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than she stormed. After a life of patriotic heroism and toil, she closed her career at Tamworth, lamented by the people, and still more by her royal brother Edward, whose councils she had directed and whose battles she had fought.

The Norman Earldom of Chester continued upwards of a century and a half; but on the death of John Scott, the seventh Earl, in 1237, Henry III. annexed it to the crown, unwilling, as he

observed, that so great an inheritance should be parcelled out among distaffs,'-there being no surviving sons. In this act originated the present government of Chester, under its mayor and sheriffs, and the various privileges of its ancient Guild.

Under the sway of the Saxons, Chester was distinguished for its extensive traffic, especially in the barbarous sale of slaves. It was a most moving sight to see, in the public markets, rows of young people of both sexes, of great beauty and in the flower of their youth, tied together with ropes, daily prostituted-daily sold. Execrable fact! wretched disgrace!"*

During the Heptarchy the Mercian princes held their courts at Chester; it became a province in the time of Egbert, and a seaport of first-rate importance.

Under the feudal sway of the polished Normans, it continued to increase in dignity and splendour, and we are informed by one of those joyous monks,† so admirably depicted by Scott, that greate shipes doe come from Gascoigne, Spain, Ireland, and Germany, WHO by God's assistance, and the labour and conduct of mariners repair hither, and supply all sorts of commodities, so that being comforted by the favour of God in all things, we drink wine plentifully,—for those countries have abundance of vineyards.'

Henry II. in one of his many invasions of Wales, fixed on Chester to hold an interview with Malcolm, King of Scotland, when he obtained the cession of three great northern counties, which had till

* Pennant. Tour in North Wales.-Life of Saint Wulfstan.

+ Lucian, who flourished (says Mr. Pennant) about the period of the Conquest.

then belonged to Scotland. In 1188, Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, passed through Chester, accompanied by the historian Giraldus, on his way from preaching the crusade to the Welsh; and in 1255, Llewellyn the Great carried fire and sword to its very gates, in his wars with the lord-marchers; and, at length, in 1275, the conquering Edward having here required that prince's submission, commenced his last fatal war against the country.

Still the theatre of great events, in 1399 Henry IV. seized upon the city and castle on his way to Flint, hastening to dethrone his ill-fated sovereign; while, in the fierce wars of Glendower, Chester became the rallying point of the royal cause.

Nor was it less conspicuous in the civil strife of the Roses, as we are informed by Drayton, in his touching description of the results of that fatal conflict on the social condition of the country. Lord Audley then held the command of the Cheshire forces in favour of 'the meek usurper,' and he tells us that this general,

'So laboured 'till that he had brought

That th' half of one house 'gainst the other fought;

So that two men, arising from one bed,

Falling to talk from one another fly;

This wears a white rose, and that wears a red,

And this a York,-that Lancaster doth cry:

He wished to see that Audley had well sped,

He prays again to prosper Salisbury;

And, for their farewell, when their leaves they take

They their sharp swords at one another shake.'*

In the eventful contest of Charles with the Parliament, Chester embraced the royal cause, and stood many a memorable siege. After the King's flight, Lord Byron held the city with unexampled valour and determination, and yielded only on the most honourable terms. Few royalists were so well able to cope with a Brereton and a Mytton as this gallant nobleman, and his opponents bore honourable testimony to his signal bravery and merit.

*The Miseries of Queen Margaret.

CHAPTER IV.

HAWARDEN, EULOE, AND FLINT.

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 !'

Richard II.

HAVING bidden farewell to Chester, the Wanderer, at the break of dawn, pursued his pleasant rambles along the banks of the restless Dee; then crossing its ever-varying tide at the lower ferry, where the elf and wizard-land first breaks upon the eye, he soon beheld Hawarden, with its wild wooded hills and glens, its abrupt and broken rocks and frowning ruins. It was a lovely morning, in the earliest month of summer; the river gradually assumed a deeper glow, as it reflected the rainbow-tints of the sunny dawn, while a soft, still haze hung over its banks far along the spreading Saltney, tinging every object with a dewy light, till it melted in the hilly distance. He beheld not, indeed, the sterner and more majestic features of Alpine scenery-none of the varied brilliancy, the deep purple glow, and rich green hues of the south; but there was a gentleness and loveliness in the hour and the scene, a charm in the deep peace and solitude of that morning, which left an indelible impression on his memory. It was the more vivid, perhaps, from its having been one of the earliest of his rambles when he explored the castles of North Wales, then filled with the buoyant hopes, and now with the vanished dreams, of youth. He felt a strange delight in recalling the visions of those days, as he pursued his quiet path along the winding banks of the Dee,-his thoughts still dwelling upon that ancient city with whose strange fortunes northern Cambria, espe

