CHAPTER VI.

BEESTON CASTLE.

The traveller who has ever journeyed in the “Wild Irishman” between that hive of industry, Crewe, and the ancient city upon the Dee, will have noticed upon his left, midway between the two places, a bold outlier of rock that rises abruptly from the great Cheshire plain, with the ivy-covered remains of an ancient castle perched upon its summit. A better position for a fortress it is difficult to conceive. It looks as if nature had intended it as a place of defence; and evidently Randle Blundeville, the crusader Earl of Chester, thought so, when, in those stormy days in which the Marches were the constant scene of struggle and strife, and

Like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales!

he chose it as the site for one of his border strongholds.

Avoiding, for the nonce, the “Irishman,” we will avail ourselves of the more convenient, if more common-place, “Parliamentary,” as it enables us to alight at Beeston—for that is the place to which our steps are directed, and almost within bowshot of the relic of ancient days, of which we are in search. Beeston is not a town—it can hardly be called a village even, the houses are so few, and neighbourhood there is none. The little unpretentious railway station is innocent of hurry and bustle, and seems almost ashamed of disturbing the rural tranquillity; the Tollemache Arms, a comfortable hostelrie standing below the railway, opens its doors invitingly; a peaceful farmstead or two, surrounded by verdant pastures and fields of ripening corn, with here and there a cleanly whitewashed cottage, half hidden among the trees and hedges, are almost the only habitations we can see.

A few minutes’ walk along a sandy lane, that winds beneath the trees and across the sun-bright meadows, where cattle are pasturing and haymakers are tossing the fragrant grass, brings us to the foot of the castle rock. The huge mass of sandstone lifting its unwieldy form above the surrounding greenery seems to dominate the entire landscape. Few landmarks are more striking, and, as you draw near, the hoary time-worn ruin crowning the summit, and looking almost gay and cheerful in the fresh morning sunlight, reminds you, only that the water is wanting, of those picturesque strongholds that crest the rocky heights along the lonely reaches of the Rhine—

High from its field of air looks down The eyrie of a vanished race; Home of the mighty, whose renown Has passed and left no trace.

On the north-easterly side the hill rises slopingly, but towards the south and west it shoots up abruptly from the plain, presenting a mass of jagged perpendicular rock three hundred and sixty feet in height. Seen from the distance, it looks as if it had been upheaved by some convulsive effort of Nature, and then toppled over, the foundations standing up endways. Keeping to the left, we ascend by a path steep and rough, and stony withal. Brushwood and bracken, and the wild, old, wandering bramble border the way; and now and then a timid sheep rushes out from some shady nook and gazes wonderingly at us as we go by. The turf in places is short and slippery, for the rabbits keep it closely cropped; and were it not for a fragment of jutting rock, or the branch of a tree that occasionally proffers its friendly aid, we should find the ascent at times difficult and toilsome. Little more than half way up we come to the outer line of the fortifications, where a small lodge has been erected, through which we gain admission into the dismantled interior.

The ruin is complete, and at the first glance presents only the appearance of crumbling masses of shapeless masonry, that, having outlived the necessities which called them into existence, time has clothed with saddest beauty. The ivy spreads its roots and clings with fond tenacity, the long grass waves, and the nettles grow in rank profusion; yet the remains are so far perfect that the searching eye of the archæologist can readily discern their purpose, determine the plan, and reconstruct in every detail. The outer ballium, which is pierced by a few embrasures, extends in the form of an irregular semicircle round the sloping sides, and where the cliff is not perpendicular, about five or six acres being comprehended within the area. The entrance is so narrow that only one or two persons can pass through at a time—a feature that indicates the rude and lawless period of its erection, when strength and security were the chief objects aimed at. It has been guarded by a square tower, and the remains of seven other towers or bastions, mostly round, and similar in appearance to the Moorish towers which became so general in England after the return of the barons from the Crusades, occur at irregular intervals. The court itself is a large, rough pasture, broken and uneven. A pair of kangaroos are disporting themselves among the moss-grown fragments, and a few deer are quietly browsing upon the green turf; but there is no picturesque assemblage of ruins, or trace of any previously-existing building, though it was once a busy hive of life and work. Nothing now remains but a few weedy heaps of masonry, the shattered keep, and the small inner bailey which occupies the highest and most inaccessible part of the rock, covering an area an acre in extent.

The keep was formerly protected and is still separated from the outer court by a broad, deep moat, hewn out of the solid rock, that extends round two sides and terminates near its precipitous edge. It is now dry and partly choked with weeds and rubbish, and a path has been made across where formerly a drawbridge only gave access. The great barbican, though roofless and forlorn, is imposing even in its decay, and gives a distinct impression of its former strength and solidity. It was proof against bows and arrows, battering rams, and similar engines of primitive warfare, and, ere “villainous saltpetre had been dug out of the bowels of the harmless earth,” must have been, barring treachery from within, absolutely impregnable. The round towers that flank the entrance are clothed with the greenest and darkest ivy, that mingles with and seems to form part of the ruined mass to which it clings so lovingly, making it more picturesque than it could ever have been in the days of its proud and pristine splendour. The walls are of immense thickness, and on the face of each, near the top, where the ashlar-work has not been destroyed, a kind of arcade ornament may still be discerned. An early English arch unites the two towers, and beneath it we can see the grooves wherein the portcullis used to descend to bar the ingress and egress of doubtful or suspected visitors. The entrance, like that to the outer court, is very narrow; passing through, a few steps cut out of the sandstone rock, and which have been worn by the tread of many generations, lead to the inner court or bailey, environed on two sides by lofty walls, from which project great bastions that have for centuries braved the winter’s wrath and rejoiced in the summer sunshine. The interior is now a vacant space, except for the few fragments of masonry that serve to indicate what once was there. This was the citadel, so to speak. In it was the home of the lordly owner of the castle (and scant and rude enough it must have been), the outer court being used as the quarters for the garrison. Here we are shown the well-house and the famous well from which, in bygone days, the occupants drew their supply of water, and which now forms an object of attraction to wondering visitors. It is a remarkable work, and says much for the perseverance and skill of those who made it. The depth is said to be no less than 366 feet—nearly double that of the well at Carisbrook—the water, it is believed, being level with Beeston Brook, which flows near the foot of the castle rock. A tradition was widely prevalent, and is still believed in many a rustic home in the locality, that a great amount of treasure lies buried at the bottom, having been cast in it during a time of peculiar exigence by one of the earlier lords of Beeston; but the story may be dismissed as resting upon no better foundation than the shaping power of the imagination. There is no water in it, nor has there been for years, owing to the drainage below, and for a long time it was choked with rubbish; but some five-and-thirty or forty years ago it was cleared out to the very bottom, when the only treasures discovered were an old spade and a fox’s head. We peer into the darksome vault, but the gloom is impervious; then the janitor produces a frame with a few lighted candles upon it, which he lets down by a rope and pulley. As it slowly descends the light gradually diminishes until it becomes a mere speck, and we are enabled to form some idea of the amazing depth to which the rock has been excavated. Having done this, he will, if it will add to your pleasure and you are ready to listen, give you his version of Beeston’s history—lead you where nobles and high-born dames have held their banquets; show you the iron rings to which, in bygone days, the troopers fastened their horses; and then relate with circumstantial detail the legend of the lost treasure, and tell you how, long, long ago, a trusty servitor was let down to the bottom of the well in the hope of recovering it, and that when he was wound up again he was speechless, and died before he could reveal the mysteries he had seen.

