use.

"that I neither give nor take quarter. I am now with my fire"locks (who never yet neglected opportunity to correct rebels) "ready to use you as I have done the Irish, but loath I am to "spill my countrymen's blood wherefore by these I advise you to deliver the Castle into my hands for his Majestie's I vow all hope of reliefe is taken from you and our intents are, not to starve you, but to batter and storme you, "and then hang you all, and follow the rest of that Rebell crew. "I am now no bread and cheese rogue, but as ever a Royalist, "and will ever be whilst I can write or name, Thomas Sandford" -all in the best Bombastes Furioso vein. This letter was endorsed with the comment-"This we counted unworthy any "other answer than laughter and contempt." But it appeared the Castle did eventually surrender to Sir Michael Ernly with fair quarter for the lives of the garrison, and "a safe convoy to Namptwich or Wem or any other garrison within two days' "march." Captain Thomas Sandford, I find, was killed before Nantwich on the 18th of January, 1643/4, and his body was removed to Chester and buried in the Cathedral.-See Burghall's Memorials, Record Society, 1889.

No. 9 is entitled "The True Informer containing a collec"tion of the most special and observable passages which have "been informed from several parts of his Majestie's Dominions "from Saturday January 6 to Saturday January 13, 1643." Amongst them is a "Resolution from Cheshire of Sir W. Brereton's late successes against the Cavaliers and taking 900 of the Irish "forces prisoners": and it recites how, on Friday, January 12, "Colonel Ashton was marching from Lancashire with his forces "towards Middlewich, when Lord Biron sent forth a party from Chester, consisting of 3000 foot and 600 Horse-and they "treacherously surprized Colonel Ashton's Regiment and tooke 4 or 5 of his Companies but the rest escaped away." "The alarum of this skirmish" being brought to Sir William Brereton, he drew forth his forces from Namptwich, meeting the Irish forces and routing them, and taking 900 prisoners so that it is hoped that when he joins Sir Thomas Fairfax's forces he will be able to "stop the current of the outrageous proceedings "of the Irish and English Cavaliers." The rest of this Tract recites proceedings of the Parliamentarians at Arundel, Bristol, London, and a relation from Rotterdam of the doings of their ships at Brill.

No. 10 is " Magnalia Dei": A Relation of some of the many remarkable passages in Cheshire before the Siege of Namptwich, printed in London by Robert Bostock, 1644, at the request of "Tho Middleton, Gilbert Millington, Will Ashurst," under date 3 Febr. 1643. These detail the relief of Namptwich

by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Sir Wm. Brereton, and the defeat of Lord Byron, whose army in great part escaped to Chester. Amongst the prisoners taken were Major-General Gibson, Sir Michael Ernly, Sir Richard Fleetwood, Colonel Monk (afterwards Duke of Albemarle), Colonel Warren, Lieut.-Col. Gibbs, Major Hamond; and slain were Lieut.-Col. Vane and Lieut.-Col. Boulton; and amongst the further taken are noted "Sir Ralph "Done, Master Shurlock Chaplane to a Regiment, 120 women many whereof had long knives, 1500 common souldiers, 20 "carriages and rich plunder." And a postscript mentions the defeat given by Colonel Massey to the enemy at Skepston, January 24, 1643, when were taken prisoners "Sir Henry Talbot, 3 captains, 3 lieutenants, 3 Irish Reformadoes . . . and 60 common "souldiers. Also there was taken a great barge with great stores "of sack and other wines by a friggot which was man'd

66

"by the souldiers of Colonell Massey."

...

No. II consists of the Mercurius Aulicus for the week ending 10th February, 1643, "communicating the intelligence and "affaires of the Court to the rest of the Kingdom." A page of this news sheet - the predecessor of our present daily newspapers measures 7 inches by 5 inches, and there are eight pages. Under date of the 5th there is given copy of a warrant by "Jecamiah Abercromiy," sent from Hilsden in Buckinghamshire," to the Constable of Brackley and other the 'inhabitants," on which the Mercurius comments that Abercromiy will plunder as compleatly as Sir William Brereton's Deputy "Rebells did the Lord Cholmondley's house (till at last they were "beaten thence), where they not onely pillaged whatever was in "the house, but most maliciously pull'd downe the walls, spoyled "all the fruit trees, and cut down the very timber of the Ban"quetting house to burne, though plenty of good wood lay in the yard, and then (to shew they were the worst of Rebells) they utterly spoiled that excellent garden, which cost the noble owner many a large summe, and never left till they had made up their "basenesse in pulling down and spoyling His Lordship's Salt "Workes; for which the country will hereafter curse them as "Rebells that devote themselves to mischiefe the publicke as well "as particular persons." On the 6th it is recorded that Captain Steele, the Parliamentarian commander at Beeston Castle, and who surrendered that stronghold to the King's forces, was afterwards taken at Namptwich, accused of having betrayed the castle, and there shot to death "last week"; but not before, as is stated, he had "confessed many pretty particulars belonging to "his profession."