cially Flintshire, the ground he then trod, were so intimately mixed up. Another footpath over the gently rising meadows and intervening acclivities brought him, in about an hour, within view of the solitary glens and mouldering walls of Hawarden. Far around him lay a picturesque variety of grove, and hill, and dale, with the lofty hills gradually breaking on the horizon, over which the light fleecy clouds had yet hung.

With every mingled charm of hill and dale,
Mountain and mead; hoar cliff and forest wide,
And thine the ruins where rapt genius broods.
In pensive haunts romantic; rifled towers
That beetling o'er the rock rear the gray crest
Embattled, and within the secret glade

Concealed, the abbey's ivy-mantled pile.*

Such was the scenery of Hawarden, when its spectral ruins and deserted abbey first broke upon his view. He beheld the trophies of man's vanished conquests,-beauty-power, the mightiest efforts of successive generations,-fast mingling with the common dust. Before him rose that antique castle, deep-bosomed in trees, lifting its grey walls in bold relief against the clear blue skies. Singularly contrasting with these evidences of sterner times, were seen modern hamlets and mansions adorning the borders of the dreary tract which lies beyond, stretching far towards the town of Mold, till it seems to blend with the distant hills. Near the great road over Saltney, along the Dee, lay Bretton; on the left the village of Broughton, and its proud manorial halls; while, commanding all the scene, towered the magnificent ruin, with its secluded

Antique towers,

That crown the watery glade.'

The name of Pen y Llwch, or headland of the lake, with the vicinity of Saltney and other marshes, seem to authorize the conjecture that the walls of Hawarden were once washed by the sea. In Doomsday Book, mention is made of the name of Haordim,—now

* A Tour through Parts of Wales.

abbreviated into Harden, formerly in possession of the Lords of Mold. Part of its fertile lands were granted to the neighbouring Abbey of Basingwerk, and part to the inhabitants of the old domain. As an early British station also of the Cornavii-fiercely held against the Romans, anterior to the heroic defence of the Ordovices,-the Wanderer traced the different fortified heights in the vicinity, evidently the work of the hard-prest Britons. Trueman's Hill of itself supplied him with proofs of the skill and desperate valour of its defendants. It was carried by dint of numbers, and the Norman Conqueror found the fortifications in possession of the Saxon Edwin, with the sovereignty of Deira, extending into the district of Northumberland. Mixed up with the history of Hawarden are found not a few curious anecdotes, of which the following may serve as a specimen. It has long been a tradition that the natives were for centuries past designated by their neighbours, 'Harden Jews,' an appellation originating in the following singular occurrence. During the tenth century, in the reign of Cynan ap Elis, King of North Wales, there was here a Christian temple, and a rood loft in which was placed an image of the Virgin Mary, with a large cross placed in her hands, called Holy-rood. It happened that during a sultry, dry summer, the inhabitants prayed heartily for the blessing of a little rain; and among the rest was the Lady Trowst, wife of the governor of Harden Castle. While engaged in this devout exercise, instead of rain, the Holy-rood fell upon her head, and killed her on the spot. A great commotion ensued; angry at their loss, and no signs of rain appearing, the people, who were rather of a litigious disposition, determined to try the said virgin for the murder. The jury found her guilty-wilful murder, in addition to the most ungracious neglect for not answering their petitions-in short, she was sentenced to be hanged. There was, however, a certain man called SPAN, of Mancot, who, being one of the jury, proposed an amendment-namely, that she should be drowned instead of hanged, to give her a full taste of that element for which they had so long prayed in vain. But master Corbyn, of the Gate, as eagerly

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