For the boldness and beauty of its situation Beeston may be fairly said to be unrivalled, and from the wide extent of country it commands it must, in the days of watch and ward, have been admirably adapted either for the purposes of offence or defence. From the summit of the glorious old relic we can sweep the whole arch of the horizon, from the pale blue hills of Wales on the one hand, to the brown heathy wastes that once formed part of the great forest of Macclesfield on the other. The palatinate which boasts itself the Vale Royal of England is usually reckoned a flat county, and this is in a great measure true, for league upon league of broad, flat, fertile meadows spread before us, but the eye as it ranges into the distance passes over a rich variety of undulating country. Above the round-topped woods of Delamere we catch sight of the eminence on which the Saxon city of Eddisbury once stood, and the bold promontories of Frodsham and Halton guarding the shores of the Mersey; eastwards are seen the umbraged heights of Alderley, and further to the right the range of hills that form the barrier of the county, and separate it from the Peak district of Derbyshire; while more to the south, where a cloud of smoke hangs lazily upon the landscape, is Crewe, the great central point of railway enterprise and railway industry. Gleaming in the warm sunshine upon the left we note the stately tower of Chester Cathedral rising proudly above the humbler structures that, like vassals, gather round, and we recall the stormy times when from its walls, on that sad September day, the ill-fated Charles the First, after a fitful gleam of prosperity, saw his gallant cavaliers borne down by the stern soldiers of Cromwell’s army on Rowton Moor, a disaster that turned the fortunes of the King and sealed the fate of Beeston. In rear one can look down the wide estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey, and along the great western horn of Cheshire, as it stretches away towards the Irish Sea. More to the left the mountains of Wales loom darkly and mysteriously, as distant mountains always do, and spread along the line of the horizon until their further summits, softened by the mellowing haze of distance, can hardly be distinguished from the azure dome above; the bold form of Moel Fammau may be seen rising conspicuously, and when the day is clear those who are blessed with a keen eyesight may, it is said, discern even the peak of Snowdon, seeming to touch the far-off western sky.

Glorious is the prospect that spreads around. What a wealth of pastoral loveliness lies before us, everywhere exhibiting the signs of fertility and cultivation. All within the limits is a green and beautiful expanse made up of copse and lea, of level meadow breadths and cattle-dappled pastures, that rejoice in the warm sunshine, with little hamlets and villages and shady lanes, old manor houses and churches—the monuments of the past mingling with the habitations of contemporary life and activity. Natural beauty is everywhere, and the eye is delighted with its variety of extent. After leisurely contemplating the scene the mind is enabled to occupy itself with the details. We can note the exquisite contrasts of colour and the coming and going effects of the cloud-shadows as, wafted by the softest of summer zephyrs, they slowly chase each other over the woods and verdant glades. The slumber of a summer day lies profoundly as a trance upon the scene. The lowing of the kine in the neighbouring meadows, the harsh note of the corncrake, and the soft dreamy call of the cuckoo are the only sounds that break upon the ear. Bunbury twinkles through its screen of leaves far below us, and we can discern the tower of the venerable church where lie the bones of some of the lords of Beeston, and where still may be seen the sumptuous monuments that perpetuate their names. In front, and almost at our feet, is the Chester and Ellesmere Canal, glistening like a line of liquid silver, and the railway, over which the iron horse glides swiftly every day, running parallel with it, types of the past and present modes of travel. The white road that crosses them both leads up to Tarporley, where there is an ancient church (or rather was, for in the last few years it has been almost entirely rebuilt), and several monuments that well deserve inspection. Close by is Utkinton, for many a generation the home of the proud family of the Dones, hereditary chief foresters of Delamere, one of whom, John Done, the husband of that proverbial exemplar of unsurpassable perfection, the fair Lady Done,[25] in 1617 ordered so wisely the sports of James the First, when that monarch took his pleasure and repast in the forest, that, as the author of _The Vale Royal_ tells us, he “freely honoured him with knighthood and graced his house at Utkinton with his presence;” but the house which he graced by his presence was made the scene of revelry and pillage by the soldiers of his son, the hall being plundered, and the plate, jewels, and writings taken away by the Royalist forces shortly after the breaking out of the civil war.

[Note 25: “As fair as Lady Done” is a well-known Cheshire proverb. Pennant (“Tour from Chester to London, 4 ed., p. 8”), referring to this lady, who was the daughter of Sir Thomas Wilbraham, of Woodhey, says that “when a Cheshire man would express super-eminent excellency in one of the fair sex he will say, ‘There is a Lady Done for you.’”]

