A few days later, the people of Sandbach were setting up the stalls and spreading their wares in the market-place for the September Fair. A cry was suddenly raised that soldiers were entering the town. They were all that was left of Leslie's Scottish Cavaliers. Weary of war, their horses jaded and lame, they were anxious only to be allowed to reach their homes again in safety. But the townspeople, remembering perhaps the massacre of Barthomley, were not minded to let them off easily. The foremost troopers, who alone were armed, were allowed to pass through the town. Then with sticks and staves they fell upon the rearguard and cudgelled them. Many were wounded and captured, and placed in the town prison, where perhaps they were not sorry to rest. Others escaped into the open fields. 'Scotch Commons', as the scene of the encounter is still called, reminds us of this last event of the Civil War in Cheshire. The struggle was ended. Charles was an exile, and Cromwell ruled over the land. One of Cromwell's Acts decreed that all who had any communication with Charles the Second should be held guilty of conspiracy against the State. The Earl of Derby, who escaped from the rout at Worcester, but was captured at Nantwich, was tried under this Act and condemned to death. He escaped from his prison in the castle at Chester, and lay concealed for a time, it is said, in a secret chamber in the Stanley Palace near the Water Gate. The 'Martyr Earl' was, however, recaptured on the banks of the Dee, and beheaded at Bolton. Brereton was rewarded for his devotion to the Parliamentary cause with the chief forestership of Macclesfield forest. Soon afterwards, however, he left the county of his birth and lived in London until his death in 1661. His body was brought to Cheadle for burial in the Handforth Chapel. There is, however, no note of his burial in the parish registers, and tradition says that during the journey the coffin in which his body was placed was swept away by the swollen waters of a river over which it was being carried. The Puritans determined to put an end to the government of the Church by bishops, and abolished the Book of Common Prayer from the Church services, putting in its place a new form of public worship. About thirty of the clergy in Cheshire who refused to perform the new services of the Church were turned out of their livings. Children were no longer to be baptized in fonts but from a basin. Hour-glasses were set up in the pulpits, from which long political sermons were preached to the people. The Puritan mayor of Chester would not permit Christmas and other time-honoured festivals of the Church to be kept, and music, dancing, and games were rigidly put down.