bangor and Chester. He was the son of Thomas Bellot, of Great Moulton Hall, in the parish of Astbury in this county, and died in 1596. Nor can I say much of Bishop Rider, who was born in 1562 at Carrington in this county. He became Bishop of Killaloe in 1612, and found time amid his episcopal duties to compile a Latin Dictionary. But every one has heard of the famous Bishop Heber, who was born at Malpas in 1783, the son of the rector of that place. His poems and hymns are known to all. It was his Newdigate Prize Poem at Oxford on the subject of Palestine that first brought him fame. For some years he was rector of Hodnet, where he delighted in the calmness of village life. At length he received a call to the See of Calcutta, where he died at the early age of forty-three years.
Bishop Edward Stanley was the son of Sir J. T. Stanley of Alderley Park, and was born in 1779. He was rector of Alderley from 1805 to 1837, and proved himself a model clergyman, shining as a light in a dark age. He came to an entirely neglected parish, and by his example and precept transformed it into a totally different place. He was an early educationist, and took care that his children should be well taught. He put down drunkenness and prize-fighting, and was a close observer of nature--a northern White of Selborne. In 1837 he was called to the See of Norwich, which he held until his death in 1849--a very worthy Bishop.
A few learned divines we may mention. Dr. Samuel Clarke, a Puritan, minister of Shotwick, where he was a favourite preacher. He was a very voluminous writer, and died in 1682. Dr. John Hulse, the founder of the Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge, was born at Middlewich in 1708. When a child he was rescued by his grandfather from squalid circumstances, and obtained high university distinction at Cambridge. He became vicar of Goostrey until, on his father’s death, he became possessed of the family estate of Elworth, near Sandbach. John Barron, D.D., canon of Salisbury, chaplain to Lord Chancellor Egerton, and founder of a Hebrew lectureship at Brazenose College, Oxford, should be mentioned, who died in 1642. He is described by a contemporary biographer as “a bountiful housekeeper, of a cheerful spirit and a peaceful disposition.” Many other names of learned bishops and divines will occur to the reader, and this list would include many of the bishops and deans of Chester, but few of them were natives of the county, and are therefore not included in these biographical notes.
POETS
Of poets, we have mentioned the saintly Heber. But there are others of an earlier age. John Brownswerd, a native of the shire, was born in 1540, and after graduating at Cambridge became master of the Grammar School at Macclesfield, earning fame as one of the best Latin poets of his age. A tablet was raised to the memory of this “vir pius & doctus,” who is described as
Alpha poetarum, coryphæus grammaticorum Flos pædagogum hic sepelitur humo.
He died in 1589, a good example of the learned men of the Elizabethan age, who trained their pupils in good classic lore. There were several such schools in Cheshire--at Chester, Audlem, Northwich, and other places. Another Elizabethan poet owed his education to such schools. Geoffrey Whitney, who was born at Nantwich, learned his classics at Audlem and Northwich, graduated at Oxford, and then migrated to Leyden. There he published his _Choice of Emblemes_, printed in 1586 in the famous printing-press of Christopher Plantyn, and a collection of fables. Each poem is dedicated to one of the principal gentlemen in Lancashire and Cheshire. The Cheshire historian Ormerod quotes a poem addressed “to my countremen of the Namptwicke in Cheshire,” relating to a fire that had lately destroyed the town, and comparing the place to a phœnix, of which the poet gives a device. Near Northwich was born Sir John Birkenhead, poet and political writer, of humble origin, his father being either a saddler or an innkeeper. The excellence of the Cheshire schools is again shown by his ability in taking a degree at Oxford and a fellowship at Oriel College. When the Civil War broke out he started the newspaper the _Mercurius Aulicus_ for the purpose of “communicating the intelligence and affairs of the Court of Oxon to the rest of the kingdom.” The King was pleased with this product of his fluent pen, and appointed him Reader in Moral Philosophy. When misfortune befell him with the fall of the Royal cause, he wrote poems and divers political tracts, and at the Restoration was rewarded for his loyalty with a knighthood and other lucrative appointments. He has been described as a man “of great courage in words, scoffing humour, an unscrupulous conscience, and an inexhaustible fund of arch and mischievous drollery, ... one of the most expert and successful guerilla partisans on the side of the Royalists.”
The poet Milton is connected with this county, as his third wife, Elizabeth Mynshal, a lady connected with some of the best Cheshire families, came from Cheshire and died at Nantwich. She is believed to have been a termagant, and brought the poet little pleasure, but others have described her as of “a peaceful and agreeable humour.”
The Rev. William Broome, a native of Cheshire, was a poet of some distinction, a translator of Homer, and the coadjutor of Pope in the translation of the _Odyssey_. He supplied all the notes to that work, but he quarrelled with Pope, and was lampooned in the _Dunciad_. Dr. Johnson gave him a niche in his _Lives of the Poets_, describing him as an excellent versifier; “his lines are smooth and sonorous, and his diction is select and elegant.” Another name must be honoured among Cheshire poets, that of Henry Birkenhead, M.D., a poet of distinction, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a founder in 1707 of the Professorship of Poetry in that University.