On the western side the view is singularly impressive. The rock is perpendicular, its ruggedness being softened only by the ferns and mosses that have attached themselves to the clefts and crevices, and the shrubs and trees that grow out from the gaping stones. You look down from the giddy height on to the road immediately beneath, where the little homesteads and cottages seem reduced to lilliputian dimensions, and the laden waggon going by looks no bigger than a toy. Carrying the eye round towards the south, the Broxton hills come in view; nearer is the lofty height of Stanner Nab; and then, separated only by a narrow valley, the most prominent feature in the whole landscape, the richly-wooded eminence of Peckforton, surmounted by the castle, with its great round keep and broken and picturesque line of towers and turrets, that Lord Tollemache built some five-and-thirty years ago as a reproduction of the fortified stronghold of the early Edwardian period.

The historical associations of Beeston impart a deeper interest to the beauty of its natural surroundings. Its annals run back to the time of Randle Blundeville—Randle the Good, as he is sometimes called—the most famous of the Cestrian Earls. This Randle succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father, Hugh Cyveliock, in 1187, and shortly afterwards married the Lady Constance, widow of Geoffry Plantagenet, a younger son of Henry II., the mother of the young Prince Arthur whom King John cruelly put to death—a lady from whom he was afterwards divorced. They were turbulent times in which he lived, and he bore his full share in the stirring events that were then occurring; but, though one of the most powerful nobles of the land, his power was generally exercised in the interests of his legitimate sovereign. When Richard the Lion-hearted, returning from his encounters with the infidel in Palestine, was detained a captive in Austria, and the treacherous John, to whom he had committed the care of the kingdom, basely sought to appropriate the crown, Earl Randle and his knights and retainers, with Earl Ferrars and others, besieged his castle of Nottingham, and valorously maintained the cause of the absent King. After Richard’s death, when John had succeeded to the throne, he remained loyal to him as he had done to his predecessor, though he had the courage to rebuke him for violating the wives and daughters of the nobility. Afterwards we find him taking part in that ever memorable council which assembled on the greensward of Runnymede, “encircled by the coronet of Cooper’s Hill,” which secured the rights of the people of England, and the Great Charter that still remains the foundation of their liberties, when—

England’s ancient Barons, clad in arms, And stern with conquest, from their tyrant King (Then render’d tame), did challenge and secure The charter of our freedom.

When that memorable June day had waned—when the Great Charter had been won, and the thoughtful night which followed had passed—when men began to think that the pledges so readily given would be as readily violated, and that concessions extorted could only be maintained by force of arms, Randle Blundeville remained faithful to his faithless King, and defended his cause against the Barons and the Dauphin of France, to whom they had traitorously offered the English crown.

The great Earl was then in the plenitude of his power, and when the tyrant John had paid the penalty of over-indulgence in peaches and new cider, he proved himself a firm and faithful champion of his son, the young King Henry, and, with Earl Pembroke, was mainly instrumental in securing him upon his father’s throne, and by that means releasing England from the dominion of a stranger. When the kingdom had settled into peace, having assumed the cross in fulfilment of a vow he had previously made, the Earl betook himself to the Holy Land:—

To chace the Pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walk’d those blessèd feet Which, many hundred years before, were nail’d For our advantage on the bitter cross.

He remained absent for about two years, during which time he assisted in the taking of Damietta; and immediately on the return from his crusading expedition he set about the erection of the Castle of Beeston, for the greater security of his palatinate against the incursions of the brave but troublesome Welsh, with whom he had previously had many encounters, bringing to his aid that Saracenic style of architecture he had found so well adapted for defence, and which is so admirably represented in the ivy-coloured walls and bastions of Beeston.

Randle Blundeville was a famous warrior, and withal a mighty castle builder, for, in addition to re-edifying the castle of Deganwy, on the Conway, which had been partially destroyed during the numerous conflicts with Prince Llewelyn, he built the castles of Beeston in Cheshire, and Chartley in Staffordshire. He also founded and endowed the Abbey of Grey Friars, in Coventry, and a religious house on the banks of the Churnet, near Leek, to which latter, at his wife’s desire, he gave the name of Dieu-la-cresse—“May God increase it”—and transferred to it the Cistercian brotherhood of the Abbey of Poulton, near Chester, who had found their home there too circumscribed, and probably uncomfortably near the Welsh Marches—an act of piety he had been directed to perform, as the old monkish legends declare, by his grandfather in a vision. He believed in dreams, and he appears to have had equal faith in the piety of the monks, for it is recorded of him that, being overtaken in a storm at sea when returning from his crusading expedition, and the ship being in danger of sinking, he refused to lend a helping hand in righting it until midnight, when, as he affirmed, the monks of Dieu-la-cresse would be supplicating Heaven on his behalf; and that, consequently, God would then give him strength. The ship was saved, and, as their prayers had evidently availed so much, it may be assumed that the brethren of Dieu-la-cresse were a more than usually righteous fraternity.

The castles of Beeston and Chartley were both commenced in the same year (1220), and to defray the cost of their erection the Earl “took toll throughout all his lordships of all such persons as passed by the same, with any cattel, chaffre, or merchandize.” The reason for the erection of Beeston is not far to seek. The Welsh were troublesome neighbours, for though the Red King and the English-born Henry—the “Lion of Justice,” as he was called—had tried to unite their country with England, they had been neither exterminated nor enslaved, and for long years—

All along the border here The word was snaffle, spur, and spear.

