CAMDEN'S HISTORY OF THE COUNTY PALATINE OF CHESTER. VERNON, Baron of Shipbroke, whose inheritance for default of heirs males, in the end came by the sisters unto the Wilburhams, Staffords, and Littleburies: ROBERT FITZ-HUGH, Baron of Malpas, who, as it seemeth, died, as I said before, without issue: HAMON DE MASCY, whose possessions descended to the Fittons of Bollin: GILBERT VENABLES, Baron of Kinderton, whose posterity in the right line have continued and flourished unto these our days: N. Baron of Stockport, to whom at length, the Warrens of Pointon, budded out of the honorable family of the Earls of Warren and Surry, in right of marriage succeeded. And these were all the Barons of the Earls of Chester, that ever I could hitherto find, who, as it is written in an old book, “had their free Courts of all Pleas and Suits or Complaints, except those Pleas which belong unto the Earl's sword." And their office was to assist the Earl in counsel, to yield him dutiful attendance, and oftentimes to repair unto his Court for to do him honour; and as we find in old parchment records, " Bound they were, in time of war in Wales, to find for every Knight's fee, one horse, with caparison and furniture, or else two without, within the Divisions of Cheshire. Also, that their * Hauber- Knights and Freeholders should have Corslets and *Haugella. bergeons, and defend their* Fees by their own bodies. * Lands & possessions. After HUGH, the first Earl beforesaid, succeeded R1CHARD, his son, who, in his tender years, perished by ship-wreck, together with WILLIAM, only son of King HENRY I. and other Noblemen, between Normandy and England, in the year 1120. After Richard, succeeded RANULPH DE MESCHINES, the third Earl, son to the sister of Earl Hugh, and left behind him his son RANULPH, named GERNONYS, the fourth Earl of Chester, a warlike man, and who at the siege of Lincoln, took King STEPHEN prisoner. HUGH, surnamed KEVELIOC, his son, was the fifth Earl, who died in the year 1181, and left his son RANULPH, named BLUNDEVILL, the sixth Earl; who after he had built the Castles of CHARTLEY and BEESTON, and the Abbey also DE of LA CRESSE, died without children, and left four sisters to be his heirs. MAUDE, wife of David, Earl of Huntingdon; MABILE, espoused to William d' Albeney, Earl of Arundel; AGNES, married to William Ferrars, Earl of Derby, and Avis, wedded to Robert de Quincy. After Ranulph DESCRIPT. the sixth Earl, there succeeded in the Earldom JOHN, surnamed the SCOT, the son of Earl David, by the said Maud, the eldest daughter. Who, being deceased likewise without any issue, King HENRY III. casting his eye upon so fair and large an inheritance, laid it unto the Domain of the Crown, and assigned other revenues elsewhere to the heirs, not willing, as the King himself was wont to say, that so great an estate should be divided among distaves. And the Kings themselves, in person, after that this Earldom came into their hands, for to maintain the honour of the PALATINESHIP, continued here the ancient rights and Palatine privileges, and Courts, like as the Kings of France did in the connty of Champagne. Afterward, this honour of Chester was deferred upon the King's eldest son, and first unto EDWARD, King Henry the Third's son; who being taken prisoner by the Barons, and kept in ward, delivered it up for his ransom, unto SIMON MONTFord, Earl of Leicester. But when Simon was soon after slain, it returned quickly again unto the blood Royal, and King EDWARD II. summoned his eldest son, being but a child, unto the Parliament, by the titles of Earl of Chester and Flint. Afterwards King RICHARD II. by the authority of Parliament, made it of an Earldom a Principality, and to the same Principality annexed the Castle of LEON,* with the Territories of BROM* Quere, FIELD and YALE, CHIRK CASTLE, with CHIRK LAND, Lions, Holts OSWALDS-STREET CASTLE, the whole hundred, and eleven towns belonging to that castle, with the castles of ISABEL and DELALEY, and other goodly lands, which, by reason that RICHARD, Earl of Arundel, stood then proscript and outlawed, had been confiscate unto the King's Exchequer; and King RICHARD himself was stiled Prince of Chester; but within a few years after, that title vanished away. After that, King HENRY IV. had once repealed the laws of the said Parliament, and it became again a County or Earldom Palatine, and at this day retaineth the jurisdiction Palatine, and for the administration thereof, it hath a Chamberlain, who hath all jurisdiction of à Chancellor within the said County Palatine; a Justice for matters in Common Pleas, and Pleas of the Crown, to be heard and determined in the said County; two Barons of the Exchequer, Serjeants at Law, a Sheriff, an Attorney, an Escheator, &c. I shall not, I hope, be blamed, for introducing as an AVANT COURIER to this work, a sketch of Local History, written nearly Two Hundred and Twenty Years ago.