JUDGES AND CHANCELLORS
Some Cheshire lawyers have achieved fame. In the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, at Nantwich in 1588 was born Randolph Crewe, who came of the distinguished family of the Crewes of Crewe Hall, though his father was in poor circumstances at the time of his birth. He and his brother Thomas were fired with the idea of regaining the family estates. The good schools of Cheshire enabled them to go to Oxford; they became students at Lincoln’s Inn, Serjeants-at-Law, and successively Speakers of the House of Commons. Randolph rose rapidly in his profession, and in 1624 became Lord Chief Justice of England. In the discharge of his high office he showed a perfectly honest and independent spirit, much learning and ability, strict honour and integrity, therein differing from many of the venal judges of his age. He refused to bow to the King’s will in respect of the imposition of illegal taxes, and in consequence was deprived of his rank. He retired to his beloved Cheshire, purchased the old family estates, and built for himself a new manor house. Fuller tells in his quaint way that Sir Randolph “first brought the model of excellent building into these remote parts; yea, brought London into Cheshire, in the loftiness, sightliness, and pleasantness of their structures.” His letter to the Duke of Buckingham is a model of straightforward honesty, stating his reasons for his decision in the matter of the taxation, and asking for his Grace’s intercession with the King. While the war was raging between King and Parliament he quietly passed away in his Hall at Crewe, and lies at rest in the Crewe Chapel at Barthomley.
Another eminent lawyer was Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, Thomas, Viscount Brackley, the natural son of Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley, born in 1540. Queen Elizabeth on one occasion heard him pleading with his usual shrewdness against a Crown case, and exclaimed, “In my troth, he shall never plead against me again,” and from that day his rise was rapid. He became Attorney-General in 1592, was knighted, Master of the Rolls in 1594, and two years later Lord Keeper and Member of Privy Council. On the death of the Queen he was called upon to conduct the affairs of the nation until the arrival of King James of Scotland, who constituted him Lord Chancellor and Baron Ellesmere. For twelve years he held the reins of office, conducted many important trials, helped to unite the kingdoms of England and Scotland, and at length, full of years and honours, with much pathos resigned his high office, being succeeded by Sir Francis Bacon. His body rests in Dodleston Church.
The name of Sir Edward Fitton, Lord President of Connaught and Thomond, and Treasurer of Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth, must not be forgotten or omitted from our list of Cheshire worthies. He was born at Gawsworth, and a memorial to the knight may be seen in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.
Sir Humphrey Davenport was Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the reign of Charles I., and had a distinguished legal career. He was the fourth son of William Davenport of Bramhall, near Stockport. Sir Peter Warburton of Grafton, one of the Judges of the King’s Bench about the same period, was also a Cheshire man. Another great lawyer was Richard Peter Arden, Lord Alvanley, born at Bredbury in 1745. In 1780 he became King’s Counsel, M.P. for Newton in the Isle of Wight, Master of the Rolls, and, in 1801, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, when he was created Lord Alvanley, taking his title from a manor in the parish of Frodsham which had been held by his ancestors. He was a somewhat outspoken, hasty, and flippant judge, and amusing stories are told of his sayings in court and of his disputes with Lord Chancellor Thurlow.
Chief Justice Williams was the son of a rector of Bunbury, where he was born in 1777, and had a brilliant legal career. His reputation was made at the trial of Queen Caroline, whose junior counsel he was, with Mr. Brougham, afterwards Lord Brougham, as his senior. His able advocacy was the chief cause of the vindication of the unfortunate Queen. He was returned to Parliament for Lincoln in 1823, became Attorney-General in 1830, and Puisne Judge of the King’s Bench four years later, when he was made a knight. A volume of Greek epigrams testifies to his devotion to classical studies.
The last Cheshire lawyer on our list is Lord Kenyon. Though not actually born in the county, his native place being Greddington, just over the border in Flintshire, he had a Cheshire lady for his mother, and began his career at an attorney’s office in Nantwich. He might have spent his life there, having been offered a partnership; but he soared higher, went to London, and was called to the Bar in 1756. He was M.P. for Hindon and Chief Justice of Chester in 1780, and was engaged in the defence of Lord George Gordon in that memorable trial of the Gordon rioters. After being Attorney-General and Master of the Rolls, he was created a baronet, raised to the peerage, and appointed Chief Justice in 1788. He was noted for his parsimonious ways, relics of his early poverty; but his biographers assert that few lawyers so able, and none more honest, ever entered Westminster Hall.
SCIENTISTS
Edward Brerewood, the son of a Chester tradesman, born in 1565, was a celebrated mathematician and antiquary. From the Free School at Chester he went to Oxford, and became the first professor of astronomy in Gresham College. Several of his works were published after his death by his nephew, Robert Brerewood, of Chester.
