Many old houses in Chester show that they were at first built with outside flights of stone steps leading from the street to the first floor. Under the steps was an entrance to a cellar or storeroom. At some time or other the steps were removed, except at the ends of the streets, and a footway laid along the tops of the cellars. The upper stories were then brought forward, and, resting on columns of wood, made level with the street fronts of the basement. CHAPTER XVIII THE RIVAL ROSES Henry the Fourth belongs partly to Cheshire, for a Duke of Lancaster had married the heiress of the Lacys, who were descended from Nigel, Baron of Halton and Constable of Chester. John of Gaunt, the king's father, was a frequent visitor at Halton Castle, which he used as a hunting-lodge. The French wars broke out again in the reign of Henry the Fifth. Once more the loyal Leghs and other Cheshire knights followed their king. In fact the king's body-guard was composed of Cheshire men, among them being Richard de Mobberley, Ranulf de Chelford, and William de Mere. Piers Legh, the grandson of Perkin Legh, fell at Agincourt, as you may read on the brass plate in Macclesfield Church. In the same church is the altar-tomb of another hero of Agincourt, Sir John Savage, who was knighted after the battle. Henry was stricken down at the very moment of his triumph, and a baby king succeeded to the throne of England. The royal uncles, who acted as guardians, quarrelled with one another, and in a few years the English were compelled to leave France. Foreign wars were followed by strife in our own country. The Wars of the Roses lasted for the greater part of the second half of the fifteenth century. Queen Margaret, the 'outlandish woman' as her Yorkist enemies called her, was in Chester in the year 1459. The king was ill, and the queen conducted the wars herself, and summoned the fighting-men of Cheshire to rally to her side. The people of Cheshire were not greatly excited over the wars, which were mainly blood-feuds of powerful nobles. The trading classes and the artisans of the towns took little part in the fighting, but the sturdy Cheshire yeomen followed the squires, who ranged themselves on the one side or the other. Members of the same family often found themselves opposed to one another. A sixteenth-century poet, describing the battle of Blore Heath, which took place just over the southern border of Cheshire, says: There Dutton Dutton kills, a Done doth kill a Done, A Booth a Booth, and Legh by Legh is overthrown; A Venables against a Venables doth stand, A Troutbeck fighteth with a Troutbeck hand to hand. The Red Rose was badly beaten in this battle, in which Lord Audley and two thousand Cheshire men were killed.