Stuart Chester

(work in progress)

The Stuart period of British history lasted from 1603 to 1714 during the dynasty of the House of Stuart. The period ended with the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George I from the German House of Hanover. The period was plagued by internal and religious strife including a period of Civil War which had a particular impact on Chester. Many of these internal conflicts were between the Crown and Parliament and their causes have been the subject of much historical debate, especially in the 20th Century when the debate was dubbed the "Storm over the gentry". The modern consensus are that the conflicts had a variety of causes, some arising out of the preceeding Tudor period (see: Tudor Chester) and some being down to the personalities of those in Stuart times. Causes varied dependent on location and the course of the Civil War in Chester was probably significantly influenced by local factors as well as national ones.



Despite defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588, England faced ongoing difficulties. The economy was hit by a series of poor harvests and there was a heavy tax burden to support the wars with Spain and in Ireland. There was a major famine in Chester in 1598. The population rose and demand drove prices up while wages fell. The Spanish war affected trade in Chester and much business shifted to the French ports, but there were losses of ships due to the war and growth began to slow. The important wool export trade declined. A noted feature of the economy were monopolies, where the right to trade in certain goods was only granted to particular parties, often in return for a payment. These were a royal prerogative and a valuable source of income for the crown as well as a way of rewarding courtiers. They were not a new innovation but their grant expanded in the latter part of Elizabeths reign. A related economic practice was "fee farming", where the state reassigned the burden of tax collection to private individuals or groups. The recipient of the rights then paid the taxes or other fees for a certain area and for a certain period of time and attempted to cover their outlay by collecting money or saleable goods. The advantage to the state was that monies could be secured without the burden of collecting them. The benefit to the "farmer" would be any excess that was collected.

Monopolies engendered a widespread sense of grievance and became a major subject of Parliamentary debate towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth, but she was able to deal with the matter with her usual knack of timely intervention, charm and an outward show of making concessions. In her famous "Golden Speech" of 30 November 1601 at Whitehall Palace to a deputation of 140 members, Elizabeth professed ignorance of the abuses, and won the members over with promises and her usual appeal to the emotions in what was a masterful oration. Sixteen months later she was dead.



Elizabeth would never name her successor. James Stuart was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, and thus a potential successor to all three thrones. From 1601, in the last years of Elizabeth's life, certain English politicians — notably her chief minister Sir Robert Cecil — maintained a secret correspondence with James to prepare in advance for a smooth succession. Elizabeth died in the early hours of 24 March 1603, and James was proclaimed king in London later the same day, without any opposition. His English coronation took place on 25 July 1603, with elaborate allegories provided by dramatic poets such as Thomas Dekker and Ben Jonson. However, an outbreak of plague restricted festivities, the goverment had debts of £400,000, and James had a very different approach to Parliament than Elizabeth.

In the early years of James's reign, the day-to-day running of the government was tightly managed by the shrewd Cecil, later Earl of Salisbury, ably assisted by the experienced Thomas Egerton, whom James made Baron Ellesmere and Lord Chancellor. Thomas Egerton was born in 1540 in the parish of Dodleston, Cheshire, England. He was the illegitimate son of Sir Richard Egerton and an unmarried woman named Alice Sparks from Bickerton. He bought Tatton Park, in 1598. It would stay in the family for more than three centuries. His third wife was Alice Spencer, whose first husband had been Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby (the one in line for the throne, who was probably murdered). The Egertons would have a significant impact on the history of Chester. Thomas Egerton (1540 – 15 March 1617) had a plot at the end of Whitefriars flattened and built what was apparently one of the finest mansions in the city. Egerton was made Chamberlain of Chester in 1593 and is associated with the traditional (but false) legend of how Gallantry Bank at Bickerton got its name.