In these border struggles Earl Randle found himself on one occasion shut up in the castle of Rhuddlan—then called Rothelent—to which he had retreated, and hard pressed by his foes. At this time his constable of Cheshire, that doughty warrior Roger Lacy, baron of Halton, whose fierceness had earned for him the sobriquet of “Hell,” happening to be at Chester, hastily mustered all the beggars, minstrels, debauched men, harlots, and other disorderly characters who were then assembled at the fair, and with this tumultuous company marched to his master’s rescue. The Welsh, who were as much alarmed at the sight of such a multitude as the French were at the sight of Talbot, raised the siege and fled; and the Earl, returning in safety, in reward and in memory of such welcome service, conferred upon his trusty follower the government and licensing of all beggars, vagrants, strollers, and minstrels within the limits of his earldom, a privilege which Lacy in turn bestowed upon his steward, Hugh Dutton; and the Duttons of Dutton, his successors, continued to exercise the right until the passing of the Vagrant Act, a few years ago—the custom being for them or their deputies to ride through the streets of Chester to St. John’s Church every year, with the minstrels of Cheshire playing before them; after which their licenses were renewed. After this adventure, peace was concluded (1222) between the Earl and Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, which was happily cemented by the marriage in the same year of Randle’s nephew and heir, John Scot, Earl of Huntingdon, with Llewelyn’s daughter Helen.

Randle Blundeville, after having held the earldom for the long period of fifty-two years, died at Wallingford on the 26th Oct. 1232, and was buried at St. Werburg’s, Chester, his heart being deposited in the Abbey of Dieu-la-cresse. Having no issue, his sister’s son, John the Scot, succeeded; but he bore rule only five years, dying in 1237, having, as was commonly believed, been poisoned by his wife, the Welsh princess.

That amiable lady not having borne him any children, his vast possessions should by right have devolved upon his sisters; but King Henry, being unwilling, as he said, “that so great an inheritance should be divided among distaffs,” considerately took the earldom into his own hands, and gave them other lands instead. In this transaction there is little doubt but that the King got the best end of the bargain, though it might have been better for his grandson if the “distaffs” had been left in undisturbed possession of their property; for in that case it is more than probable England would not have had to deplore the defeat at Bannockburn which made Scotland a nation.

Maidens of England, sore may ye mourn, For your lemans ye have lost at Bannockburn.

Of the sisters of John Scot, Margaret, the eldest, was the grandmother of John Baliol, who became a competitor for the crown of Scotland. Isabella, the second sister, by her marriage with Robert le Brus, the Lord of Annandale, had a grandson—the brave and heroic Robert Bruce—the “Bruce of Bannockburn,” and the idol of the Scottish people.

After Henry the Third had assumed the Earldom of Chester the castle of Beeston was left to the charge of castellans, and the people of Cheshire had a sorry time of it; for David, the son of Prince Llewelyn, endeavoured to cast off the English yoke, and long and bloody were the struggles for freedom on the one hand, and for dominion on the other—the county being overrun and ravaged alternately by friends and enemies until nearly every rood of land was soaked with the blood of the combatants. In the attack made by the King in 1245 the whole borderland was laid waste, and the wyches or salt-pits were destroyed. Eleven years later the county was plundered and desolated by the Welsh; and in the year 1256 the young Prince Edward, to whom Henry had two years previously assigned the Principality, made his first progress into Cheshire, when his castle of Beeston was placed in the charge of Fulco de Orreby. This year was an eventful one, for before its close the Welsh again arose in insurrection, when Prince Edward was compelled to retire; but the King marched an army to his support, wasting the harvest as he advanced, and well-nigh depopulating the county, when, as the ancient chronicler, Matthew Paris, records, “the whole border was reduced into a desert, the inhabitants were cut off by the sword, the castles and houses burnt, the woods felled, and the cattle destroyed by famine.”

The day was not far distant when Beeston was to be wrested from its royal possessor, and find itself garrisoned by the soldiers of a rebellious subject The struggle between the Crown and the Barons had commenced, and was continued under varying circumstances; but the Sovereign was eventually borne down by the union of ambitious nobles. The rival armies met at Lewes, and in that hollow which the railway now traverses, on the 14th of May, 1264, the King saw his army defeated by the valorous Simon De Montfort, Earl of Leicester, aided by the forces of the Welsh Prince Llewelyn, and he himself, with his son Prince Edward and the King of the Romans, made prisoners. The next day a treaty, known as the _mise_ of Lewes, was entered into; but the King and his son were detained as hostages until all matters in dispute should be settled. In this forced peace Edward was compelled, by a deed executed at Woodstock, December 24, 1264, to surrender his Earldom of Chester, and with it his castle of Beeston, to the victorious De Montfort, in whom the administration of the realm was then virtually vested.

The victory was short-lived; but it had a result that will be ever memorable, for immediately after, De Montfort summoned a great council of the nation—the first in which we distinctly recognise the Parliament of England; for he not only called together the barons, prelates, and abbots, but also summoned two knights from each county, two citizens from each city, and two burgesses from each borough. Thus was the democratic element—the foundation of the House of Commons—first introduced; and, as the Poet Laureate sings, England became

A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where freedom slowly broadens down, From precedent to precedent.

De Montfort was now in the fulness of his power; but his elevation was dangerous for himself. His natural and acquired superiority provoked the jealousy of those around him, and brought about his own destruction. As when the light is brightest, so the shadow is ever darkest, and his success was the ultimate cause of his downfall. The Parliament which sprang out of the turbulence of civil war assembled on the 26th January, 1265; and in the month of May following Prince Edward, thanks to the fleetness of his horse, having effected his escape from Hereford, where he had been in “free custody,” placed himself at the head of a numerous army, the loyal barons being speedily in arms. Gloucester, Monmouth, and Worcester, were successively taken; De Montfort’s son was defeated at Kenilworth; and then the victorious Royalists advanced to Evesham, to give battle to the father, who was posted there. The contest, which lasted until night, was marked with unusual ferocity; no quarter was asked or given; the Avon was crimsoned with the blood of the slain; and, to add to the horrors, while the dreadful carnage was going on, the air was darkened, and a storm such as England has rarely witnessed burst over the combatants. Drayton, in his “Polyolbion,” describes the horrors of that dreadful day—

Shrill shouts, and deadly cries, each way the air do fill, And not a word was heard from either side but “kill!” The father ’gainst the son, the brother ’gainst the brother, With gleaves, swords, bills, and pikes were murdering one another. The full luxurious earth seems surfeited with blood, Whilst in his uncle’s gore th’ unnatural nephew stood; Whilst with their charged staves the desperate horsemen meet— They hear their kinsmen groan under their horses’ feet, Dead men and weapons broke do on the earth abound; The drums bedash’d with brains do give a dismal sound!