Cheshire can boast of an early botanist and herbalist, John Gerarde, who was born at Nantwich in 1545. He was head gardener to Lord Burghley from 1577. He took his early lessons in the book of nature when wandering on the banks of the Weaver in his native shire. He wrote, in 1596, his work, entitled _Catalogus arborum, fruticum ac plantarum_, and he was the author of _The Herball or General Historie of Plantes_, “gathered by John Gerarde, of London, Master in Chirurgerie.”
A more eminent scientist was Samuel Molyneux, son of a learned father, and was born at Chester in 1689. He was a wonderful, precocious genius, and could do marvellous things when he was only five years old. His biographer tells us that “when he advanced to manhood he was acknowledged to be one of the most polite and accomplished gentlemen in England or Ireland, and was appointed secretary to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., and had a house in Kew, near Richmond, where he improved himself in his favourite study astronomy.” He greatly improved the making of telescopes. He married Elizabeth, sister to the Earl of Essex.
The third Lord Brereton, unlike his father, who loved warlike pursuits and fought for the King in the Civil War, was a lover of science and peaceful pursuits. He was educated at Breda in Holland, under the care of Dr. John Pell, and became a good mathematician and algebraist. He was one of the founders of the Royal Society, associated with all the learned men of his time, and always endeavoured to advance the cause of science. He was somewhat of a poet, musician, and composer. The proceedings of the Royal Society often record his name, which learned Society in its infant days seems to have concerned itself with somewhat childish questions, and exercised the minds of its members on the divining-rod and the superstition with regard to the portents presaging the death of any member of the Brereton family.
Lawrence Earnshaw was a wonderful mechanical genius, a native of Mottram-in-Longdendale in the first half of the eighteenth century. Nothing came amiss to his skilful fingers. He could shear sheep and make the wool into cloth entirely with implements of his own making. Engraver, painter, gilder, glass-stainer, blacksmith, gunsmith, bell-founder; maker of sundials, harpsichords, violins, organs--he could do everything. But his great achievement was in the art of clockmaking, producing a curious astronomical and geographical machine which represented the motions of the earth, moon, stars, &c. He anticipated the invention of the spinning-jenny, but destroyed his machine lest it should decrease labour and take bread from the mouths of the poor. Another noted clockmaker was John Whitehurst, Fellow of the Royal Society, born at Congleton in 1713. He was author of some philosophical papers, amongst others of an _Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth_.
Another learned Cestrian was Dr. William Falconer, born at Chester in 1741. He was learned in science and horticulture, and published several works, including _An Historical View of the taste for Gardening and Laying-out Grounds among the Nations of Antiquity_; _An Essay on the Means of Preserving the Health of those employed in Agricultural Labours_; and _A Sketch of the History of Sugar in Early Times_.
HISTORIANS
Many are the writers on Cheshire history whose names should be recorded--men who have loved their county and desired to tell of its beauties and historical associations. We can only mention a tithe of those worthy sons who have done honour to their shire, and accomplished work which has been often little understood or appreciated by their fellows.
The first of these is a name honoured by all historians, Henry Bradshaw, a native of Chester and a monk of St. Werburgh’s Abbey, who lived in the latter part of the fourteenth century. He was one of the earliest chroniclers of Cheshire, and wrote his works in the cloistered shade of his monastic house. His works consist of a treatise, _De Antiquitate et Magnificentiâ Urbis Cestriæ_, and a translation of “The Holy Lyfe and History of Saint Werburge, very frutefull for all Christen people to rede.” The first work is believed to have been lost, unless it is incorporated in the latter treatise, as Dr. Gower suggested. Perhaps we should have included Henry Bradshaw amongst our poets, in whose company he well deserves a high and important niche. His body lies near the shrine of the saint of whose virtues he loved to sing.
John Booth of Twamlowe, a contemporary of Sir William Brereton, was a distinguished Cheshire genealogist who occupies a foremost place amongst the antiquaries of the county. His works have been most useful to subsequent writers.
John Speed, born at Farndon in 1552, is a writer of whom any county may be proud. An account of this learned historian has already appeared in this volume.
The disputes of the learned often cause amusement, and the controversy between the rival baronets, Sir Peter Leicester and Sir Thomas Maynwaring of Over Peover, aroused much merriment in 1673-75. Sir Peter published a learned work in two volumes on the historical antiquities of Great Britain and more particularly of Cheshire, in which he asserted that Amicia, daughter of Hugh Keveliock, fifth Earl of Chester, a descendant of Hugh Lupus, was illegitimate. This aroused Sir Thomas Maynwaring, whose ancestor had married the said Amicia. He published a defence of the injured lady. Then Peter wrote an answer to Sir Thomas’s book, who retaliated with another book. So the controversy went on, each disputant waxing more wroth, until at last a law-suit ensued, the result being in favour of the champion of Amicia.