The transition between the Tudor and Stuart periods roughly co-incides with a significant change in military technology: around 1600 the use of massed firearms emerged (see: Militia). Producing an effective arquebusier required much less training than producing an effective bowman. Most archers spent their whole lives training to shoot with accuracy, but with drill and instruction, the arquebusier was able to learn his profession in months as opposed to years. This low level of skill made it a lot easier to outfit an army in a short amount of time as well as expand the small arms ranks. This idea of lower skilled, lightly armoured units was the driving force in the infantry revolution that soon took place and allowed infantries to phase out the longbow. An arquebusier could carry more ammunition and powder than a crossbowman or longbowman could with bolts or arrows. Once the methods were developed, powder and shot were relatively easy to mass-produce, while arrow making was a genuine craft requiring highly skilled labor. Ultimately, the arquebus became the dominant projectile weapon because it was easier to mass-produce and easier to train unskilled soldiers in its use. As musket technology evolved, the flaws of the musket became less frequent and the bow became irrelevant.

Chester in 1603
As the time of the accession of James I Chester had other concerns: there are full particulars of a great plague. There was a plague in London at the same time with at least 30,000 dead in 1603. This was part of the second plague Pandemic, a major series of epidemics of plague that started with the Black Death, which reached Europe in 1348 and killed up to a half of the population of Eurasia in the next four years. Although the plague died out in most places, it became endemic and recurred regularly. A series of major epidemics occurred in the late 17th century, and the disease recurred in some places until the late 18th century or the early 19th century.

The plague which heralded the accession of the Stuart rulers actually reached Chester in September, 1602, in a glover’s (or musician's) house in St John Street (then Lane), where seven died, and kept increasing until the weekly deaths reached sixty. This particular plague cycle may well have been associated with the movement of troops through Chester in support of the Irish wars and the famines of the past years. War, famine and pestilence being known as companions. This did not stop some ascribing the plague to the accession of king James, or associating it with Kepler's Supernova.



The widespread and severe epidemic of bubonic plague in 1603-5 was unusual in Chester in falling into two contrasting phases. The first was long drawn out but relatively mild: 933 dead out of c. 5,220 inhabitants over 83 weeks represented a death rate of 11 per cent a year, four times the annual rate of the previous decade but not as severe as that experienced elsewhere. The second phase killed 1,041 people in 34 weeks, or 20 per cent a year among a population probably as large as in 1603. The first outbreak was accompanied by 'other diseases' (probably smallpox), and when it was carried from Chester to Nantwich in June 1604 it killed 430 people in ten months, a mortality of between 23 and 28 per cent. Preventive measures taken in Chester by the Assembly in 1603-5 may have retarded the spread of infection, even though they were conventional and crude: erecting pesthouses on the outskirts to isolate the sick; destruction of infected bedding; orders against overcrowded housing; and a ban on the Michaelmas fair and Christmas watch in 1604 to prevent crowds from gathering. Some citizens, notably those who were part of the local government, seem to have flouted quarantine measures: former mayor John Aldersey, for example, was moved from Eastgate Street to Watergate Street while sick and later died of the plague. Richer citizens, perhaps more worried about the state of their businesses after the first phase than about the disease itself, may have delayed flight too long. William Aldersey, another former mayor, left only when the weekly death-toll reached 58 and his next-door neighbour's family had been almost wiped-out.

In the early seventeenth century Chester’s population within the city walls numbered around 5,000. The local economy revolved around the leather industry, whose craftsmen comprised approximately 23 per cent of the freemen. Most trade was with Ireland, particularly Dublin. Some links with the Baltic developed during the period, but these were sporadic and did not involve large cargoes. Overseas trade was restricted to members of the city’s powerful Merchant Adventurers’ Company, founded in 1554. Despite being the dominant port in north-west England, Chester, or rather its corporation, was not wealthy. Rents from city lands, freemen admissions, and fees for grazing cattle on the Roodee accounted for under £100 p.a. Overall income ranged from between £283 in 1607-8 to just £130 in 1616-17. Chester’s poverty meant that corporation members were often surcharged to meet extraordinary expenses.

