While these events were transpiring a kinsman of Sir William Brereton's, Lord Brereton of Brereton, who had been collecting arms and ammunition for the King's service, became alarmed, forsook his own residence, Brereton Hall, and, with his wife and son, took up his abode at Biddulph Hall, a fortified manor-house on the confines of Staffordshire, which was at once put into a state of defence. Angry at this proceeding, Sir William Brereton determined on its reduction, and at once set out with an armed force to accomplish that object. On the way one of the unlovely elements in the Puritan character manifested itself--the fanatical soldiery broke into the church at Astbury, one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical edifices in the county, defaced the costly architecture, broke the painted windows, demolished the carved screen-work, turned the fabric into a stable, and carried the organ away to a field close by, where they set it on fire--the spot retaining the name of the "Organ Field" to this day. Having performed these exploits, Brereton and his men resumed their march towards Biddulph, passing over Congleton Edge on the way. On the 20th of February the siege began, but the besiegers held out for a lengthened period--three months, it is said. Mr. J. Eglinton Bailey, in a paper recently read before the members of the Manchester Literary Club, gives the following interesting particulars:-- The ordnance was first planted on Congleton Edge, but little or no mischief was done from that standpoint. A fragment of an old song is remembered in which Lord Brereton, seeing Sir William on the Edge, is made to say-- "Yonder my uncle stands, and he will not come near, Because he is a Roundhead, and I a Cavalier."