---I need not apologize for it, inasmuch as it is the production of one of our most valuable and venerable Historic Authors ---the sanction of HIS name is a passport to its approval; and altho' I have in some degree modernized the orthography, I have preserved all the quaintness of stile which characterized the literature of the early part of the 17th century. It has besides, in my opinion, another recommendation: we have in it a picture of the THEN existing state of the county---and notices of many of its families, several of which are now extinct. It may not, therefore, form an uninteresting contrast, with the PRESENT state of the County Palatine of Chester. Having said thus much in the way of explanation, I shall proceed with the regular detail. Adopting the plan of others who have gone before me, I have made the ornamental parts of the work, subservient to its general purposes.-This vignette is a representation of an ancient piece of sculpture, on a rock, in a field on the west side of the Bridge, at Chester. It is noticed by Malmesbury, who wrote in 1140; by Hoveden, who wrote in 1192; by Selden, Camden, and even in Polychronicon, and the Saxon Chronicle. It is supposed to be intended for the figure of PALLAS (Diva Armigera of the Romans). The Goddess is depicted in her warlike dress, with her altar, spear, and quiver, on the top of which is seen her favorite bird, the Owl.-Adjoining this figure, is a considerable indentation in the rock, to which tradition has given the name of Edgar's Cave.-It would be difficult to account for the origin of this very ancient relic. Before the present bridge was built, however, there was a ferry from what is familiarly called the Hole-in-the-Wall, across the river to Edgar's Field, where the great Roman Road into Venedotia, or North Wales, from Chester, commenced. Is it unlikely, that the "CAVE" was made, to receive the pious offerings of passengers, for the Goddess's protection on their journey? ANCIENT Ancient History---Earls of Chester. CHESHIRE, which owes its name to the Saxon Castr: quitting these parts. On their final abandonment of Scyrt, formed part of the district of the Cornavii, a British the island, when policy rendered it necesary to draw ПISTORY. tribe, the whole island previous to the Roman Invasion, closer their resources, the Britons again possessed thembeing apportioned into grand divisions, each taking the selves of this county, and its capital became that of name of the tribe or clan which inhabitted it. Thus, North Wales.-They remained undisturbed for a long Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and period; for we have no accounts of a warlike interrupWarwickshire, as now existing, were occupied by tion till 607, when the Britons were defeated under the the Cornavii. Camden confesses his inability to give walls of Chester, and the city was taken by Ethelfled, any etymology of the name; it continued, however, King of Northumberland.-It reverted to the Britons until the decline of the Roman Power, for certain regi- six years afterwards; for in 613, they held a national ments which served under the later Emperors, were dis- Meeting there, and elected Cadwan their King. The tinguished by the addition Cornavii.* During the early Mercian Kings possessed themselves of Chester several stay of the Romans in this country, Cheshire was includ- times, but the Welsh and Mercian dominion over the ed in Britannia Superior, but on the subsequent division county appears to have finally terminated in 828, when into provinces, it was a portion of Flavia Cæsariensis. King Egbert attacked Chester, and highly incensed that We know the period in which they colonized and main- the Welsh had supported the Danes, in their predatory extained rule in England, but it would be difficult-per-cursions, after its capture, he caused the brazen effigies haps impossible, to ascertain the precise time + of their of Cadwalhon, King of Britain, to be pulled down, and *More of this may be seen in the book, Notitia Provinciarum. An old author says, that the Roman Legions were in Chester in 223, when Marcus Aurelius Alexander was Emperor, and |