Chester and Parliament
In the earlier part of the Tudor period Parliaments were occasional events and the power of parliament fell far short of being able to challenge the monarchy, but the power of parliament was growing. 1542 had seen the passage of the "Chester and Cheshire (Constituencies) Act" allowing the palatine county of Cheshire and the city to be represented in the Parliament of England.

In Elizabethan times huge numbers of bills related to taxation and social/economic legislation. Many of these had consequences for Chester, who now had respresentation in Westminster and where the local power of the Palatinate was weakening. In 1559 alone eight statutes were passed concerning shoemakers, tanned leather, leather exports, wines, linen cloth, iron mills, English shipping, and the preservation of fish spawn, all of which would have a bearing on Chester.

In 1554 a group of overseas traders associated with Chester had secured the incorporation by royal grant of a company of merchants, to be governed by a master and two wardens and enjoy the privileges normally granted to such companies. Membership was to comprise merchants trading with the Continent ("mere merchants") and exclude craftsmen and retailers. There was immediate opposition in Chester on the grounds that it would exclude some freemen from foreign trade contrary to long-established practice, but the company renewed its charter in 1559 and even came to include a few retailers.

James I had clear ideas about the role of Parliament. In 1597–98, James wrote The True Law of Free Monarchies and Basilikon Doron (Royal Gift), in which he argues a theological basis for monarchy. In the True Law, he sets out the divine right of kings, explaining that kings are higher beings than other men for Biblical reasons, though "the highest bench is the sliddriest to sit upon". The document proposes an absolutist theory of monarchy, by which a king may impose new laws by royal prerogative but must also pay heed to tradition and to God, who would "stirre up such scourges as pleaseth him, for punishment of wicked kings" - this was, in an ironic sense, a time of harvest failures and plagues. James's advice to his son Prince Henry concerning parliaments, which he understood as merely the king's "head court", foreshadows his difficulties with the English Commons: "Hold no Parliaments," he tells Henry, "but for the necesitie of new Lawes, which would be but seldome". On 7 July 1604, James had angrily prorogued Parliament after failing to win its support either for full union or financial subsidies. "I will not thank where I feel no thanks due", he had remarked in his closing speech. "... I am not of such a stock as to praise fools ... You see how many things you did not well ... I wish you would make use of your liberty with more modesty in time to come".

With the decline of the Palatinate Chester's governance was now not as isolated from Parliament as it had been previously and national politics soon infringed on local matters. In January 1606, king James attempted to have Hugh Mainwaring elected as Chester’s recorder, with the expectation that this would give him an MP "in his pocket". Hugh was presumably related to the MP Sir Arthur Mainwaring who was close to both James and his son Prince Henry Frederick. The corporation reminded the king that only the previous year he had confirmed the city’s charter, which gave Chester the right to elect its own recorder. Consequently, James decided "to forbear to press you any further in the suit". The election had been brought about by the unexpected death of senior recorder Thomas Lawton and, following the attempt at Royal intervention the new recorder, Thomas Gamull, was elected as MP in his place. Gamull had been MP for Chester previously. The Gamull's (see: Gamul House) were already becoming a major influence in Chester and would go on to play a significant part in the Civil War.

A New Earl and a Play for Chester (1610)


In 1610, with the confirmation of Prince Henry Frederick as Wales and Earl, Chester looked forward to the "return" of a prince and earl it had not really known since the visit of young Prince Arthur in 1499 (see: Cowper).

