In that memorable struggle which convulsed the kingdom and drenched it in civil slaughter--a struggle that may be said to have begun with a tumult in Manchester, when a poor linen weaver looking on was accidentally shot,[37] and Parliament, to inflame the people, magnified the event into "The Beginning of the Civil Wars in England, or Terrible News from the North," and which ended with the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles II., when the same old Puritan town, to do honour to the occasion, put on its peacock's feathers, and made the conduit to flow with wine, and the gutters to swell with strong beer--the Lord of Handforth played a very conspicuous part, and there can be little doubt that much of the ultimate success of the Republican party was due to his unwearying energy and military skill. His delight lay in the din of arms, the rattle of musketry, and the clatter of troops; and a record of his doings would be little else than a chronicle of the events that were then occurring in the northern parts of the kingdom. A circumstantial account of his military exploits is given by contemporary writers. Burghall, the Puritan Vicar of Acton, in his "Providence Improved,"[38] makes frequent mention of him, and in Josiah Rycroft's "Survey of England's Champions and Truth's Faithfull Patriots," 1647, and John Vicars's "England's Worthies," published in the same year, are "lively pourtraitures" of Cheshire's famous general. The rejection of the Bill for regulating the militia, passed by the Commons in February, 1642, and which, if confirmed, would have transferred the power of levying armies to the Republican party, widened the breach between King and Parliament. From that hour the link which bound them together was riven. It was evident that the difficulty could be only adjusted by an appeal to arms, and, as the spring advanced, both sides began in earnest to prepare for the conflict, though each was anxious to avoid the responsibility of commencing it. The fast decaying traditions of the miseries attendant upon the old domestic feuds--the struggles of the Barons, and the Wars of the Roses--were wholly drowned by the loud beating of the warlike pulse; men were suddenly withdrawn from the plough, the anvil, and the loom; the services of foreign mercenaries were eagerly sought, and on every hand the signs of preparation were apparent. [Illustration: NANTWICH.]