On the fatal 4th of August, 1265, the narrow bridge at Evesham afforded little chance of escape from the slaughter of Edward’s horsemen, and when the storm was over, and the sun had gone down, the pale moon on that warm summer night glittered on the corslet of the gallant Simon de Montfort, whose mangled body was stiffening upon the gory sward, to be sent off on the morrow to the wretched widow as a testimony of the Royalist success; his eldest son, Henry de Montfort, lay stretched by his side, and but for the determined bravery of a few devoted fellows, who bore his wounded form away upon their shields, Guy, the youngest, would have shared their fate. Such was the ghastly end of one of the lords of Beeston—the champion of English liberties and the originator of our representative Parliament.

When it became known that Prince Edward was in the field, his Cheshire adherents at once took up arms; and on the Sunday following his escape from Hereford James de Audley and Urian de St Pierre possessed themselves of Beeston, and held it in the name of the King; and as soon as the fight at Evesham was ended, the youthful conqueror, with his victorious army, marched proudly through the undulating country and along the great northern road to his Cheshire stronghold with the wounded Guy de Montfort, Humphrey de Bohun, and Henry de Hastings, as captives; and where, on his arrival, Lucas de Tanai, whom the elder De Montfort had made Justiciary of Chester, and Simon, the Abbot of St. Werburg’s, came to surrender the city of Chester, which had then withstood a ten weeks’ siege, and to bespeak the royal clemency for themselves. The whole of De Montfort’s possessions, including the earldom of Chester, and with it the castle of Beeston, were forfeited by his rebellion, and reverted back to the crown; and on the 27th August, twenty-three days after the great battle, the Prince granted a charter, confirming to the barons of Cheshire all the privileges which Randle Blundeville had previously bestowed upon them.

Once more the royal ensign with the golden lions waved above the battlements of Beeston; a garrison was left in charge, but, the country having become tranquillised, the gallant Edward went to win fresh laurels beneath the sunnier skies of Palestine. In 1269 he took the cross at Northampton, and, accompanied by some of the more powerful nobles, set out for the Holy Land, stormed the city of Nazareth, gained several victories over the Moslems, and displayed a personal prowess equal to that of the lion-hearted Richard, and a military skill that was infinitely greater. At Acre he escaped the poisoned dagger of the treacherous Saracen by the devotion of his queen, who sucked the poison from the wound at the risk of her own life—so, at least, the old chroniclers affirm, and we are not inclined to reject so touching a story, even though it may have come to us from a Spanish source. While on his journey homewards he received the tidings of his father’s death, but, instead of returning immediately, he made a triumphal progress through Italy, crossed the Alps, and proceeded to the Court of France, where he narrowly escaped death through the treachery of the Count of Chalons.

On arriving in England he was crowned at Westminster with Eleanor his wife, August 19th, 1274. The hospitalities of his coronation were scarcely over ere he set about the accomplishment of the great scheme he had resolved upon—the union of the whole island of Britain in one compact monarchy—Wales, his old battle-ground, then presenting a tempting opportunity for commencing the work of conquest. Llewelyn, the Welsh prince, though he promised fealty to the English crown, refused to appear at the coronation, whereupon Edward repaired to Chester, summoned his friends, and prepared to march against the Principality.

Beeston becomes once more the scene of bustle and excitement; mail-clad warriors are hurrying to and fro; the pennons of the knights, gay with their distinctive blazonings, flutter in the breeze; lance and spear, and helm and burgonette, gleam brightly in the sunlight—and the echoes of the stern old fortress are again aroused by the sounds of martial preparation; for an army has been levied and all are eager to advance. Llewelyn was summoned to meet the King at Chester, but refused; he was again summoned to attend the Parliament at Westminster, and again he declined to appear; his lands were then declared forfeit, and Edward led his invading host into his territory. Conscious of their inability to withstand their more powerful neighbours in the field, the Welsh retired to the mountain fastnesses, which had many a time and oft enabled their ancestors to hold their own against their Saxon and Norman oppressors; but, Edward having successfully penetrated to the very heart of the country, Llewelyn was compelled to submit to the hard terms the victor thought fitting to impose, which, by the way, left only to the vanquished prince the sovereignty of Anglesey and the district of Snowdon.

Unhappily for Llewelyn, he put faith in the prophecy of Merlin, the native bard and necromancer, which, it is alleged, foretold that he should be the restorer of Brutus’s Empire in Britain. His compatriots chafed under the usurped dominion, and maintained a dogged resistance to the invaders. In hope of the fulfilment of the wizard’s prognostications, Llewelyn availed himself of the fancied security of England to break out into open insurrection. The castle of Hawarden was surprised, and the governor, Roger de Clifford, carried off a prisoner; the border castles of Rhuddlan and Flint were besieged; and then, leading his forces down into the lowlands, the English intruders were driven back across the Marches. Elated by his successes, he then marched into Radnorshire, where, after passing the Wye, his army was defeated by Edward Mortimer, and Llewelyn himself, while bravely endeavouring to retrieve the misfortune, met the death he had so ardently sought for; David, his brother, lord of Denbigh, was at the same time made prisoner, and executed as a traitor. Such was the end of Llewelyn, the great hero of Wales, and her last prince; and with his end expired the government and distinction of the Welsh nation, after long centuries of warfare maintained by its sons for the defence and independence of their homes—

Such were the sons of Cambria’s ancient race— A race that checked victorious Cæsar, aw’d Imperial Rome, and forced mankind to own Superior virtue, Britons only knew, Or only practised; for they nobly dared To face oppression; and, where Freedom finds Her aid invok’d, there will the Briton die!