Since 1506 the City of Chester had been a county in its own right, effectively ruled by a Corporation which had the right to hold courts and to control trade, buildings and social conditions. From well before the death of Henry VIII in 1547, the nearest thing to an effective Earl was the Chamberlain, based in the Castle precincts in the very center of the City, but not on City land, but there were prolonged disputes over jusidiction with the Corporation. The institutions of the wider Palatinate were based at Chester Castle, but the markets of the City served as the mercantile center of the entire county. Those who made money by trade in and through the City invested it in land in the countryside while rural men fought for civic positions. These conditions created a complex interplay between the City of Chester and the County of Cheshire as a whole. An Earl might have helped bridge this gap in the administration, and Henry Frederick was made Earl in 1610. He held several other "automatic" titles: Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Wales, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. The young Earl was active in dancing, tennis, fencing and hunting. In 1607 Henry sought permission to learn to swim, but the Earls of Suffolk and Shrewsbury wrote to his tutor Newton that swimming was a "dangerous thing" that their own sons might practice "like feathers as light as things of nought", but was not suitable for Princes as "things of great weight and consequence". Perhaps it was meant as a jest, but became an unfortunate one. He was also much more marked in his Puritan tendencies than his father or younger brother Charles: in addition to the alms box to which Henry forced swearers to contribute, he made sure his household attended church services.

Certain of the citizens of Chester desired a princely visit, and, as discussed in Chamber's Book of days they put on a pageant to attract him. One notable feature of the pageant was a play, or "Triumph", performed at the High Cross another was a celebration and races on the Roodee. The central figure in the "Triumph" was Mercury, god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves; he also serves as the guide of souls to the underworld. His name is possibly related to the Latin word merx ("merchandise"; cf. merchant, commerce, etc.). The temple of Mercury in Rome was regarded as a fitting place to worship a swift god of trade and travel, since it was a major center of commerce as well as a racetrack. In the pageant Mercury also symbolises the young Prince and starts his performance by showing due respect to the "high justice officer" (the Mayor).

It was not to be. The "coming man" did not come to Chester for the triumph in his honour. At the age of 18, the man who had been prepared for rulership all his life was taken ill after a swim in the Thames near his home at Richmond. His symptoms suggest he had water-borne typhoid fever, from which he died. As Henry's body was lowered into the ground, his chief servants broke their staves of office at the grave and an insane man ran naked through the mourners, yelling that he was the boy's ghost. Charles eventually inherited the throne 13 years later, having had little of the preparation Henry had for the role. Meanwhile the development of the Chester Militia echoed the emergence of the professional army, as a distinct political unit, which could defy both Crown and parliament.

Iconoclasm in 1613
The more extreme protestants became progressively more radicalised as Puritans. Clerical support for puritanism in Chester is not easy to measure. William Barlow, dean at the Cathedral in 1603-5, was a prominent and strongly anti-puritan member of the Hampton Court conference in 1604, but Bishop Richard Vaughan (1597-1604) sympathized with many puritan opinions. The next bishop, George Lloyd (1604-15), a former divinity lecturer at the Cathedral, was an active preacher and apparently a moderate who tolerated puritan clergy in Chester. Lloyd's portrain hangs in the "Puritan Room" at the Grosvenor Museum and his supposed residence, Bishop Lloyd's House, still exists in Watergate Street, but has been much altered over the years. His successor, Thomas Morton (1616-19), however, was of firmly Anglican views and pressed the puritans to conform. His task was made more difficult by the ministrations of Nicholas Byfield, a Calvinist polemicist and a powerful preacher, who was rector of St Peter's 1608-15, where his congregation included the well known puritan gentleman John Bruen of Bruen Stapleford, a supporter of private prayer meetings in the parish. Byfield was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, but did not emerge with a degree. He intended to exercise his ministry in Ireland; but on his way there he preached at Chester, and was prevailed on to remain as one of the city preachers, without cure. His name is still displayed at St Peter among the list of past rectors on the wall near the font.

John Bruen (1560–1625) was an English Puritan layman, celebrated in his time for piety. In his youth he was the spoiled son of a very wealthy man. On the death of his father in 1587, Bruen's character changed completely. Thenceforth, Bruen was up every day at 3 or 4 a.m. and engaged in prayer and Bible study. Bruen prayed and read the Bible seven times each day. He destroyed his backgammon table by pitching it forcefully into the fireplace. He marred his deck of cards by tearing up the jacks (which were vital to play the local version of "Noddy") and proclaimed games to be the work of the devil and an idle mind. He made it a point to walk the one mile to church each Sunday, gathering the tenants of his properties and arriving in a large cluster for service. His charitable works were notable: he offered the homeless a place to sleep within his own home, the wool of his sheep provided clothing for the poor, the mutton their food. Corn from his fields fed those who came to his door for comfort.