66

Full particulars of Steele's execution are given in the Record Society's volume for 1889, pages 117, 118; and Earwaker's

History of Sandbach, pages 17-20, contains a pedigree of his family. There are four more pages of the Mercurius dated 9th and 10th May, 1645, giving an interesting letter from the unfortunate Montrose, written on the 20th of April, and brought by express from Scotland, but it bears no direct reference to Cheshire matters.

No. 12 is a Parliamentary paper, printed by order of the House of Commons, 29 September, 1645, and entitled "The "King's Forces totally Routed by the Parliament's Army, "under the command of Major Generall Poyntz, and Cheshire "Forces on Roulton Heath within two miles of Chester "Sept. 24." It consists firstly of a letter addressed to Speaker Lenthall by "G. Boothe, P. Mainwaringe, and Rog. Wilbraham," from "Chester suburbs Sep. 25 at 3 post meridiem," enclosing, secondly, an account of the great fight, written out by the Chaplain, as the Commanders themselves had "such earnest businesse "upon us" they had not time to write full particulars themselves. To this is appended a list of prisoners taken. list of prisoners taken. The incidents of this battle are so well known that I need only note, as a matter of historical accuracy, that the Chaplain in his haste mentions the 20th of September as "Saturday morning," and on the next page he says the King was at Chirk Castle on "Monday "Sept. 21."

It is curious that, after such a disastrous overthrow of the King's forces and his flight to Newark and Oxford, and after the surrender of Beeston Castle on the 16th of November, 1645, the garrison having had to eat cats and such small deer during the continuous siege of eighteen weeks, Chester was able to hold out for nearly three months longer, Lord Byron being buoyed up with continued hopes of relief from Ireland. At last, however, communications were opened between the two commanders at the end of January, 1645/6, and finally the city was delivered up on the 3rd of February, under elaborate conditions, carefully detailed in eighteen long articles, signed by twelve commissioners, authorized by Lord Byron. Colonel Jones was left Governor for the Parliament. Holt, Hawarden, and Ruthin Castle were all surrendered not long after.

That the allusions in the next two tracts may be followed more clearly, it is necessary to point out that it was in the years between 1645 and 1659 that so much had happened in the making of England: which had witnessed the conquest of the West by Fairfax, the defeat of Montrose, the delivery of Charles by the Scots to the English Commissioners, his flight to the Isle of Wight, his trial and execution, the period of the Commonwealth, with the brilliant foreign policy of Cromwell, his death, the short protectorate of his incapable son Richard, the deposition of the latter on the 22nd of April, 1659, and the restoration of the Rump of the old Parliament, with Lenthal still Speaker.

It was midway during this period, viz., in 1652, that the old Sir George Booth had been gathered to his fathers, and was succeeded by his grandson in the baronetcy; and this second Sir George Booth was 37 years of age in 1659. He took an active part in the abortive Cheshire rising this year, being one of the Cromwellian malcontents, called the New Royalists, who, with the Cavaliers, got up a plot for the restoration of Charles II. After the seizure of Chester by Lord Derby, Col. Egerton, and Booth, he, whilst on his way to York, was attacked by Lambert, and defeated near Nantwich, Booth escaping disguised in female attire; but his disguise being penetrated by an innkeeper at Newport Pagnell, he was apprehended and conveyed to the Tower. There is a pamphlet in the British Museum giving a "True narrative of the manner "of taking of Mr. George Booth on Tuesday night "last, being disguised in woman's apparel."

At the restoration, Booth was the first of the twelve members to carry to King Charles, in May, 1660, the reply of the Commons to His Majesty's Declarations. He received £10,000 as a reward for his services, and with five others was raised to

the peerage at the King's coronation, under the title of Baron Delamer. He was also appointed Custos Rotulorum of Cheshire, and survived until 1684, when he died at Dunham Massey, and was buried at Bowdon in the family vault.

Before taking up the next pamphlet, of considerably later date, I may first mention that 1647 was the year when Chester, according to Rushworth, was visited severely by the plague-" in every parish and part thereof, very few families being "clear." And Parliament ordered that "whereas "the county of Chester is exceedingly impoverished "by the late war whereby they are disabled for "affording them any considerable relief," it is ordered that the respective ministers of every parish of London and Westminster, within the counties of Chester, and ten other southern and eastern counties, do upon the next Lord's Day publish the distressed condition of the poor inhabitants of the said city of Chester, and earnestly move their people to contribute to so charitable a work for the relief of the poor distressed inhabitants of Chester. We now come to

66

No. 13, which was printed in London in 1659. It is entitled "One and twenty Chester Queries or Occasional Scruples reflecting upon late affairs in Cheshire by Officers and Souldiers under "Lord Lambert," and is placed with an undated "Dialogue "between Sir George Booth and Sir John Presbyter at their "meeting near Chester."

Its characteristic seventeenth century style is shewn by the following specimen queries, viz. :—

QUERIES.

1. Whether a man can ever be sure of his meat before he have it in his mouth?

2. Whether the late Insurrection in Cheshire was not like Hogshearing, where there is a great cry and little wool?