At this time (1283) Edward held his court at Rhuddlan, and to appease the conquered people hit upon the politic, though dangerous, expedient of promising them for their prince a native of the Principality, who never spoke a word of English, and whose life and conversation no man could impugn. By this bold manœuvre he succeeded in obtaining their submission, and he fulfilled his promise to the very letter; for he removed his Queen Eleanor to Carnarvon, which was then so far completed as to allow of her reception, and there, on the 24th of April, 1284, she gave birth to a son—Edward of Carnarvon, the victim of Berkeley Castle, and the subject of Marlowe’s tragedy—who was created Prince of Wales—a title the heirs to the crown have ever since retained.

The sanguinary extirpation of Cambrian independence, while ultimately a blessing to the native race, was also a good thing for those who dwelt within the borderland of Cheshire, inasmuch as it spared their country from a continuance of the bloodshed and devastation it had been subjected to during the centuries of struggle between the Saxon and the Celt. The land had rest, and for a hundred years or more from that time Beeston is found to occupy but a comparatively small space in the chronicles of the kingdom.

The power wielded by the first Edward fell from the feeble grasp of his son and successor. In the fifth year of that unfortunate monarch’s reign we find the custody of the castle being transferred from John de Serleby to John de Modburly, who appears to have been acting as the deputy of Sir Robert de Holland, the head of the great feudal house of that name in Lancashire, who, in the same year, by the king’s favour, had been appointed his Chief Justice of Chester and custodian of his castles of Chester, Rhuddlan, and Flint, and three years later Holland was re-appointed to the same office. This Sir Robert, who had married a great-granddaughter of that paragon of beauty, if not of chastity, Rosamond Clifford—the “Fair Rosamond” of mediæval romance—founded the Benedictine Priory at Up-Holland, in his own county; he was held in great esteem by Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Lancaster, the king’s cousin, who made him his secretary, and he was in that earl’s retinue on the occasion of the rising of the barons to remove the De Spencers from the royal councils, for which act his estates were forfeited after the defeat at Boroughbridge in 1222, when the Earl, himself, was made prisoner and conveyed to Pontefract, where, to satisfy the vindictive favourites of the king, he was beheaded.

During the protracted reign of Edward III. and the long French wars, in which the Cheshire men, under the immediate eyes of the king and his son, the Black Prince, won so much renown, several castellans were appointed in succession, though it does not appear that the castle was at any time the scene of active military operations. On the death of Edward, his grandson, Richard, the eldest son of the Black Prince, who was then only eleven years of age, succeeded to the throne, to find, as many others have done, what it is to be—

Left by his sire, too young such loss to know, Lord of himself, that heritage of woe.

A “heritage of woe” truly, for his reign, from the beginning to its close, was one of continuous anarchy and disturbance. On the 23rd November, 1385, we find him appointing John Cartileche janitor of his castle of Beeston for life, in the room of Sir Alan Cheanie, who had then only lately died. The appointment was made under the king’s seal, and about the same time Richard himself paid a visit to the chief city of his palatinate—the object, no doubt, being to ingratiate himself with his Cheshire friends, and, that being so, it is probable Beeston was on the same occasion graced with his presence. Loyalty to the crown was a strong characteristic of the Cheshire men, a feeling that was no doubt strengthened by the many marks of royal favour their county had received from its earls, in whom they recognised their titular sovereigns; hence the intimate relations which existed between the king and the palatinate. When the Duke of Gloucester assembled a body of men in order that he might retain control of the youthful sovereign, Richard hastened to Chester and called out his loyal Cheshire guard; and when, in 1397, by what in modern times would be called a _coup d’état_, he determined on overthrowing the regency and recovering the power which Gloucester and his cabal of nobles had deprived him of, and in furtherance of that object had summoned a Parliament to meet him at Westminster in September, he, to guard against any possible resistance on the part of the disaffected nobles, surrounded the house with a guard of two thousand of his Cheshire archers, each wearing as a badge the white hart lodged, the cognisance of his mother, the “Fair Maid of Kent,” which Richard had then adopted.

The power thus regained was wielded neither wisely nor well. On the death of John o’ Gaunt, in 1399, Richard, to replenish his exhausted exchequer, seized his possessions into his own hands, leaving to the banished son of “time-honoured Lancaster,” the youthful Bolingbroke, nothing but the empty title. This arbitrary abuse of power naturally inflamed the resentment of Bolingbroke, who resolved upon accomplishing the king’s dethronement, and it was not long before the opportunity offered for putting his scheme into execution. While the unsuspecting Richard was leading the Cheshire bowmen among the bogs and thickets of Ireland, in order to quell the insurrection and punish the murderers of Mortimer, Bolingbroke, taking advantage of his absence, embarked with a small retinue and landed “upon the naked shore of Ravenspurg,” a place on the Humber, where, at a later date, Edward IV. landed on a similar errand, with an excuse plausible as that of the duke whose exploit he imitated. He quickly mustered a force of 60,000 men; towns and castles surrendered to him; and before Richard could return the invader had virtually made himself master of the kingdom. When he did arrive, there being no army to receive him, seven loyal Cheshire men, John Legh of Booths, Thomas Cholmondely, Ralph Davenport, Adam Bostock, John Done of Utkinton, Thomas Holford, and Thomas Beeston, each with seventy retainers, became his body guard, wearing his cognisance of the white hart upon their shoulders, and keeping watch over him day and night with their battle-axes.