On Ascension Eve (12th May) 1613 a small group of men broke down the roadside cross at "Viccars Crosse" and Christleton Churchyard Cross. This was but part of the iconoclastic cross-smashing that took place around Chester that year, including those in the churchyards of Barrow, Ecclestone and Christleton. The Barrow cross possibly partly survives as the column of a sundial in St. Bartholomew's Churchyard. In the winter of 1613 seventeen of Bruen's students and servants were arrested for destroying roadside crosses in Cheshire. Seven of the vandals appeared before the Star Chamber in London. The outcome of the trial resulted in a 500 pound fine, an expense that Bruen covered for his followers. While those charged with the crime denied Bruen’s involvement, it was clear to all that the event was planned at one of his conventicles at Stapleford Hall. According to a complaint by John Savage (Lord of the Manor of Tarvin) in the Star Chamber records, these included four ancient crosses of squared stone eight feet high, one in Delamere Forest, another in Tarvin, another at Christleton, and Ecclestone Cross:


 * "All of them beyond the memory of man, boundaries of townships and estates, and were also good direction points for travellers, and places appointed for the payment of certain rents, and for other lawful meetings".

It apparently was Bruen himself, together with John Eaton & Hugh Jones who broke down "Viccars Crosse" and Christleton Churchyard Cross on Ascension Eve 1613. One of the crosses was restored in 2018.

Morton's successor as Bishop of Chester was Bishop Bridgeman (1619-1652) who was at first lenient towards puritans but initialised suspensions against the puritans Thomas Paget, John Angier and Samuel Eaton. Paget was later exiled to Amsterdam (where he lived off the profits of his family slave-trading). Angier was twice excommunicated. Easton, from Crowley near Great Budworth, eventually fled to New England. By the late 1630s, Puritans were in alliance with the growing commercial world, with the parliamentary opposition to the royal prerogative, and with the Scottish Presbyterians with whom they had much in common.

A Royal Visit (1616) and a Spanish Match
William Aldersey followed in his father's footsteps as a merchant ironmonger and so successful in overseas trade that he became a founding member of the East India Company in 1600, and is said to have been named in the patent incorporating the Company dated 31 December 1600 (although his name does not appear in available texts - he was more likely one of the 125 shareholders, rather than one of the 24 directors named in the patent). This proved to be an extremely lucrative investment, for although he had to subscribe £240 per share during 1601, the distributed profit on the first voyage by 1603 was nearly 300 per cent, and over all the East India voyages up to 1616 was never less than 220 per cent. He served as mayor of Chester in 1595–6 and 1613–4 and was particularly interested in the troops and horses which sailed from Chester to support the standing army in Ireland. Aldersey himself recorded the numbers and county of origin of the troops and horses dispatched between 1594 and 1616. It is said that his pride in this related to a "special barracks" he had built for that traffic, and to Chester’s efficiency in revictualing warships. The presence of so many troops also brought problems. Demands strained local markets, especially during the shortages of the later 1590s: prices rose, ships' masters demanded large payments, there were difficulties with the authorities of Liverpool, disaffected men deserted in droves and were rarely captured, weapons were often found to be defective, moneys were embezzled, profiteering was rife, and Chester earned a reputation as a 'robber's cave'. Disorderly conduct was frequent, especially when troops were delayed by bad weather or lack of ships. To contain it, in 1594 the mayor erected a gibbet at the High Cross. It may well be that Aldersey's interest in the origin of the troops, his "special barracks" etc. had less to do with any civic pride, and more to do with keeping the peace in the presence of a large number of frequently drunken and unruly troops.

Between his work and his civic duties, Aldersey studied Chester's Roman archaeology and the documentation of its medieval re-emergence. He is particularly remembered for his compilation of a list of the past mayors of Chester. The list survives to this day in a badly damaged memorandum book which was handed down through the Leche family. Aldersey’s last honour was to attend a civic dinner when James I visited Chester in August 1616. As the most senior alderman, he presented the king with a gold "standing bowl" chock full of gold coins (100 Jacobins) on the city’s behalf. He records the event himself:


 * "12 October 1616 - The Kinges maiesty Came the 23rd day of august to the Lea hall to Sir George Calueley and there had a banquet, and from thence the same day to the Citty of Chester, where he was banqueted in the pentice, and presented with a Cupp of gold by the Citty. and from thence went to Vale riall [word cancelled] the same night beinge Saturday where he rested till mondey, and then came to the nante wiche that night and so away." - ALDERSEY FAMILY COLLECTION CR 469.

The annalists of Vale Royal record the events as follows (one or other has the year wrong):


 * "1617 On the 23d of August our city was graced with the royal presence of our sovereign King James who being attended with many honourable earls reverend bishops and worthy knights and courtiers besides all the gentry of the shire rode in state through the city being met with the sheriffs peers and common council of the city every one with his foot cloth well mounted on horseback. All the train soldiers of the city standing in order without the Eastgate and every company with their ensigns in seemly sort did keep their several stations on both sides of the Eastgate street. The mayor and all the aldermen took their places on a scaffold railed and hung about with green and there in most grave and seemly manner they attended the coming of his Majesty. At which time after a learned speech delivered by the recorder the mayor presented to the king a fair standing cup with a cover double gilt and therein an hundred jacobins of gold and likewise the mayor delivered the city's sword to the king who gave it to the mayor again. And the same was borne before the king by the mayor being on horseback The sword of state was borne by the Right Hon William Earl of Derby chief chamberlain of the county palatine of Chester. The king rode first to the minster where he alighted from his horse and in the west aisle of the minster be heard an oration delivered in Latin by a scholar of the free school after the said oration he went into the choir. And there in a seat made for the king in the higher end of the choir he heard an anthem sung. After certain prayers the king went from thence to the Pentice where a sumptuous banquet was prepared at the city's cost which being ended the king departed to the Vale Royal. And at his departure the order of knighthood was offered to Mr Mayor but he refused the same." (as quoted in Hemingway)

Taxation
"Prisage" was a toll paid to the Crown on certain goods, including wine. In Chester, the fee was due to the Earl. "Prisage" differed from "Custom" which at times was a toll paid by alien merchants. As with prisage the situation in Chester was complicated by the palatine nature of the county. Chester appears to have somehow obtained an excemption from prisage on wines. In 1605 Chester's exemption from "prisage" on imported wines was deemed to have ended, and competition ensued for the right to collect the tax. At first the corporation was allowed to farm it from the royal grantee (Sir Richard Bulkeley), with William Gamull and other prominent merchants as its subfarmers from 1611. In 1624 a new farmer of prisage instead sublet his rights for £650 a year exclusively to five major wine merchants, William and Andrew Gamull, William Aldersey, Thomas Thropp, and William Glegg.

Related pages

 * Brereton;
 * Dutton;
 * Bruen;
 * Cholmondeley;
 * Civil War;
 * The Booth Rising;
 * Roger Whitley;
 * Militia;
 * Upton Hall;
 * Beeston Castle;
 * Gamul House;
 * Leche House;

Online

 * Monopolies in Elizabethan Parliaments;
 * 17th Century Plague;
 * MPs 1604-1629;

Chester in Other Historical Periods



 * Before The Romans;
 * Roman Chester;
 * Dark Ages;
 * Medieval Chester;
 * Tudor Chester;
 * Civil War;
 * Georgian Chester;
 * Victorian Chester;