This would appear to have been the occasion when, according to Stow, Beeston was chosen by the king, on account of its strength and the usually loyal feelings of the county, for the custody of his treasures, when jewels and other valuables said to be worth 200,000 marks (£133,333) were deposited in it for safety. The castle was then garrisoned by a force of a hundred men; but it says little for their valour that, without striking a blow, they surrendered it to the victorious heir of Lancaster, who, anticipating Richard’s advance towards his trusty friends in Cheshire, where his power was strongest, and wishing to intercept his communications, had marched through Gloucester, Hereford, and Ludlow to Shrewsbury, crying havoc and destruction to Cheshire and Cheshire men as he went; and who was then at Chester, where he had caused to be beheaded that loyal and loving subject, Sir Piers Legh, the founder of the house of Legh of Lyme—a Cheshire worthy who had been the companion in arms of the Black Prince, and whose name is still perpetuated in the inscription which one of his descendants placed in the Lyme Chapel, in Macclesfield Church—

Here lyethe the bodie of Perkyn a Legh, That for King Richard the death did die, Betrayed for righteovsnes; And the bones of Sir Piers, his Sonne, That with King Henrie the Fift did wonne In Paris.

The hapless king, finding his power gone and his castles of Carnarvon, Beaumaris, and Conway destitute of provisions, gave himself up to Percy, Duke of Northumberland, who conveyed him to Flint, whither Bolingbroke repaired from Chester to receive him. Thence the fallen monarch was removed to Chester; but he could only have remained a day or two, for on the 21st August he was at Nantwich, a prisoner on his way to the Tower, having on the morning of that early autumn day passed with his captors beneath the frowning walls of Beeston, so lately lost to him. The close of that sad journey of triumph and humiliation has been thus described by our greatest dramatist:—

Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke— Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seemed to know, With slow but stately pace kept on his course, While all tongues cried—“God save thee, Bolingbroke!” You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage; and that all the walls, With painted imag’ry, had said at once— “Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!” Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck, Bespake them thus—“I thank you, countrymen!” And thus still doing, thus he pass’d along.

Alas, poor Richard! Where rides he the while?

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious; Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes Did scowl on Richard. No man cried, “God save him;” No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home; But dust was thrown upon his sacred head; Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off— His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience— That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’d The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him. But Heaven hath a hand in these events, To whose high will we bound our calm contents; To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now, Whose state and honour I for aye allow.

Ere many moons had waxed and waned the humbled and wretched king, who had resigned his crown to the usurper, fell beneath the murderous battle-axe of Piers Exton, “within the guilty closure of the walls” of Pontefract, that—

Bloody prison, Fatal and ominous to noble peers;

and very near the spot where, less than sixty years before, Sir Robert Holland’s patron, the “good Earl of Lancaster,” had yielded up his life.

In the fierce struggle between the Red and White Roses—that “convulsive and bleeding agony of the feudal power” which destroyed the flower of the English nobility, and well-nigh exhausted the nation—we hear little of Beeston, though the victorious Bolingbroke’s son, the “nimble-footed madcap Harry, Prince of Wales,” lived much of his time within the palatinate, and the Cheshire men figured prominently in the stirring events of those stirring times.

In 1460, when the compromise was made by which the “meek usurper” was to retain the crown for the remainder of his life, and Richard of York become heir at his death, we find an entry on the Patent Rolls granting to him the Principality of Wales and the Earldom of Chester, in which Beeston is included in the recital of the manors and castles considered as appendages to the earldom. The honours and possessions thus acquired were not, however, to be long enjoyed, for before the close of the year Henry’s Queen—Margaret of Anjou—refusing to acquiesce in an arrangement that set aside the claims of her son, took up arms on his behalf, and, aided by some of the most devoted supporters of the Lancastrian cause, marched northwards. The opposing forces met on Wakefield Green on the 31st December, 1460. The army of the White Rose was completely routed, and Beeston’s lately designated lord, the Duke of York, and his son, the Earl of Rutland, fell together—butchered, it is said, in cold blood upon the field by the black-faced Clifford.

The grant of 1460 is the last occasion on which mention is made of Beeston as an ordinary fortified stronghold. When Henry of Richmond came out of the field of Bosworth, a victor, he planted the heel of the sovereign upon the necks of the nobles, and destroyed their power by putting down their retainers. He freed their lands from the burden of supporting an army of the State; but, while doing so, he succeeded in breaking up the feudal system. From that time the decay of Beeston may be said to date, and the old fortress must have soon begun to show signs of dilapidation, for Leland, in his _Genethliacon Eadverdi Principis_ written in 1548, describes it as being then in a shattered and ruinous condition. In the reign of Elizabeth the site was alienated from the Earldom of Chester, and given by the Queen to her dancing Chancellor, “the grave Lord Keeper,” Sir Christopher Hatton, who subsequently conveyed it to the manorial lords of Beeston; and so it again became attached to the manor from which it had originally been severed. In this way it became part of the possessions of that famous Cheshire hero, Sir George Beeston—a veteran soldier who had borne himself bravely and well in the siege of Boulogne and the fight at Musselburg, and whose warlike spirit was not even subdued by age, for it is recorded that in the glorious victory over the Spaniards at the time of the Armada, when he was nearly ninety years old, he displayed such gallantry that Elizabeth knighted him for his achievements. The brave old knight closed a life of honour in 1601, being then 102 years of age, and was buried at Bunbury, where his recumbent effigy upon an altar-tomb beneath a pointed arch may be seen, with a long Latin inscription above it in which his services to his country are recorded. The granddaughter of Sir George Beeston conveyed the manor and castle in marriage to William Whitmore, of Leighton, Esquire, from whom it descended through the Savages to Sir Thomas Mostyn, who died in 1831, when the property passed by sale to the present Lord Tollemache.

For more than a generation Beeston remained uncared for, and ceased to have any significance as a military station. Under the vigorous rule of the Tudor sovereigns there had been no incursion or civil commotion that rendered a display of strength and resistance necessary, and it was not until the great outbreak of the seventeenth century, when almost every considerable mansion in Cheshire was garrisoned for king or Parliament, that it was again put into a state of defence and made to undergo the ordeal of a protracted siege. At the beginning of 1643 Sir William Brereton, the Parliamentary commander, who had occupied Nantwich with a force of 2,000 or 3,000 men, found himself menaced by Sir Thomas Aston, who at the time was holding the fortified city of Chester on behalf of the King, and had attacked and pillaged Middlewich and other places. Under such circumstances, Beeston, offering as it did so many natural advantages, was too important a station to be neglected, and accordingly on the night of the 21st February (1642-3), 300 of the Parliamentary soldiers climbed the hill, and established themselves in possession, not, however, without some opposition, for it is recorded that on the same night they were met by the horse of the array on Te’erton (Tiverton, the adjoining township) townfield, where one of Colonel Mainwaring’s officers was slain on the Parliamentary side, and a few others of the King’s, who were buried at Tarporley. The first work of the Puritan garrison was to repair and strengthen the fortifications, and put the castle in such a condition as would secure its holders against attack. The contest between sovereign and subject continued throughout the year, with varying results. In November, General Brereton, at the head of the Cheshire and Lancashire forces, marched into Wales, but hearing of the arrival (at Parkgate, probably) of Royalist reinforcements from Ireland, hastily fell back upon Nantwich. His retreat would seem to have disheartened the garrison at Beeston, for within three weeks Captain Steel, the commandant, surrendered the castle, without the semblance of a struggle, to Captain Sandford, an Irish officer, who, with eight men, had a little before daybreak on the morning of the 13th December (1643) crept up the hill, and got possession of the upper ward. The story of the capture is told with much circumstantiality in the “Diary” of Edward Burghall, the Puritan schoolmaster of Bunbury, and subsequent vicar of Acton:—

December 13th.—A little before day, Captain Sandford (a zealous Royalist), who first 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 to pieces had he not been immediately clapped in prison. There was 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.

Six weeks after, as we learn from the diarist, Steel was “shot to death, in Tinker’s Croft, by two soldiers, according to judgment against him. He was put into a coffin, and buried in the churchyard. He confessed all his sins,” it is added, “and prayed a great while, and, to the judgment of charity, died penitently.” The stern Puritans could scarcely have given a milder judgment, for the dining together and regaling of Sandford’s men with “much beer” must have told greatly against the recreant Steel.

The surrender of Beeston was a great blow to the revolutionary cause. The neighbouring country now lay at the mercy of Lord Byron and the Royalist troops, who ravaged the entire district. Crewe Hall capitulated; the halls of Dorfold and Doddington surrendered without offering any resistance; Middlewich was captured, and on the 17th January, 1644, an assault was made on Nantwich, when, after some busy days of hard fighting, Captain Sandford met a soldier’s death, within a day or two of that on which poor Steel was led out to execution. The siege continued for more than a week, when Fairfax, fresh from his victories in Yorkshire, with Colonel Monk, who afterwards played so prominent a part in bringing about the Restoration, came to the relief of the beleaguered town, and the Royalists gave way to superior numbers. They were, however, left in undisturbed possession of Beeston until the 20th October following, when “the council of war at Nantwich hearing that the enemy at Beeston were in want of fuel and other necessaries layed strong siege to it.” For nearly five months the siege was continued, when Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice arrived with a considerable force, relieved the invested garrison on the 17th March, and two days later plundered Bunbury and burnt Beeston Hall. Scarcely had they departed than, as we learn from the “Diary,” the Puritan soldiers again appeared:—

1645, April.—The Parliament again placed forces round Beeston Castle, where they began to raise a brave mount with a strong ditch about it, and placed great buildings thereon, which were scarce finished but news came that the king and both the princes (Maurice and Rupert) with a strong army were coming towards Chester. The Parliament army marched towards Nantwich, leaving the country to the spoils of the forces in Chester and Beeston Castle.

The garrison thus relieved sallied out on the 4th June, and made an unsuccessful attack on Ridley Hall. Ten days after came the disastrous defeat at Naseby, which put the Parliamentarians in possession of nearly all the chief cities of the kingdom. Three anxious months passed, and then (September 24th, 1645), the unhappy monarch, standing upon the leads of the Phœnix Tower on Chester walls, witnessed the fluctuating progress of the last effort on Rowton Moor for the maintenance of the Royal power, saw his gallant kinsman, the Earl of Lichfield, with many gentlemen 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. “Thenceforth the king’s sword was a useless bauble, less significant than the ‘George’ upon his breast.”

With the loss at Chester vanished the last hope of Charles. Three weeks after, the castle of Beeston was delivered up to Sir William Brereton, the garrison, though at times subjected to the severest privations, having bravely held it for the space of nearly a year. Burghall thus tells the tale of the surrender:—

November 16th.—Beeston Castle, that had been besieged almost a year, was delivered up by the Captain Valet, the governor, to Sir William Brereton; there were in it 56 soldiers, who by agreement had liberty to depart with their arms, colours flying, and drums beating, with two cart loads of goods, and to be conveyed to Denbigh; but 20 of the soldiers laid down their arms, and craved liberty to go to their homes, which was granted. There was neither meat nor drink found in the castle, but only a piece of a turkey pie, and a live peacock and a peahen.

The heroic defence of the castle by the Royalist garrison, and their long endurance, even after their cause had become hopeless and all chance of succour had disappeared, presents a remarkable contrast to the meek surrender of Captain Steel and his three hundred Puritan soldiers to Sandford’s gallant little band of cavaliers. In the spring of the following year the old fortress, which had withstood the batterings of time and been so often exposed to the storms of war in the troubled reigns of the Plantagenets, but which had never yielded to assault, was dismantled, and since then it has gradually sunk into its present state of extreme but picturesque decay.

Since the days of the Stuarts little historical interest has attached to it. Its glories are of the past. Its palmy days are over—for it has outlived the needs that called it into being, and survives only to show us how men lived and acted in those stern times when they knew no other law than that which Wordsworth speaks of—

The old good rule, the simple plan, That they should get who have the power, And they should keep who can,

and when even power could only feel secure when defended by iron force. We love our country with love far brought from out the historic past—the past on which the present is securely built—and we cherish the relics of its ancient chivalry and romance, but the spirit of the age is opposed to the revivication of feudal customs and feudal prejudices. The time when it was only possible for men to hold their own by length and strength of arm has gone by never again to return.